Last Month we showed you the House of Marley, Conquerer Mist Ear Buds, quite possibly the best ear buds I’ve ever listened to music with. Since then, I’ve been trying out the House of Marley “Stir It Up” over the ear headphones.
As I said in my last review, the House of Marley products aren’t just some licensing agreement with another company, they are designed, distributed, and marketed by Bob Marley’s family, spear headed by Marley’s son Rohan Marley.
Rohan Marley isn’t trying to make a quick buck off of his fathers name by plastering their family name on audio products. The House of Marley is actually a movement that brings attention to social causes around the world. The Marley family and the House of Marley volunteers use the proceeds from their audio lines to fund their outreach missions. You can also bet with the Marley’s musical background playing real instruments that the sound that comes out of the House of Marley line is exceptional.
In fact that’s the first thing I noticed about the Stir it up headphones. The Stir it Up headphones, from House of Marley’s “Freedom Line”, don’t say noise cancelling, however it was very similar to a noise cancelling experience. Whether I was listening to rock, country, pop or even reggae I could hear every drum beat, every instrument and the complete range from vocalists. The entire experience was great. I actually stopped using a comparably priced pair of Beats by Dre over the ear headphones in favor of these House of Marley headphones.
The headphone itself is unbelievably comfortable. It fit great to my ear without being sandwiched against my head. I was able to keep them on during a recent 5 hour flight without any discomfort at all. Again they don’t say “nose cancelling” but the headphone itself provided isolation from everything around me.
The headphones feature 40mm moving coiled drivers, which made everything pop. One of the ways I personally measure headphone quality is by listening to actual records and also by throwing in some Adelle, both sounded great. With the records I could hear the pops and grooves the way music off a record was meant to be. Then, of course, I threw in some Bob Marley just to make sure the experience was authentic and it is, especially on his live albums.
Now we’ve already talked about the House of Marley and their social outreach, but the other thing about their line is that everything is made out of earth friendly materials. In the case of the Stir It Up headphones, the aluminum found inside is recycled. The outer part of the headphones is made out of FSC certified Beech wood. The headphone material itself is made out of responsibly tanned leather and canvas.
Finally, the headphones feature a 52″ fabric cord that is removable. The cord cuts down on tangles and cuts down on static as well. With the cord being fabric there is less likely chance you’ll hit a snag and break the cord, which could be costly on high end headphones like these.
You can buy these “Stir It Up” headphones directly from House of Marley here.