I’ve said in my video about why I sold my Bose QC35 that I would review my new ones. Finally, the day of shooting this video has arrived. After many, many hours of listening to a huge range of music styles, I have a final statement.
Comfort
Straight out of the box, the first thing that you will notice is the weight. These headphones are made with plastic in some small parts, aluminum (in most of them), steel and, a very good-looking carbon fiber parts that act as a shield of the earcups. Those are very low weight materials that make Shure’s total mass to be no more than 10.1 oz / 286 g. That is a very small amount of weight for such big headphones.
Alcantara ear pads! Alcantara is a suede-like material that you’ll find covering seats. It was created in the 1970s by the company with the same name of it and it was developed to be a long-lasting synthetic alternative to animal products. This is the second thing that you’ll notice on the 1540s, the earpads will cover your ears in a very comfortable way.
So, you’ll have lightweight and comfy pads. We know that a pair of headphones must suit you like you didn’t notice that you’re wearing them. And this is the case for these ones. Well… That is not completely true.
The third thing that you’ll notice is that after a long period of listening, which in my case was 3 hours, you’ll find the headband a little bit uncomfortable. In my experience after 4 hours, the level of discomfort gets that high that I just prefer to stop listening to music. You can find online some owners of these headphones fix this issue with bending them. I was scared to do that, so I carried on. What I have found out was that after wearing them many times, the headband adapted the form of my head. Right now, I can wear them from a long, long period of time and I would barely notice I’m wearing them. Just last week a took a 5 hours train trip while listening to the entire Tool discography on them with no problem at all. My advice for you is to wait until they adapt to your head shape, in the long term they will. Be patient.
Features
If you are looking for wireless, Bluetooth, controlling buttons with a mic on the wire, Alexa, Siri… none of that will be on the Shure SRH 1540. All the money invested in these cans was gone into the most important feature, the sound! Which is next!
Sound
It is fair easy to say from the first time you wear the Shure SRH 1540 that their sound is nothing like you would expect from a conventional headphone. It is very hard to define in your head a perfect sound, somebody would prefer more bass, more treble, less distortion. Everybody has a different taste. Before I bought these cans, I remember tried out tons of different models. And when I tried out these ones I said. WOW! This is the definition that was in my head of a perfect sounding headphone. The mid, low and high frequencies were exposed beautifully on every single song I was tried. When testing headphones, I suggest you try out with many different songs of many genres, in order to see how they perform with a fat bass guitar, high pitched cymbals, a saxophone, synthesizer, and so on. Or maybe play a song of Mr. bungle on them and you’ll have uncountable music styles within minutes of playback.
It is very true that the sound delivered my any headphone will depend a lot on the source, that is very true. And in another video, I will tell you what I use for playing digital music. But I must praise what Shure has done here. I have been in audiophile conventions where headphones worth three times what these do, they didn’t outperform them whatsoever. For what the SRH1540 costs, I don’t think there’s something better on the market. But again, my suggestion is for you to go and test in your local shop as many models you can and after that make a decision.
Accessories. What is in the box?
The SRH 1540 come with two 6 feet long cable. I don’t get the point of having two identical cables. I would have preferred a longer cable. 6 feet cable is kind a short for use in the studio or, what is my case, to play guitar. I think it would have been better to include a longer cable. These cables do not come with a mic, nor control buttons, but again! These are not meant to be played on your mobile phone.
They come with a replacement of the Alcantara ear pads. I have read online that this material is not only very comfortable but is long lasting. So, you’ll have earpads for quite some years I think.
If you are going on a trip you can store your cans on this hard case, which is included. I do not recommend putting them if you’re traveling daily or very frequently. To store the SRH 1540 you must unplug the wires. And, said by Shure company itself, these wires are not meant to be plugged and unplugged daily. What I personally use for storing my cans every day is a fanny pack, I wrap the wire and I’m good to go.
Thank you guys for watching this video. Please tell me what is your favorite pair of headphones and tell me what you love about them in the comment section. I really want to know about them. Please hit the like button to support this channel, I will really appreciate that. Thank you once again in the name of JammingWave. Bye!