New headphones offer six pairs for the price of one

Kickstarter can be an incubator for false promises and unfulfilled wishes, but that’s not always the case. Occasionally, a company manages to debut a spectacular new product that delivers on its promises. Case in point: the Torque Audio t096z Customizable Headphones (MSRP: $329.95)

Torque’s biggest gambit for the t096z in-ears is a unique package of six interchangeable valves that are designed to enhance musical elements based on whatever genre you're listening to. The good news is that no matter which valve you use, your music sounds great.

The bad news? Unless you've got very broad genre tastes, chances are you'll wind up settling on just a couple of favorites and ignore the others. Our testing also revealed some curious issues with half the valves that you'll want to be aware of before you put your money down.

Still, the t096z in-ears provide a solid return on investment that should please all but the most demanding audiophiles. While swapping out parts every time you want to go from classic rock to soulful jazz might seem like a pain, the results can be well worth the effort.

Along with the six valves, Torque also included several tip options so you can get just the right fit. There are six in total, but we highly recommend the memory foam first and foremost. It's super comfortable, fits great, and gives the best performance.

Torque didn’t slouch when it came to the rest of the headphones, either. The in-line remote is a little bulkier than what you’d typically expect to find, but fits with the heavy build of the headphones. While the cable it’s attached to comes in at just under five feet in length—probability for tangling aside, it feels plenty durable.

The extras are nice, but make no mistake: Those six interchangeable valves are the primary draw here. Each one is clearly color-coded and alters the frequency response to best fit your music genre of choice. Six valves might seem like a bit of overkill, but with an MSRP over $300 these are geared toward true audio diehards.

In theory, it’s like you’re getting six headphones for the price of one, and each genre you listen to should sound different based on which valve you use. In reality, the differences simply aren't that drastic.

In our lab tests, the results showed that there were basically three sets of valves with near-identical treble profiles—Clear/Balanced, Reference/Deep, and Smooth/Bliss. Meanwhile, the bass response showed two drastically different groupings. Fortunately, the differences we noticed are in the sub-bass range, which aren’t as noticeable while playing most kinds of music.

Still, in practice, the six valves succeed in offering a variety of sound profiles that complement a wide array of genres. The Bliss valves are ideal for classical music, and listening to that genre with other valves fails to offer an audio profile that’s quite as satisfying.

The big question is whether this applies across genres that have a broader mix of sounds. Most of the valves sounded fine regardless of the genre I listened to, though you can definitely tell when you're using a valve that's ill-suited to your music of choice. Luckily, if you run across a song that doesn’t sound right, you can switch up the valves and get the effect you were looking for.

No matter what genre of music you listen to, headphones need to block out the sounds around you. In-ear headphones are usually great at this, and the t096z in-ears are no different. The memory foam tips are the best at this, as they can be squished and molded to fit inside your ear canal. Mid-range sounds — the majority of what you'll encounter everyday — are especially dampened, as they’re cut by an excellent 50–75% before you even play music.

We generally found the t096z in-ears to be a superb value; if these had come with just the Green/Balanced valve and memory foam tips, we'd feel comfortable recommending them for the price. That you get a whole suite of tip choices and five other valves is just gravy. The others don't perform quite as well, but they're valuable extras if you have a wide range of tastes.

If six valves seems like overkill, Torque Audio is also offering the t103z In-Ear Headphones (MSRP: $179.95), which is a scaled back version of the t096z. Instead of six interchangeable valves, the t103z come with only three—Reference, Deep, and Clear—and don't come packaged with the memory foam tips we loved so much.

If you don't want to spend $330 on in-ear headphones you could also take a look at the JBL Synchros S200i Headphones (MSRP: $129.95). Those won our 2014 Best of Year Award for the category, and they still hold up today. They're much cheaper but still feature a stylish, spoke-like design around the casing with a sound profile that slightly favors bass.

Of course, for the audiophiles and music lovers out there, the ability to swap out valves to perfectly match your tunes is a promise that will be hard to pass up. For those people the Torque t096z in-ear headphones offer a winning, albeit costly, opportunity.

To read more headphone reviews, head over to Reviewed.com.