Gadgetory

you are looking at Dobies first consumer product the new 599 dollar Dolby dimension headphones now these are high-end wireless headphones but they're a little different than the wireless headphones you're probably familiar with see instead of being designed to be worn on the go when you're commuting or maybe on a plane these wireless headphones are meant to be used in your home so kind of like those old headphones your grandparents might have had plugged into their TV so they can listen to their shows as loud as they want without disturbing everyone in the house but these are new modern headphones so they have a bunch of new tricks that make them a bit more interesting than those old headphones now for starters the dimension use bluetooth to connect to your devices and you could save up to eight pairings at a time you can also program three devices to the buttons on the side of the right ear cup to quickly switch between them I've got this one programmed to my phone this one to my tablet and this one to my computer here and since these are Adobe products the dimensions have lots of audio processing and enhancement features the company says if you listen to content that's been created and mixed for Atmos you'll get the best sound for you can over Bluetooth when you're wearing these headphones and they sound really good they have a wide presence and a broad soundstage and really crisp details now Adobe won't say that they are tuned for any specific activity but it's clear from my testing that these are really meant to be worn when you're watching a movie with lots of sound effects and things going on they don't necessarily sound bad for music it's just a little less impressive than when you're using them as a home theater and then they also have a new feature that's meant to make them easier to use when you're wearing them in a home with other people now many over ear wireless headphones have active noise cancellation features which use microphones on the outside of the ear cup to cancel out noises and cocoon you in silence that's why everyone loves to wear them on airplanes but the dimensions do the opposite they use microphones on the ear cup to mix in the sounds of your environment with whatever audio you're playing in the headphones that means you can still hear someone talks to you or baby cries or the doorbell rings when you're wearing these it's almost like an inverted noise cancellation feature and the company calls this life mix and you can adjust the levels of the mix with the mobile app if you want to completely block out all external sound and then use them as noise cancelling headphones you can do that or you can crank up the outside audio so you hear more of that than whatever you're listening to so to test this we're using these binaural microphones I'm gonna put the headphones on them here they're gonna play music through the headphones and I'm gonna play something on my laptop and I'll use the app here to adjust the mix and see how it sounds different let's fire up something from the headphone - now the idea here is that if you're at home and your partner wants to watch something on TV and you want to watch something different on your tablet you can both be in the same room together enjoying each other's own content yet still be able to have a conversation without having a razor voice or take your headphones off or maybe it's late at night and you're watching a movie on your big flat panel TV and you don't want to wake the kids the dimensions let you watch the movie without having to use closed captions and still be able to hear someone gets out of bed when they're not supposed to there's some other neat things too like a head tracking feature that will automatically position the sound source right in front of you and keep it there whenever you turn your head just like if you were listening to a real speaker so to test the head tracking feature I've got them back on these binaural microphones I'm gonna play some music and then I'm just going to turn the microphones to see that you can hear any difference as for headphone features these are high-end it got metal frames buttery soft faux leather covers and these really plush ear cups and a padded headband for comfort for my head they're really comfortable to wear even if I'm binging an entire Netflix show for ten hours straight Dolby says that they will last up to ten hours with all of the head tracking and sound enhancement features enabled or up to 16 hours if you turn those features off they come with this neat little magnetic dock that charges them up so they're ready to go whenever you pick them up or you can use a standard microUSB cable if you don't have that handy the dimensions also have most other wireless headphone things they've got swipe controls for volume and playback on the earcup support for calls when they're connected to your phone and the ability to launch Siri or Google assistant with a long press but what you'll notice is they don't fold up conveniently and they don't have a 3.5 millimeter headphone cable so you can't use them within flight entertainment and they really aren't great for travel or on the go they're really designed to be worn and used in your home and for me that's a little strange I wear headphones all the time on my commute or at the office when I'm at home I almost never wear them because it's more comfortable to listen to things in my sonís or from my TV sound bar plus when I have headphones on I'm isolated from the rest of my family which feels a bit rude the dimensions do alleviate this somewhat instead of being completely isolated I could still hear if my kids asked me something or my spouse talks to me but there's still headphones and there's social norms in place that say when I have headphones on I'm probably not listening to you the dimensions don't quite overcome that even if I can hear everything my wife is saying when I wear them now I do think that they are useful for parents of young children that don't want to watch TV or movies through closed captions but still want to be able to hear if the baby is crying or someone gets up if that's you then you'll probably love these things but I'm more interested in where Dolby takes us next maybe in a more portable pair that can travel with me easier and go to places that I actually do wear headphones all the time maybe then I'll be interested in spending 600 bucks thanks for watching these are kind of like a new different thing and I'm curious is this something that you would buy would you buy headphones and you really can't use outside of the house let us know in the comments below and if you haven't described and if you haven't subscribed yet be sure to check us out youtube.com slash The Verge