Headroom

CEO Tyll Hertsens, the face and voice of Headroom, has pushed a very simple message – ‘Get it Right Between Your Ears’. The simplicity of the message, combined with live customer support and objective buying information, has made Headroom the largest specialty headphone company in the world. Headroom offers a selection of carefully selected in-ear monitors, wireless, balanced, street style, noise-cancelling, full-sized, sealed, and earpad-style headphones. It also offers its own brand of portable and desktop headphone amplifiers that have earned dozens of positive reviews from the specialist audio and mainstream press. It is an authorized dealer for Sennheiser, Beyerdynamic, Grado Labs, AKG, Ultimate Ears, Shure, Koss, and Ultrasone. The site also offers a selection of replacement cables, bags, power supplies, replacement eartips, and earpads.

The website is a plethora of useful and objective information that is organized by application, budget, manufacturer, and headphone type. Locating a specific pair of headphones never took more than three clicks. This ease of use proved to be consistent across the various categories and brands, but we found the ‘search’ function to be less user-friendly than we would have hoped as it creates a search engine-like list of responses to a query, rather than a clear set of links to the specific product. The site is written in a very personal, tongue-in-cheek style that invites additional reading, if not the occasional burst of laughter. Headroom does not offer free shipping on any of its products. FedEx is the carrier of choice. Headroom does offer live customer support via its toll free number, and responses within 24 hours for email questions. The return policy of 30 days is quite reasonable and every effort is made to make sure the customer is happy with the purchase and how they are treated. Headroom does email out a newsletter and notices about discounts, rebate offers, and b-stock items and does offer, “discount” codes on the site. The savings with the codes are significant.

During the review period, we made four purchases and ended up utilizing the return policy on two occasions. The customer service department fixed our problem within two days and we were back to happy listening. Headroom carries many products and its ability to ship the same day is product-specific. Less expensive models such as the Sennheiser HD-280 Pro were shipped the same day, but there was a 1-2 week wait on the HD-650, which made us shop elsewhere. Interestingly, when we purchased our Total Bithead, it went out the same day, but a check in early January revealed that there was a 2-4 week wait. Where Headroom stands above the competition is in its people. If the folks at Headroom do not know the answer, it is unlikely that other online retailers will. The bottom line is that one gets what they pay for when they pick Headroom. Their prices may be closer to MSRP, but the service is certainly worth it. Very highly recommended if you are looking for a pair of quality headphones or a complete headphone system including cables and bag.