Why You Can Trust CNET Ferrari Scuderia P200 by Logic 3 review: Ferrari Scuderia P200 by Logic 3
The Ferrari Scuderia P200 headphones by Logic 3 rev-up a fairly decent sound but the garish design may limit their appeal to petrolheads.
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Want to drive around town in a brand new red Ferrari but don't have a spare couple of hundred grand lying around? Well, for the not inconsiderable price of £200 you could grab the Ferrari Scuderia P200 headphones instead -- a set of cans modelled after the iconic Italian motors.
Ferrari Scuderia P200 by Logic 3
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
It won't trick anyone into thinking you've got the car, but the truly dedicated petrolheads might be comforted to have the Ferrari emblem atop their noggin.
The P200s are available now for £242 from the Ferrari website or for £199 from Harrods.
Design and build
If you're looking for a calm, mature pair of headphones to serenely sing your favourite music to you, look away now. These aren't the headphones you're looking for. The P200s are modelled to mimic the testosterone-teasing appeal of Ferraris, with the sort of bright, garish design you'd expect to see at a race track.
They're over-ear cans that are somewhat chunkier than the average pair of headphones. That's no coincidence -- the P200s are supposed to look exactly like the ear defenders worn by Ferrari mechanics working on its Formula 1 cars. Logic 3 have replicated them rather well, so if you've always dreamed of standing next to a performance car, clutching a wrench like an excited toddler clamps a lolly, they'll be right up your pit lane.
The P200s are, of course, slathered in a bold letterbox red, complete with chrome accenting and black carbon fibre-effect panels to add an extra element of machismo. Sadly, there's no real carbon fibre here, they're just textured plastic. Given their sheer size, you're unlikely to be using them on the bus to get to work so they're better left next to your hi-fi.
Naturally, headphones like these are aimed at a niche market -- the total Ferrari fanatic. If you're not into cars, or if you prefer Lamborghinis or Aston Martins, then go and check out some other cans like the Denon AH-D1100s or the House of Marley Destiny TTRs -- you certainly won't feel as embarrassed being seen using them.
It's a shame that the P200s don't feature any of the aluminum or carbon fibre found on the cars. The plastic feels less than premium -- the casing on the cups in particular feels rather cheap, as does the headband. Still, you don't get the impression they're likely to fall apart. Given they're unlikely to be travelling around with you too much, they hopefully won't succumb to much damage.
The cable is a woven fabric affair that's satisfyingly tangle resistant and is detachable from the cups. That might just save your £245 headphones from an untimely end if you stand up with the cable caught under your chair. The cups themselves use soft leather pads that sit fairly comfortably around your ears -- although they may be a little tight for some. I found them to be wearable for around an hour before I felt the need to take them off and let my ears breathe.
Sound quality
The main selling point of headphones as brash as these is without doubt the aggressive Ferrari styling. Even so, if you've just dropped a couple of hundred quid on a set of headphones, you'd be right to expect decent sound quality to boot.
For the most part, the P200s don't disappoint. With 50mm drivers stuck in each cup, they produce a very big sound to go with their similarly big design. The bass was particularly punchy with the kickdrum on Nero's track Doomsday cutting through well. Sadly, they didn't have quite as much control over the bass as I'd like, resulting in a slightly muddy tone on certain tracks.
They handled the high frequencies fairly well too, with cymbals and snare hits being clear and relatively well separated from the rest of the mix. If you're a fan of rock and metal tracks then these will suit you quite well. They're semi-open cans so they don't have the same airy sound as headphones like Sennheiser's HD 700s, so if you're hoping to appreciate classical music in its purest form, these won't be the headphones for you.
While they deal adequately well with the high and low ends, the mid-tones aren't as rich as I'd normally like to hear, resulting in a lack of warmth on some tracks. The kickdrum in Skrillex's tune Breakin' A Sweatwas powerful, but the underlying synth bass hum wasn't particularly impressive.
The P200s aren't active noise-cancelling headphones, but the leather pads form a tight seal around your ears so they provide a decent amount of passive sound isolation. They won't drown out the roar from a revving V12 engine, but they'll probably filter out ambient traffic noises to let you enjoy your music at a less-than-deafening decibel level.
Conclusion
While the P200s lack warmth in the lower end, the sound is decent overall. But the design is truly garish. If you're looking for a pair of calm, mature headphones for your classical piano music collection, these won't be the cans for you. If pictures of Ferraris sliding sideways around a track get you hot under the collar, then get out your wallet.