Sound+Image magazine
This article is by Sound+Image magazine, Australian sister publication to What Hi-Fi?. Click here for more information on Sound+Imageincluding digital editions and details on how you can subscribe.
Hardly anyone can confidently pronounce it, but there can be very few music lovers who do not know the name and the logo of Zildjian, just as there are very few brands which are as synonymous with a single type of product as is Zildjian. And for good reason – the US, once Turkish, company has been making cymbals for just a little over 400 years.
So now it has turned its hand to wireless noise-cancelling headphones, we confess we expected a branding exercise, but the Alchem-Es prove to be genuinely different – both protective in offering isolation and noise-cancellation, and corrective in including a technology to test your hearing and correct for deficiencies. They also contain unusual special drummer-specific features.
We had recently published a full review of the Zildjian Alchem-E headphones here on What Hi-Fi’s website, but we have now been informed that the headphones we were supplied for this review were pre-production samples. We had been aware that the app we used was pre-release, but we would never review pre-production hardware, as things can change, and we cannot be sure that what we hear will be what you hear; they may be better, they may be worse.
We have requested full production samples to be supplied, and the original review will be fully updated as soon as we have re-reviewed this product. This should be in early October.
