Designing headphones that can track your focus level—and look cool too.
Jonathan Levine C’84’s posh, retro-modern Master & Dynamic headphones keep popping up in high-visibility settings—making a statement on fashion runways and in commercials, films, and TV shows. Most recently, M&D’s wireless MW75 and MH40 models adorned the pampered heads of the Ratliff kids (pictured top) on multiple episodes of HBO’s hit drama The White Lotus.
“Some brands hire people and pay big sums to place products in TV shows and movies,” Levine says. “But production managers, prop people, and art directors reach out to us to ask, Can you send us headphones? Which we’re happy to do, even when we don’t know if or how they’ll be used.” When the headphones show up in The White Lotus—and in The Equalizer, The Penguin, or a Cadillac commercial—“it’s a happy surprise,” he continues. “Art directors like using our headphones because they’re so distinctive looking, a blend of both old and new styling cues, crafted from anodized aluminum and leather rather than plastic, with lots of special finishing details. As such, they also suggest something is different—special—about the character who’s wearing them.”
Also pleasing to the M&D cofounder and CEO are his newest wireless noise-reduction headphones, the MW75 Neuro. Codeveloped with neuroscientists at the software company Neurable, the headphones incorporate EEG sensors (discreetly built into the ear cups) and AI software to monitor brainwave activity and provide insights into the user’s concentration and productivity. A companion app (on a smartphone or tablet) graphs your focus by the minute, using the sensors to detect distraction when you, say, look away from your book or computer screen. Users wary of burnout can also set the headphones to audibly prompt a work break after a long period of concentrated activity. (This easily distracted writer can testify that the MW75 Neuro can indeed guilt trip you to stay on the straight and narrow amid rampant multimedia bombardment and multitasking.) The headphones also offer a noise-cancelling feature to dull the sonic distractions of the outside world when you’re aiming for quiet time rather than tunes.
Neurable reached out to collaborate with Master & Dynamic “because they saw us as a breed apart, willing to participate in what’s currently a niche product category but hopefully one that will go mainstream,” Levine says. It’s an expensive product at $699 a pop (about $300 more than their other wireless headphones), but “we’d like to have a smaller, more affordable headphone model for kids,” he adds. “As a parent, I know how significant an issue just staying focused is with young people today. And more features are on the way via software updates.”
At a recent electronics trade show, Neurable’s vice president of marketing and communications, Jessica Randazza-Pade, praised Levine as “a great partner” and “a meticulous guy, hands-on with the project from day one. He’s been concerned with every aspect of its development, wanting to make sure that it offers the best possible outcome for the consumer.”
A serial entrepreneur with an eye for aesthetics and a taste for the finer things, Levine had early ambitions to pursue an architectural career, then as a Penn undergrad whetted his appetite for the restaurant business while working part-time at the old Sansom Street eatery La Terrasse. “But I came to realize that the restaurant business is a lonely, solitary profession,” he says. So Levine shifted his sights after Penn, earned an MBA at the University of Chicago, toiled as a commodities trader on Wall Street for a spell, and then jumped into the gadget game—first with a small New York-based electronics shop “that sold products to Costco, Walmart, and Target” and then with his own company that struck gold with automotive accessories and “one of the first LED light fixtures.”
He credits his elder son Robert Levine C’17 with nudging him into the headphone business. During a visit to a museum in Washington, DC, they “spotted these funky looking, metal and leather-banded World War II-radio operator headphones made by Western Electric. Robert was getting into DJing—which he’d then do on weekends while at Penn—and goaded me to come up with an equally tactile but more polished set of headphones that he could wear on the job, that would set him apart from the Beats -and-Bose-wearing DJ crowd. In the fall of 2014, a year after Robert matriculated at the university, we released our first corded models.”
With his cofounder and partner Vicki Panzier Gross W’87 and other seasoned hands helping in product development, Master & Dynamic was off to the races. Audio reviewers were impressed out of the gate and a “different kind of following, people who appreciate and collect fine objects, cameras, watches, luggage and artwork,” were lured by the industrial chic styling and high-end performance of M&D products.
Master & Dynamic has also produced an array of limited-edition cobranded products—including wireless earbuds for Louis Vuitton and Tumi and a curious concrete-composite speaker (MA770) designed by noted architect David Adjaye.
One of the most unique collaborations they’ve come up with so far is the Chanel-designed Premiere Sound Watch, a wearable that combines a necklace, time piece, and interlinked M&D wired headphones. This runway hit sold out “instantly” last year, despite a 14,700 Euro price tag.
“Stay tuned,” Levine says. “We’ve got more cool projects in the works.”
—Jonathan Takiff C’68
