We are! At least that’s what a Swedish company is saying. WeSC—short for “WeAretheSuperlativeConspiracy”—is a clothing brand mainly focussing on skateboarding style. The company was founded about ten years ago.
Last autumn after some sightseeing in Stockholm I accidentally ran into their home shop in some side street. I didn’t know anything about WeSC, but the shop looked like fashion and I was looking for some clothes. I was instantly thrilled to see about thirty headphones in many different colours hanging on an iron rod. They were obviously designed to go with the shirts and sweaters on the table below and I couldn’t get around taking the picture you can see above.
Since then I’ve seen many people on the streets of Sweden wearing WeSC headphone. I think they are looking very good as a fashion accessory. As I can tell from my own experience Swedes (and probably also Norwegians) are pioneers in terms of fashion. They wear one or two years in advance what will then become trend in Europe and other countries. Certainly I don’t like everything of these new trends and I hope that some won’t spread. But I definitely like the phones. Over the last six months I’ve been watching out for people wearing WeSC phones in Germany. I’ve seen about half a dozen in Munich and Berlin, but apart from that there’s not much. I’m curious how long it will take until we see them all over the place.
My Koss PORTAPRO—which I love and wear with pride—are broken at the moment. There’s a loose contact somewhere inside the plug. Fortunately Koss offers a limited lifetime warranty on them, so I sent them in for repair. Hope they will be fixed soon. Anyway, I started thinking about buying new headphones which I could wear outdoors. Sometimes I don’t like ear canal phones even though some sound quite good. I usually use them for listening to news podcasts when I’m on my way. But having 5 cm wide speakers on your ears gives you a way better experience when listening to music.
This week I went to the only shop in my city which sells WeSC phones. I wanted to know how good they sound. The salesclerk was nice and it was no problem testing them. Currently there are basically five models:
- Alp Horn (DJ, 100–120 €)
- Bag Pipe (DJ, 130–150 €)
- Bongo (premium, 60–80 €)
- Maraca (retro style, 80–100 €)
- Oboe (street, 40–60 €)
I started with the Bongo because two of those have a really fancy colour pattern. Bass and mids seemed quite good. But the highs were quieter than the rest which led to a lack of clarity. Maybe most people who aren’t into music so much won’t be bothered by this. But I’m more the audiophile kind of guy and I won’t be happy with a sound like that. Therefore I didn’t even test the cheaper Oboe.
In contrast the Maraca sounded very good and I was on the verge of buying one, because I really like the retro style shape it has. But sadly the Maraca doesn’t have a beautiful colour pattern like some Bongo have. Maracas are at most simply two coloured.
A mentionable feature of the Maraca is the unexpectedly low weight. They are pretty comfortable to wear. One thing which also caught my eye was the short cable. It is only 50 cm long. There’s an extension included which gives you another metre. But the reason this made me uneasy was that I once had ear canal phones with extension. That was annoying when carrying my MP3 player in the trouser pocket. I had to use the extension for that and plug and socket were so heavy that the cable was constantly pulling on my ear. However, this is no problem with the WeSC phones.
Finally I brought myself to order the Maraca Dark Shadow today. For me it’s the colour that fits best with the retro style of the phones. Other colours are white, black, red, and turquoise. The black one would be my second choice because it seems ageless. Third would be the stylish white one. But turquoise and red aren’t my favourite colours.
Let’s see how long it takes my new phones to reach me.
