Last month, I purchased my own HEDDphone Air Motion Transformer headphone hedd.audio after I received a tmesis-laden email from Heba Kadry [see this issue]. “Absolutely ---king amazing” was one of her more colorful characterizations of the HEDDphone. Heba is absolutely amazing herself, so I trust her judgment. She’s mastered several albums that I’ve engineered, as well as countless albums that most of us know and love. Veteran readers know that the main speakers in my own personal studio are HEDD Type 30 active monitors [Tape Op #118]. The HEDDphone is just as impressive as the Type 30 — in sound and in weight! Stay tuned for a HEDDphone review in a forthcoming issue, but in the meantime, let’s talk about something more modest, like headphone hangers. To reduce the risk of the HEDDphone falling onto the floor, I decided to upgrade my plastic hanger to a holder that’s robust. Into the Amazon wormhole I dove to purchase a handful of affordable options. My favorite of the bunch has an endless name, like so many found-on-Amazon products, which I’ll shorten to APPHOME Foldable Headphone Hanger amzn.to/2ZoWll5 for clarity. The APPHOME is machined from extruded aluminum, and it features a screw-down foot, just like a standard C-clamp. The jaw opens to an expansive 2.1’’. Rubber in all the appropriate places protects the surfaces being clamped to. The hook itself folds out, and it features a radiused rubber pad that gently cradles the headband of your headphones,with another pad on the inside of the upturned end. It accommodates bands up to 2.5’’ wide, but when the hanger is folded away, the APPHOME sticks out only 3/4’’ past the edge of my desk; so far, it’s been snag free for me. Also, the hook itself can be unscrewed from the clamp and turned 90°, allowing you to mount the APPHOME along a vertical surface or structure, like the side of an equipment rack or onto a table leg — very cool!My second favorite holder is the New Bee NB-Z10 Dual Headphone Hanger amzn.to/3i5idsQ. This one is made of cast aluminum, and it’s designed to hold two headsets in tandem; or you can use one half of the hanger to hold a single headset while employing the other half to manage the headset’s cable. There’s even a slot in each half to slide in a headphone connector. A precision-cut piece of 3M VHB dual-sided tape is already attached to the base of the New Bee, and an alcohol wipe is included to clean and prep the mounting surface. A second piece of VHB is also in the box, along with two screws for the holes that are machined into the base. I mounted my New Bee underneath my desk with the screws, to make certain that the hanger doesn’t detach and fall. Speaking of managing cable, I plug my headphones into my RME Audio ADI-2 Pro rme-audio.com, which is sitting behind the aluminum mousepad on my desk. I have a Warmshine Weighted Cord Holder amzn.to/2EY4LIY, also an Amazon find, that’s actually just the Quirky product that has disappeared off Quirky’s website. It’s similar in shape to an institutional bicycle rack, with four spaces for locking down wires instead of bikes. The whole thing is coated in silicone rubber, so it grabs and holds cables well, and it doesn’t slide across the desktop. I use mine to route headphone, USB mic, and keyboard cables around the aforementioned mousepad. In addition, I have a Benvo Cable Clip amzn.to/2DvHjC5 that slips onto the edge of the desk and offers three slots for securing cables, so my HEDDphone cable doesn’t slide across the mousepad or over my keyboard when I shift position at my desk.
–AH