Axent Wear’s unique Cat Ear Headphones needed just one more detail-minded collaborator to bring them around a corner separating a unique, innovative and very “doable” personal audio concept from a great one. Renowned gift retailer Brookstone has stepped up and the resulting meeting of the minds has sanded off some rough edges and the revealed redesign deserves to be a dark-horse holiday gift sensation of 2015.
Designers Wenqing Yan and Victoria Hu actually had no trouble selling Indiegogo backers circa November 2014 on these cutesy-wootsy feline over-ear headphones with glowing colored accents and speakers built into a pair of cat ears. Face it, we’d have all been more shocked if they’d had to do some serious convincing. It’s the Internet. Give us a month, and we could replace George Washington with Garfield on the one-dollar bill and pass a Constitutional amendment allowing Grumpy Cat to seek the White House in 2016 (ask yourself, could we really do worse from either party at this point?) with two days to spare.
Brookstone excitedly jumped on board to manufacture and distribute the Cat Ear Headphones while also running herd on customer service issues. The goods themselves just needed a facelift to brighten the lights, play with color options, and send the frames on a diet. Axent remains involved in each prototype’s improvement process, per Yan’s reassurances after a visit to Brookstone’s New Hampshire headquarters, including the recent addition of a detachable boom mic for gaming.
In November 2014, Wenqing Yan and Victoria Hu of Axent Wear successfully funded their unique glowing over-ear headphones with adorable cat ear speakers through Indiegogo. Now, one year later, Axent Wear teamed up with the unique gift retailer Brookstone to manufacture, distribute and handle all customer service issues regarding the headphones. The headphones also got a bit of a redesign and are currently available for purchase. Founder Wenqing Yan visited the Brookstone headquarters earlier this year.
The really great news is, the Cat Ear Headphones have retained Axent’s design inspirations that made them so appealing in the first place, including malleable comfort cushioning that molds to the listener’s head for an ideal fit and a potent 40mm driver with 20 Hz to 20 KHz frequency response. Of course, the removable mic fits the 3.5mm jack that also accommodates the included USB charger.
