An Obsession With Sound
Hyland Headphones are handcrafted in Watford, just north of London in the UK by Alex Hyland.
From wrecking his parents’ record collection as a small child in the mid 80s; to studying for a BSc in Music Technology in the early 2000s; from producing sound design & music for Arts Council England funded mixed-media Art installations and award winning films, and making experimental electronic music as an artist in his own right; to his current obsessive tinkering with headphones — music and its reproduction has been a constant thread running throughout Alex’s life.
Alex started his headphone journey when he heard a friend's STAX Earspeaker setup. Completely blown away by the quality, but lacking the financial resources for a multi-thousand dollar setup, he decided to work with what he had at home: in this case, a worn pair of Grado SR60s that had remained unused and unloved due to a lack of comfort.
These were subjected to a series of experiments to try to improve both the sound and the comfort of the Grados and, with very modest resources (mainly a battery powered drill and some mystery hardwood found in his garden) Alex had some success that was both surprising and gratifying.
Following this (and a not insignificant amount of time spent perusing the Headfi DIY Forums) Alex heard about the (now discontinued) Sennheiser PX100 drivers as a donor that could work wonders in a wooden cup. With some new tools he set about making a very rough prototype pair of headphones and in October 2017 Hyland Headphones was born.
A tip-off from a friend led to new drivers being sourced that had the potential to sound even better than the PX100 drivers. At that point, the notion of the Hyland Headphones Saturn came into being and Alex decided to go ahead and make complete pairs of headphones to sell to order.
Since then Alex has continued to refine his designs—new headband designs, another change of drivers, removable cables and a constant dedication to improvement in build, sound and comfort—has allowed Hyland Headphones to carve out their own small but significant niche in the world of personal audio.