Pretty much every time I leave the YMCA after a good pick-up run, I see some of the guys I was ballin’ with waiting at the bus stop rockin’ some standard grey DJ Headphones. In fact I’d venture to guess that more than 80% of ballers own DJ Headsets and consider them to be an essential piece of swag in their wardrobe. Maybe i’m off on the numbers a bit but certainly there has been an increase in popularity, and like many other fashion trends with ballers it can be directly linked to a blurring of the lines between the basketball and hip hop cultures.
But one day last week I noticed a guy sporting a headset at that same bus stop that was a little out of the ordinary. The color scheme on this guy’s muffs weren’t the normal boring grey and/or black, but instead was what I assumed at the time to be North Carolina Tar Heels Baby Blue and White. Immediately after arriving home I started ‘googling’ search terms like “North Carolina Head Phones”, “Tar Heels DJ Headset”, “Music North Carolina”, etc. with absolutely no luck and nothing resembling what I saw this cat wearing at the bus stop. Then a couple days go by and I tried again but this time searching “DJ, Headphones, Sport”. What do you know, the first return on that search is the Skull Candy website. But aren’t the Skull Candy sets just for extreme sports, I wondered? It didn’t take long to figure out I was way off on the North Carolina angle. The headphones I saw were in fact Skull Candy, but were their new “Players Series” version of the Hesh Headphones designed specifically for NBA Player Deron Williams of the Utah Jazz. That’s where the combination of Navy Blue, Baby Blue, and White came from.
Okay, now I REALLY had to have them. If you love hoops as much as I do, and hip-hop music is a close second, then you don’t think twice about it, you spend that money. Whatever it takes. Fortunately for me in this case, the money wasn’t a huge barrier as they were only $50 + tax. Are you kidding me? $50 bucks! Of course at the point of purchase I had no idea of the sound quality, but the cosmetics alone were enough to have me jonesin’ to sport these on a sunny spring day in front of my boyz who likely hadn’t seen them yet.
Let me tell you about the swag of the swag real quick….the cups have a nice smooth rounded exterior piece with the D-Will logo emblazoned on it….the overhead strap is made of a combination of patent leather like you’d find on a pair of your favorite kicks, and a blue mesh with Deron’s number 8 embroidered into it. But the fun doesn’t stop there…..the sound quality once I did get these home was surprisingly deep and smooth. Another one of the ‘little details’ that Skull Candy hit the mark on was having the entire cable made out of a braided nylon with an extender piece option and volume control. Brilliant. Clearly this is a company that pays attention to the little things that make or break a product.
Interested yet? Thought so….here is some info on the D-Will Hesh Headset and the D-Will Smokin’ Buds I was able to glean off the Skull Candy website:
Fresh off winning the gold medal at the Olympics, D-Will returns to shredding NBA defenses this year for the Utah Jazz. Skull Candy has partnered with D-Will to bring the first “Player Series” headphone to the market. Deron himself directed the design of the headphones and helped with the creation of the sick logo designed by the Skull Candy design crew and seen on the side of the headphone. So scratch that Utah Jazz singing toothbrush off your Christmas list and rock to your iPod while expressing your fanhood with the Deron Williams Signature Headphones.
With 50mm high explosive power drivers the Skull Candy Hesh will pump sound into your skull with an intensity found in no other headphone. The Hesh features the biggest power driver you can get coupled with sound-boosting parabolic earcups to produce studio quality sound in an affordable package.
If for some strange reason you don’t like the D-Will Hesh headphones, or if you are a hardcore Philadelphia 76ers fan, you may want to spend a little more at $69.95 and get the Andre Iguodala Signature headphones styled on the Skull Candy “G.I.” platform. The main additions on the Andre Iguodala signature set that the D-Will’s don’t have are the swivel ear-cups, interchangeable ear pads, 6.3mm plug adaptor, full patent leather across the overhead strap, and a different color scheme. Obviously Iggy pushed for the Sixers colors on his headphones
My personal preference is to the D-Will’s i’m rocking now, and it certainly doesn’t hurt that they are $20 cheaper than the A.I.’s. But whether you are a West Coast guy lovin’ Utah or an East Coast guy reppin’ Philly you can’t beat the low price and sweet colorways of these signature series DJ Headphones. What I love about this movement to give NBA Players signature headphones or any other product associated with the basketball culture, is that it gives us fans something to critique and fawn over. I guess all of us “Sneaker Heads” that fawn over the latest signature kicks of our favorite players will soon be calling ourselves “Headphone Heads”?
Always love to hear your thoughts, so let me know what you think of these headphones, and also the concept of a signature series of headphones with NBA Players….
