Owning clusters of diamonds and a miniature dog named Tinkerbell sounds appealing, but one’s unaffordable and the other will do its business inside your vintage handbag. The Socialite is house-trained, stylish and custom-designed to block out the sounds of chasing paparazzi and teen boy band members.

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What’s smarter: strawberries that help you see in the dark, bananas that make your brain grow, blueberries that transport you to outer space, or cherries that make you fly? Choose your own adventure with these Smarty Headphones from Muse, which come in four fun colours and use noise isolation technology to dramatically reduce ambient noise, so all you hear is your music.

These stylish works by New York-based artist, M11X — aka Mikal Hameed — blend his musical history with his creative nature as he ‘calls on us to forget our indivualized nature and relationship with our headphones and demands that we start to share our music as it was meant to be: unplugged and free’. [photos by Alison Zavos]

Interestingly, the idea for these headphones was inspired by the theory that dementia could be treated by music therapy. Designer Kirsten Black, whose grandma lived in a nursing home, said: ‘Nan had dementia and because music is recognised by a part of the brain that is so primal, it could give her a sense of familiarity and security in an increasingly unfamiliar and hostile environment. Looking at headphones available, none could be used in the nursing home environment’. Halo are small, soft, hi-fidelity speakers that fit inside a customised headband, surely soon to be every jogger-music fan’s dream accessory.

These small but innovative in-ear headphones from Audio-Technica are part of a new wave of noise canceling buds that claim to block up to 85 to 90 percent of outside sound. They offer a nice blend of ultra-portability and compact tight sound. Their frequency response is awesome, with no sound leakage, though there does seem to be an issue with the treble range and it comes with an inconvenient cord length. Nonetheless, these little things are very useful when traveling.

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