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I have been hearing about this project for a while now but now that the Kickstarter campaign is in full swing it’s time to talk about it.
While Pioneer DJ is launching headphones with Bluetooth that are not intended to be used wirelessly when DJing, Natus One is taking a different approach with their wireless module for any DJ headphone.
The idea here is simple: turn any headphone, meant for DJ’s or not, into a wireless headphone. And to make it work for musicians and especially for DJ’s, the latency is kept to a very limited 16 ms, which should feel as good as instantaneous to the human ear.
In their own words:
Natus One consists of a transmitter that is connected to the user’s mixer or other equipment, and a slim receiver that fits in the users pocket. It offers a digital link with CD quality audio, only 16ms of fixed latency, 24 hours play time on a single charge and minimum 30ft/10m range.
It’s a familiar experience for DJ’s: you want to step away for a minute from your setup, and since the cable is not long enough, you have to remove the headphones or put them down. Or your DJ booth gets overrun with people and before you know it, people get tangled up in the headphone cable… Natus One is clearly solving a real-life inconvenience here, and that’s (one of the) pre-conditions for a successful product.
But as with any product, the question is if enough people will be willing to back them up as you basically still need to buy or own headphones on top of the USD 99 (or USD 149 after the campaign) that Natus One asks for a wireless unit.
My take? I think this product really makes sense, especially for professional DJ’s that play night in/night out in busy booths with a lot of people walking in and out. The 24th hour play time on one charge is sufficient for most DJ’s, and the price is reasonable enough to be worth the investment.
Let’s hope they make it, and if they do, I hope to get a demo unit to test the module out for myself!
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