Photography -- HS1

The HS1's USB puck is quite light, but as you can see, it is not a simple volume control.

Like most electronics these days, the HS1 sport blue LEDs.  Surface mounted and not too bright.  No, you generally shouldn't take apart things when they're powered on.  It just came apart, though, honestly.

Turning our attention to the earcups themselves, we start by taking them apart, unplugged of course.

The earcups are very well finished, both inside the donut and out.  It's also an irregular shape that would be very surprising if it were not hand made.  It's not clear what the second mesh guard is for, but it's tacked on with some very sticky glue.  I just used Elmer's Glue-all to get them back on.

Opening up one of the cans we find a lot of delicate wires.  The large-ish 50mm driver is also magnetically shielded, which is interesting.  I do sort of wonder if these would be any good if they were separated from the USB puck and used just as headphones.  Nah, perish the thought.

Overall, the HS1s are very well constructed and should last many a long year, certainly to its two year warranty.  The review samples may not have survived that long, but yours definitely will.

Let's take a look at Sharkoon's Xtatic SP next.