I love headphones and own many pairs that I use depending on needs or my mood. I’ll be writing about them here soon enough. Recently I heard about a Kickstarter for HEAVYS, headphones that are specifically designed for heavy metal and I was immediately interested.
I’m not one to back a Kickstarter as I don’t often think they turn out well. I also haven’t backed this one, even though I really like what I have read about on the Kickstarter campaign page for them.
My biggest concern is that some things don’t seem quite right. The Kickstarter for these headphones had an initial $20,000 goal, which is absurdly small for this type of hardware product. Why even do a Kickstarter for that? That little money could be easily covered by the several investors they already seem to have. Heck, one person could have done it from a credit card! And it turned out they hit that goal in like 12 minutes. Currently, they have raised over $770,000 with another 20 days or so left!
If they actually needed more than $20,000, then why was the goal set so low?
I’m also concerned about the price of the headphones, which seems too good to be true. The HEAVYS are noise-cancelling headphones with 4 speakers in each ear cup. Nearly all other headphones have just one speaker per ear cup. This is a pretty dramatic difference that no one else does and it has to be more expensive, yet they project a retail price of $220. Most quality noise-cancelling headphones start in the $300 range. Heck, Apple’s AirPods Max are $550! How can HEAVYS sell what looks like quality noise-cancelling headphones with multiple speakers for so little?
To me, something doesn’t add up here. They have raised a ton of money, which it doesn’t seem like they really needed based on the initial low goal and the headphone price seems too low. Perhaps this was all just a marketing campaign disguised in a Kickstarter?
The Kickstarter claims the headphones will be available in either August or September of 2022. Most Kickstarters rarely meet their estimated dates, so I’d say a 2022 delivery is unlikely.
I’m interested, but I’m going to wait to see if these ever actually ship. If so, I’ll be happy to pay the full $220 retail price if they live up to their promise.