I am a wireless sports earbud kind of guy. Their take anywhere, tiny form factor enable me to have them with me at all times during my hectic lifestyle whether I’m on a plane or pounding pavement. Though occasionally I want to trade their portability and durability for better sound and build quality. The Shinola Canfield Over-Ear headphones fit this bill nicely. Let’s see if the Candfield’s material, build, and sound quality live up to their premium price.

What is it?

Shinola is a homegrown, US company based out of Detroit that manufactures high quality luxury items…everything from fine watches to hand-built bicycles. Recently I reviewed their New York MS3 Manhattan folder which continues to be my favorite pocketknife and top review item of 2017. During my research, their Canfield Headphone Collection caught my eye. Shinola’s dive into personal audio was years in the making, engineering and fine tuning the Canfield collection using quality materials, polished design, and excellent audio engineering resulting in a product that not only turns heads but sound great as well.

Design and features

The Canfield headphones are designed, assembled, and tested in Detroit. The Canfield over-ear headphones are big, gorgeous, and well made with meticulous attention to detail and quality. They’re a beautiful mixture of stainless steel and leather with a very nice quality weight to them.

Specifications:

In the Box:

• Canfield over-ear headphones
• Cable
• Carrying case
• Instruction manual
• Certificate of Authenticity

Build Quality:

The Canfield over-ear headphones are the finest made headphones I have ever used or even seen. They have an old-world vibe/charm reminiscent of the “good old days” when products were well made and built to withstandthe test of time. The combination of polished and brushed stainless steel look great together with the black leather.

Soft, supple full-grained leather covers the cushioned headband. While initially comfortable, (according to Shinola) the headphones will become more so over time as they wear in. As you can see, the exterior leather is well stitched and finely finished.

The interior leather is a medium gray with additional padding stitched into the top inside.

Initially adjusting the Canfield headphones took a decent amount of force. After a few weeks of use, the assembly became easier to adjust while still remaining where you move it to.

Sound Quality:

Shinola has done a good job of creating a set of headphones with clear, detailed audio performance. Overall, the Canfield over-ear headphones have a solid balance across the spectrum, the highs and mids were crisp and defined with the low end not overstated. The bass is not overbearing as some other headphones but more than solid, which is definitely my preference. I listened to various types of music (from jazz to the 1812 Overture), watched movies & Netflix shows, and took calls…all of which sounded great.

The Canfield headphones have a 50mm dynamic transducer with a frequency response of 20Hz to 24,000Hz.

Shinola tunes and tests every pair of their over-ear headphones in their Detroit factory.

“The Shinola Sound Signature is rich, warm and expansive”.

And overall I agree.

The memory-foam ear cups are covered in soft lambskin and are held in place magnetically. The lambskin feels great against your skin. The magnetic ear cups snap smartly into place with a click. The magnets hold the cups in place well enough but (as designed) they do come off when enough force is applied. Before I realized how they were held in place, when they first popped off, I had thought I had broken/damaged them…fortunately not .

The Canfields are obviously a wired set of headphones. The headphone cable is as nicely made as the headphones themselves, soft and flexible, yet durable…wrapped in a braided tangle-free nylon.

The inline remote control is located at the union of the left and right cables with the built-in mic on the right side cable. The top button increases volume, the lower button decreases volume with the round center button controlling play/pause. I placed a few calls with the Canfield’s and the people came thru clearly and always heard me just fine.

Quick-pressing the play/pause button twice advances to the next track, while triple pressing it will go to the previous track. The remote as a whole works as you would expect.

Comfort and Styling:

Since he’s more photogenic with better hair, I volunteered the Gadgeteer Kid to be my model (tho this is his “mandatory fun with dad” look). The over-ear design sits comfortably due to the combination of padded headband, soft lambskin ear cups, and adaptive memory foam. These headphones weigh a pound but do not feel heavy, as I said. I reviewed these headphones during the heart of winter and noticed what great ear warmers they were.  Even though the Canfields do not have active noise cancelling, their over-ear design does a decent job of isolating and blocking out ambient noise.

These headphones have old world charm, simplistic styling, and eye catching quality…all the while being very nonchalant and subdued at the same.

The Canfield collection is all wired and in a world where headphone ports are becoming increasingly rare, a dongle maybe needed depending on what smart device you’re trying to connect to. The option to order (or better yet, Shinola including one in the box) a cable with a lightening or USB-C connector would be nice.

In addition to black leather and silver, the Canfield over-ear headphones are available in cognac (aka brown) and silver and polished, gloss black. Shinola also includes an On-ear and two in-ear variants in their Canfield collection as well.

Positives

• Beautiful/gorgeous/timeless old-world styling
• Excellent build quality
• Superior materials (stainless steel and full grain leather)
• Very nice listening experience

Negatives

• Expensive
• Not very transportable
• Wired

Final thoughts

Even though I enjoy listening to all types of music, I am not an audiophile by any stretch of the imagination. I do not have a receiver with tubes that must warm up, own any vinyl, or have to have crazy high bit rate on my digital music but I do know what sounds good @least to me. The Canfield over-ear headphones sound great with a crisp, warm sound that is well balanced. Add in the Canfield’s excellent materials, build quality, and stylish old school design the cost of these headphones is not outrageous IMO. But on the flip side, I would agree there are many cheaper alternatives that sound just as good that are wireless with noise cancelling. It all comes down to what you’re looking for and the details that matter to you.

One more thing: Based on some of the comments my MS3 Manhattan review received and a bit of research, I’ve discovered there are many out there who either love or hate Shinola (definitely strong opinions on both sides). That said, I had no opinion either way before trying their Manhattan pocketknife or Canfield headphones but both have impressed me. I grant you both are expensive but the quality and attention to detail are excellent. Though my only wish would be that there was a wireless Canfield but hopefully that comes in the future.

Price: $595.00
Where to buy: Shinola
Source: The sample of this product was provided by Shinola.

A couple of years ago, I reviewed the RHA (Reid Heath Audio) T10i earphones.  I liked them for their sound quality, but mostly I like them because I could swap filters to make the earphones sound more bright, bassy or neutral, depending on what I was listening to or even my mood. It was like having 3 earphones for the price of one, which was a novelty then. Now, that’s not so unusual anymore as many earphones have replaceable audio filters. RHA has since canceled the T10 earphone and now offer the T20 and T20i. Is it worth it to upgrade from the T10?

When the T10 and T10i earphones were released, they were a departure from what RHA had previously done. The T10s were different in design and manufacturing. A new injection-molded stainless steel process used to manufacture the T10i was revolutionary and RHA has continued this process for the T20 and T20i earphones. Injection molding allows the T20i to have a more organic shape. Combine that shape with a black color and you get something that looks like it came from another world—in a good way. Plus, this organic shape fits into the ear quite comfortably. Many metal earphones sold today can be less than natural-feeling. Not these.

Note: The difference between the T20 and T20i is that the “i” model has a built-in Apple specific microphone with music controls. Also, the T20 is silver and the T20i is black. The T20i costs $10 more. Otherwise, they are identical. For simplicities’ sake, this review will use the term T20 instead of T20i. Using these controls is easy and intuitive. The mic also works quite well for phone calls. Truthfully though, I don’t use wired mics or controls all that much with earphones.

The wires from the T20 wraps around the back of the ear. This can reduce microphonics—that sound you hear when tapping on the cord. The wire has a memory when curved to fit behind the ear. It holds its shape which can help keep the T20s in place. It feels like RHA also improved on this memory wire over the T10 earphones. Its smoother feeling and holds its shape better. The T20s are not noise canceling, but they do isolate quite well.

Like other RHA earphones, the T20s come with an almost embarrassing array of extras. Are ten pairs of tips in many sizes and shapes enough for you? How about an aluminum tray to hold them all? Let’s not forget those three filters that can screw into a thick metal holder for safe keeping! Also included is a shirt clip and a roomy case to hold literally everything. The soft case is a zippered faux-leather material with elastic bands and a mesh pocket inside. I would have preferred a harder case at this price, but even so, it will help keep the T20s free of dust and moisture.

The tips all fit snuggly into individual slots punched out of the holding tray. As long as they stay on the tray, there is little chance of losing them. RHA improved the filter holder by simply bending it. This simple change keeps the threaded part of the small and delicate filters away from any surface reducing the chance of nicks which could make it difficult screwing them into the earphone. Ingenious.

As with the T10 earphones, the T20s come with three filters: Treble, Bass, and Reference (neutral). Each filter is self-explanatory. The filters are identical as on the T10s except that since the T20’s sound signature has changed a bit, its effect on how the filters behave is slightly different. For instance, when the bass filter is used on the T20, it is less bassy and a bit more accurate sounding than when used on the T10. The same differences are true on both the treble and reference filters, but less noticeable.

What is noticeable is the quality of the audio. The T10 earphones have a custom dynamic speaker driver that has a warm and inviting sound. This works well with modern recordings. The added accuracy of the T20s makes whatever song I’m listening to sound more refined and relaxed.

Silly audiophile terms, I know—but that’s the best way to describe it. Part of the reason for this improvement is what RHA calls a dual coil driver. RHA states that “The T20’s dual coil driver features two independent voice coils, each responsible for producing part of the frequency range for refined, high-resolution audio.” Basically, it means that the speaker can be more efficient by equally split the workload of delivering audio. Granted, the resulting difference between the older T10 and T20 is not as dramatic as one might think, but it is noticeable—especially when you listen to the T20s for a while and then go back to the T10.

The T20 requires more power to drive than the T10 earphones do. As a result, the T10s will sound a tiny bit louder than the T20s—all things being equal. However, the difference is slight and doesn’t matter much.

Boy George’s version of “The Crying Game” packs a surprising emotional punch. The bass undercurrent is just powerful enough to be felt without overpowering the mids or high frequencies. The T20s help give this song an ethereal aura that I don’t hear when compared to regular speakers. It’s an advantage good earphones can have over external audio speakers.

If the opening thunderclap from The 12” mix of Bryan Ferry’s “Slave to Love” doesn’t wake the dead, I don’t know what will. This aural assault demands that earphone speakers react quickly and then recover just as fast. It’s not an easy thing for speakers to do and usually requires expensive materials. The T20 earphones handle this pressure—letting the power of the thunder come in at full force without competing with the heavy backbeat that follows. Everything remains separate and clean sounding.

The Cars song, “Moving in Stereo” is always a fun headphone test simply because of its—well, stereo. Because this is a good test song, I can forgive the slightly tacky 80s style keyboards and electronic drums. There is both complete left/right separation as well as more subtle effects sprinkled throughout the song that the T20s bring out quite well.

“Magic Bus” from The Who’s album “Live at Leeds” rocks so hard that it’s almost a completely different song than the original from the album “Tommy.” Listening to this song on the T20 earphones makes you feel like you’re sitting in the audience right in front of the stage. Not only do the T20s let you hear every guitar string being plucked, you can also hear guitarist Pete Townsend’s mistakes as he plays, which makes this song even more fun to experience.

Positives

• Excellent sounding
• Three filters can tune sound
• Improvement over T10
• Same price as older T10 earphones
• Well made

Negatives

• Hard case would be better at this price

Final thoughts

With the T20i earphones, RHA has produced a worthy successor to the T10i earphones. Sometimes the improvements are subtle, sometimes more noticeable. How much improvement is noticeable depends on the song or album. The build quality is as good or better than the T10i and the black color scheme of the T20i looks cooler and more bad-a** than the silver-colored regular T20. If you already have the T10 earphones and they are still in good shape, save your money. But if you are looking to replace older earphones and want to try what RHA has to offer, you can’t go wrong with the T20 or T20i earphones.

Price: $199.95
Where to buy: RHA and Amazon
Source: The sample for this review was provided by RHA.