Packaging and Accessories

The ZMF Caldera and Caldera Closed previously reviewed fall in a completely different price bracket and come inside a custom Seahorse hard case. The more affordable BOKEH makes do with a large cardboard box that has a handle on it for transportation, and it works better than you would think in case you did want to use it to take the BOKEH along for a ride. The bare cardboard gets illustrations on the front and back for useful information, including the headphones specifications and the components that go into making one. The box opens from the side to reveal a lot of protective foam, including a sheet lining the underside that has a user guide going over the setup and maintenance of these headphones. The base layer has cutouts to snugly hold the various items included, be it the headphones themselves which come folded flat with a pouch between the headband and the ear cups, and other accessories including any that you may have ordered to go with the BOKEH.


By default, you will get a ZMF-branded microfiber cloth to help keep the headphones clean, a ZMF sticker, and a thin wooden sheet which is a neat owner's card telling you the serial number of the headphones, when these exact headphones were made, what the ear cups are made of, and also provides an assurance of the hand assembly and testing all ZMF headphones undergo. More branding is seen on the soft cloth drawstring pouch which will contain the cable(s) you have chosen during the ordering process. Lastly, there will also be replacement pads and/or tuning meshes if you have opted to purchase them individually or as part of a discounted tuning kit along with the headphones. ZMF sent over a full tuning kit that includes two sets of replacement ear pads and the BOKEH Solid Titan Mesh, all of which we will cover on page five.


A few months into the launch of the BOKEH, ZMF also put out a custom leatherette carry/storage case designed by Bevin Merhbach, the co-proprietor of the brand. This is included in a new tuning kit+++ with the other contents of the first tuning kit, or costs $60 by itself. The case almost feels like a must-have for the BOKEH, and looks and feels premium enough to where I'd like to see ZMF offer it for their larger, more traditional chassis headphones too. The handle is large, the zipper and tags look high quality, and the soft lining inside is excellent for protecting the headphones in addition to having a separate netted compartment for the cable as well as even a portable DAC/amp or DAP, to use with the BOKEH on the go. That said, this compartment is going to be facing downwards when you hold this case upright, meaning the contents inside may spill out onto the headphones. As such, I ended up mostly using it for softer things such as cables, and even here carefully positioning them to where the connectors would remain mostly inside. I assume ZMF is sitting on a fairly large batch of these cases already, given the realities of MOQs, but it would be good to see the compartment flipped around in subsequent batches or, better yet, use hook and loop fasteners to secure this shut.

[Update, Aug 15, 2024: ZMF has confirmed a full-size version of this case is going to be released in the next month or even earlier.]