MDR-G61

These headphones were so sought after here in Japan that for many months supplies were strictly rationed.

Sony clearly underestimated demand and could not keep up.

Supplies are now plentiful. You have a coice of colours: silver or pale metallic blue.

Are you tired of the tinny sound from earbuds? Do you hate the way that little wire tickles the back of your neck, and the bloody thing keeps falling out of your ear whenever you turn your head? Do you hate jamming the things in your ear just to make sure they can't fall out and then spend the next hour massaging your ears? Does the clickety-hiss noise cause other commuters to glare at you? You no longer need to look or feel silly with home headphones that neither go under a hat nor over it comfortably.

No, what you have here is a headphone strap that goes behind your head, countoured around and below your occiput. The phones are supported by your ears themselves, and are unbelievably comfortable. The lead terminates with a micro-plug, and the package includes a long extension lead that takes the micro-plug at one end, and terminates in a miniplug at the other. Best of both worlds.

And the sound is good. Not to the standard of home or studio phones to be sure, but much cheaper and several orders of magnitude beyond earbuds. You run a serious risk of walking into lamp posts as music you thought you were all too familar with comes alive again.

70g net, 140g gross

List price JPY3,300

The ugly-looking bloke in the out-of-focus photos is your correspondent. You try taking photos of the back of your head.