Can you listen to whale song with VMK25?
Short answer: yes. Long answer: yes, but it takes a bit of setup.
Background
We received a message to customer support in which a marine biologist from Turku asked whether you can listen to whale song directly from the sea with VMK25 headphones. He had apparently tried a competitor’s headphones, but they broke at the first splash. Classic.
VMK25’s 40 mm drivers reproduce frequencies from 20 Hz upward. Humpback whale song typically ranges between 80–4000 Hz, so technically the headphones can reproduce every whale sigh, love song, and sound of existential anguish. That’s a real technical fact. Write it down; it’ll be on the test.
Practical problems
- The headphones are not waterproof. VMK25 is designed to be used on dry land, on the bus, and in the office – not at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. If you dunk them in the sea, the warranty doesn’t cover it. Hannes said it straight: "I won’t fix anything that has seal shit coming out of it."
- You need a hydrophone. Whale song doesn’t come over Bluetooth. Not yet, anyway. Connect the hydrophone to your phone, put VMK25 on your head, and enjoy. You can turn on ANC so the seagulls’ squawking is gone and all that’s left is the humpback’s baritone.
- Whales don’t take requests. We tried. No Free Bird, no Sandstorm.
Why is this on the support page?
Because someone really asked. And we answer everything. That’s our promise. Except if you ask for the Death Star’s production schedule – that’s classified.
Summary
VMK25 reproduces whale song beautifully, as long as the sound goes into the headphones and not the headphones into the sea. A hydrophone costs about a hundred euros. The price of VMK25 is less than a competitor’s flagship. Altogether you’ll get a whale concert for cheaper than a single pair of Sony headphones.
And every purchase funds 0.000001 % of our Death Star. The whales can’t escape that either.
