NAMM 2013: AIAIAI Young Guru TMA-1 Studio headphones

January 31, 2013 By 11 Comments


We were fortunate enough to get to sit down with Young Guru and get some of his thoughts directly on his new signature headphone for AIAIAI, but that has to be edited and cut and made pretty for your pleasure. Instead we’ll do a quick run down of these new headphones, the Young Guru Edition TMA-1.

I am a loyal Sennheiser HD-25-II user, and use them wherever I go. Over-ear headphones have always annoyed my ears, rarely stayed on correctly and never isolated well enough. The Sennheisers have given me what I’ve needed. However, the Young Guru Edition cans may pull me away. The foam around the cups are extremely comfortable, sit right around my ears, and are shockingly light. The material is great, and when worn around glasses frames it still sits comfortably.

AIAIAI TMA-1 Studio Young Guru NAMM 2013

Big beautiful squidgy cups in fabric or leather

The sound, obviously what you all care about, is very clear. We can’t be sure on the drivers yet, but they had a titanium 40mm driver in them for now. As you’ll see in the video, Young Guru is not sure if those are what they will stick with. The cable is a great material, feels durable, and the coiled cord gives it a very long reach, around 15 to 20 feet. The sound is much flatter than the other AIAIAI headphones, more directed toward the bedroom producer than anything else, but had a good enough isolation and response to work in a DJ booth.

AIAIAI TMA-1 Studio Young Guru NAMM 2013

The Young Guru TMA-1 Studio headphones are still to be finalised.

The isolation was great. They had some mellow tunes running out of an iPad and, well, it was nice to close my eyes and disappear from the chaos of NAMM, especially when surrounded by aging rock stars demonstrating their super awesome skills on their new guitars. It’s going to retail for $250, and will be out in May, and I may just move over to them.

As a side note, the nicest thing about this sponsored headphone has been Young Guru’s direct involvement with the development and design. He mentions that he went to their home office and personally picked all of the features and materials, to create the headphones he would want to produce with.

Hopefully the nice people at AIAIAI will be generous enough to provide DJWORX a pair or two for review. ;)

Filed Under: News Tagged With: , , , ,
About Jared Helfer

Jared spends too much time staring at MIDI to have time to cut his hair or shave. He is also a DJ. He currently holds the record as the "Most Fired" at DJWorx, and is willing to challenge anyone to the title. He spends his time DJing in his office and releasing mixes on his website and mixcloud, as well as playing violent video games, reading books, and beginning to get involved in production. He also enjoys tormenting Gizmo about his age and Britishness.

  • mmauve

    Worst headphones I have ever owned. I had my local music store order TMA-1 Studio’s and they ended up sending them back that same week when it became blatantly obvious that they had manufacturing defects (which AIAIAI admitted to me over an email). They used *really* cheap crappy glue to keep the foam earpads affixed to the plastic disc which is responsible for keeping them on the headset. I peeled my earpads clean off the headphones when I tried to switch them, and no – I did not use any excessive force at all and I read the instructions beforehand so I knew how to change them out properly.

    It was so bad, they couldn’t even exchange them for a new pair at the store because they all did the same thing out of the box.

    In my opinion, no way in hell can these headphones hold a candle to the Sennheiser HD-25. Not by a long shot. Picture related, these are the REPLACEMENT ear pads they sent me, which also peeled off. I had to wait 2 weeks to have these arrive from Denmark only to have them fall apart again. At $300, this was one of the most disappointing purchases I ever made.

  • Kid Quest

    They promptly fixed that issue. That was only a problem with the initial batch. I have a pair and Iove them.

  • http://twitter.com/arsvith Andrew Cizek

    “It’s going to retail for $250, and will be out in May, and I may just move over to them.”

    Which article have you two been reading?

    • bart02

      They’re probably talking about a different model of headphones from the same brand, AIAIAI.

      • http://www.mobiledjforums.com/ GroovinDJ

        Seems clear enough to me. The TMA-1 already exists, but there’s going to be a new Young Guru edition.

  • usernameslol

    5m, 25s: “…thicker cable, uh which gives you a better response” lol, what? Can someone please explain this voodoo logic.

  • Pingback: NAMM 2013: AIAIAI Young Guru TMA-1 Studio headphones - DJWORX | DJing | Scoop.it

  • Pingback: AIAIAI – TMA-1 « ptyk

  • Pingback: WEEKEND POLL: DJ headphones — over, on or in-ear? | Sunnylicious

  • Pingback: topachat

  • Pingback: Young DJ Zeke: Performance video nailed - Sunnylicious | Sunnylicious