The Apos Caspian Is Now Available on Apos Audio
We're thrilled to announce the pre-order launch of the Apos Caspian Open-Back Headphone. The Caspian, our first headphone, is the brainchild of Apos, SoundNews, and Kennerton Audio. To create it, we took the Kennerton Vali, revised its sound signature, and revamped it with a comfortable and aesthetically beautiful design--all for the price of $499. It features a massive 50 mm dynamic driver, natural oak ear cups, and oval-shaped ergonomic sheepskin ear pads. With its sophisticated looks and fun sound tuning, the Caspian is formal on the outside, yet fun on the inside.

Made with hand-assembled, sustainable materials, the Apos Caspian is an open-back headphone that looks timeless and sounds thrilling. We designed the Caspian to make you smile - it goes beyond just being used as a microscope for analyzing your favorite album for every last detail. The bass is playful yet controlled. It's punchy and energetic, yet doesn't bleed over into low-mid muddiness. The sub-bass is alive and extended, providing visceral rumble. The midrange is compelling, with a focus on realism and immersion. We wanted all the airiness and sparkle of a quality treble experience without the fatigue of a bad one. To get there, we introduced a series of valleys between 2K and 7 kHz--gentle dips that protect sensitive parts of your hearing from fatigue--while keeping the upper treble sparkling and alive.

Capable of producing a vast range of bass frequencies with minimal power requirements, the 50 mm driver is a real beast. But beasts have to be tamed or else, in this case, they bleed all of that bass energy into the mid-range, creating a muddled, awful experience. We started with an extremely low-mass driver. Low-mass drivers respond quickly to signals and minimize decay time, resulting in a realistic sound. Then we mechanically decoupled the driver from the wooden housing, which decreased the total harmonic distortion. Then we added a lightweight graphene layer to the diaphragm to boost rigidity, lower distortion, and improve speed and decay. Finally, our engineers tuned the driver for an enveloping full-spectrum experience.

Low mass: Boosts response time, minimizes delay. Emotional, realistic sound.
High internal damping: Minimal resonances. Smooth, vivid presentation.
Excellent rigidity: Quick, non-bending cone. Reduced distortion.

The Caspian uses 3-pin mini-XLR connectors. We chose these because they're the most secure connection: a headphone cable won't detach unless you thumb the release. They also have the largest surface connection area, which plays a role in conductivity. We created the Caspian so that you can drive it without an amplifier. At 115dB per 1 mW power, it plays from most phones and laptops. Of course, you can use an amplifier if you'd like. Just make sure to always start playing music with the volume at 0 and then turn it up until you find a comfortable volume.

We started with an inch-deep pad of acoustic memory foam and wrapped it in soft hand-stitched sheepskin leather. The look is plush, elegant, and luxurious, like the upholstery of a high-end sports car. We made them oval-shaped to accommodate a variety of ear shapes and sizes. The combination of deep memory foam and sheepskin leather creates a comfortable seal around the ears, with an emphasis on isolation and comfort. The materials also boost the low-end of whatever you're listening to, adding body and weight to the music. The ear cups are made of all-natural oak sourced from the foothills of the Caucasus mountains. This is an non-endangered variety of wood that has excellent acoustic properties and doesn't crack easily.

Symmetry between ear cups is all-important when it comes to acoustical and visual balance, so we hand-milled each set of cups symmetrically from a single piece of wood rather than hand-match them after the fact. We tinted each cup with a compound of alcohol and cuttlefish ink and then coated them with an environmentally-friendly polyurethane varnish. We worked with the factory that produces Beyerdynamic's headbands to create a lightweight yet resilient one of our own. We started with anodized black stainless steel and wrapped it in foam and hand-stitched leather. The result feels plush yet durable. It has a subtle amount of clamp force, but it and the headband's size can be adjusted for comfort. We made the grilles as wide as possible to accommodate the large 50 mm dynamic drivers. The Apos "A" is the headphone's only branding. The cloth within is acoustically transparent: it keeps out the dust without blocking the air or coloring the sound.

Product highlights

• Fun-sounding, non-fatiguing for marathon sessions
• 50 mm dynamic driver
• Open-back
• All-natural oak earcups sourced from the North Caucasus mountains
• Inch-deep sheepskin ear pads with acoustic memory-foam inner filling.
• Stainless steel yoke and headband
• Natural leather headband pad for all-day comfort
• aluminium alloy grille
• Graphene-coated multilayered composite membrane with variable thickness
• CCAW coil (aluminium core coated with oxygen-free copper)
• Internal litz wiring

Specs

• Driver: Graphene-coated multilayered composite
• Driver unit: 50 mm
• Frequency response: 5-45,000 Hz
• Sensitivity: 115dB
• Impedance: 33Ω
• Maximum input power: 500 mW
• Ear cup outer material: Natural sheepskin leather
• Ear cup inner material: Acoustic memory foam
• Thickness of pads: 1" (27 mm)
• External dimensions of pads: 4.5" x 3.4" (115 mm x 88 mm)
• Height and width of ear pad opening: 3" x 1.7" (77 mm x 45 mm)
• Grille material: aluminium alloy
• Headband materials: stainless steel, natural leather outer lining, bio-leather inner lining, polyurethane foam insert
• Yoke material: stainless steel
• Weight: 13.3 oz (378 g)

What's included

• Apos Caspian headphone
• Leather carrying bag
• Stock headphone cable (single-ended 6.35 mm termination)