First hands on look at the New Shure SRH550DJ Headphones

Steve at work with the SRH550DJ

There is always a buzz in the office when a new product turns up for the first time, and when a sample pair of the  SRH550DJ headphones arrived last week, I could not wait to get my hands on them and try them out for myself.

Being a Club DJ in my spare time I was given the task over the weekend to put the SRH550DJ’s through their paces.

First of all, I could not believe how comfortable they were, with the padded cushions providing comfort and full isolation from outside sounds. Each headphone swivels 90 degrees which is always important especially when you have got one ear on the monitor speaker.

I thought the the sound quality was clear  and solid even when turned up loud (you know what us DJ’s are like), and the bass is substantial.

Unlike some other DJ headphones on the market, the 550DJs also performed great when I plugged them in to my iPod, which makes them very versatile and not just kept for the club.

Overall, a great new addition to the Shure headphone range. I think I might need to test them out again this weekend, and maybe next….

Not Just Any Piece of Wood!

To many, this piece of wood will look and seem very insignificant, which was my first thought when I saw the picture the other day… until I discovered it was the Shure “drop floor”, which had started its long and illustrious career in the Mid 70s and was used to perform drop testing from 6ft on 1000s of new products for over 35 years.

It had performed 0ver 100,000 product drops in its working life before it was finally replaced with a new floor in 2009.

This little bit of Shure history is now retired and enjoying life on a beach somewhere in Miami.

The drop test is just one of many extreme programs every new Shure product has to go through before it can be called a “Shure”.

Shure has still got The X Factor

Whatever your opinion is of The X Factor, it is still the most watched program on UK Television and last weekends final is reported to have  pulled in over 21 million viewers on Saturday and 17 million on Sunday.   Matt Cardle was eventually crowned the winner and at the end of his winning song, threw his Shure UR2/BETA87 wireless microphone on the ground in excitement when he was mobbed by the other contestants.  Obviously, because of Shure’s durability it worked perfectly when he picked it up again, only for him to then accidently smack it in Dannii Minogues face. It’s still working!!

Shure has always been the choice for all the contestants on The X Factor, and this year was no exception.  The UR2/BETA87, part of the flagship UHF-R series was the mic used by everyone, and we even got to see the very limited addition SUPER 55-BCR vintage style mic which was used by Mary and Rebecca on occasions over the past 10 weeks.  There are only 100 of the SUPER 55-BCR for sale in the uk and is very distinctive with it’s striking black and red design.