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CES 2013: Onkyo

by: Dan -
More On: CES 2013
One of the overriding themes at the 2013 International CES was lots and lots of audio products, including headphones of all shapes and sizes.  One of the companies that is now producing headphones is Onkyo, who is usually known for their high-quality A/V components.  Sean and I went to visit with them in the Gibson tent, which is an awesome place to check out products as musicians are strumming away on a variety of guitars.  Heck, while we were in there, Felicia Day gave away a guitar to one luck guy in the audience.

What we went to see was the Onkyo ES and IE lineup of headphones.  I posted about them early last week, but after we actually had a chance to try out the ES-HF300 over-the-ear headphones, both Sean and I were quite impressed.  After listening to a variety of music, the one word that we came up with to describe them was “precise.”  Meaning that whatever song we listened to, the music came out beautifully, as we would expect and without any sloppy audio sounds or muddiness.  The ES-HF300 on display were in white, black and purple and were quite comfy and with an MSRP of $179, on the lower end of what you would normally pay for that type of quality headphones.

There was one other Onkyo product that really caught my eye (other that the massive TX-NR5010 9.2 Networked A/V receiver), and that was the RBX-500 3D music system/dock that was being shown.  The RBX-500 had an incredibly compact design, comes with a remote and connects with Bluetooth or digital dock.  Internally, it has a 6.1 array of speakers (six 2” drivers) including a ported 4” sub.  The best feature may be the Sonic Emotion Absolute 3D Sound Technology that drives the RBX-500.  As with all wireless speaker systems, the possibilities are endless for gaming, video or music playback.