SHURE AONIC 50 HEADPHONES
Modern-day audiophiles will probably be surprised to learn that back in the 70s, Shure was by far and away the biggest name in the hi-fi business, not only by virtue of for many years selling the world’s most expensive phono cartridge (the V15 and its many variants), but also by virtue of selling more phono cartridges than not only every other phono cartridge manufacturer at the time, but also more than most of them put together (Shure’s US factories produced nearly 10,000,000 cartridges per year).
That was pretty good for a company that Sidney Shure kicked off as a one-man operation in the back streets of Chicago in 1925. The company was initially named “The Shure Radio Company” because in the beginning Sidney only sold radio parts, but after Sidney’s brother Sam joined the business in 1928, the name was changed to Shure Brothers, which was, after a while, shortened to just Shure Bros. It’s now called Shure In- corporated and the brothers are long gone.
Shure was also the biggest name in the microphone business, with its SM58 being the microphone of choice for professional vocalists around the world, primarily because of its renowned “proximity effect”, which enriched the vocal qualities of any singer who used one. It’s no wonder the SM58 has continuously been the best-selling microphone in the world since the late 1960s.
DESIGN & EXECUTION
The carry-case Shure supplies with the Aonic 50s is huge... and circular. Indeed it looks more like a hatbox or a cake tin than a headphone carry-case. And when I say ‘huge’, it’s 250mm in diameter, which is only a tad smaller than an LP
