Meze Audio has never been particularly interested in making headphones that blend into the furniture, and its $2,000 POET open-back planar magnetic headphones are no exception. We’ve covered the Romanian manufacturer’s ambitious design extensively, including our original POET introduction and in-depth review, which explored its impressive craftsmanship, distinctive sonic character, and exceptionally comfortable fit.

The standard POET’s elaborate copper-colored grilles and industrial styling have a somewhat polarizing aesthetic in the Head-Fi community. Some listeners appreciate the craftsmanship and bold appearance, while others would prefer something a little less conspicuous on their heads.

Meze, however, has decided that subtlety is overrated, introducing the POET Jazz Special Edition, a collection of just 11 individually hand-painted headphones that takes the original design into entirely new artistic territory.

The Engineering Behind the Art

The Meze Audio POET combines Rinaro Isodynamic Hybrid Array technology, premium materials, and an ergonomic design. The standard version features a steel grille, magnesium chassis, and soft suede-leather headrest, creating a visually striking headphone engineered for durability, comfort, and acoustic performance.

Comfort and Longevity: The POET’s flexible titanium-alloy headband distributes weight evenly, providing a secure and comfortable fit for extended listening sessions. Its relatively lightweight construction and magnetic ear pads further improve usability, while the replaceable pads make routine maintenance and long-term ownership considerably more convenient.

Rinaro and Parus: The POET incorporates a new MZ6 planar magnetic driver featuring Rinaro’s Isodynamic Hybrid Array technology. Each driver is hand-assembled and tested at Rinaro’s facility in Lviv, Ukraine. The Hybrid Magnet Array is engineered to produce a powerful, uniform magnetic field across the Parus diaphragm, which weighs just 0.06 grams despite its substantial active surface area. According to Meze, this combination delivers exceptionally low distortion (less than 0.05%) and highly resolving sound, capturing subtle musical details from deep sub-bass to the upper treble.

Fully Serviceable: Beyond its acoustic engineering, the POET emphasizes long-term serviceability, with components designed to be disassembled and replaced when necessary. From the magnetic ear pads to the mechanical elements of the chassis, Meze has prioritized maintainability rather than treating the headphones as a disposable product.

The combination of durable construction, premium materials, and replaceable components makes the POET an appealing option for listeners who value long-term ownership. A premium hand-braided copper cable completes the package, reinforcing Meze’s emphasis on craftsmanship and visual design without sacrificing practical functionality.

Meze Audio POET Jazz Edition: Eleven Headphones, Eleven Works of Art

Meze Audio has taken its acclaimed POET planar magnetic headphones in a decidedly more artistic direction with the POET Jazz Special Edition, a collection of just eleven individually hand-painted pairs inspired by the emotions, rhythms, and improvisational character of jazz. Each pair features a unique finish, with the artwork applied to the earcups, brackets, and adjustment sliders rather than the entire headphone.

These are not eleven different headphone models with unique acoustic tunings. Every Jazz Edition retains the same drivers, engineering, and technical specifications as the standard $2,000 POET, with the distinction coming entirely from the hand-painted artwork. At $2,399 per pair, buyers are paying a $399 premium for the exclusivity and craftsmanship, not some mysterious improvement in soundstage brought about by a few extra brushstrokes.

The Eleven POET Jazz Special Edition Designs

Each variation represents a different aspect of jazz performance and expression, with only one pair produced in each finish.

1. Encore: Celebrates the spontaneous return to the stage for one final performance.
2. Blue Note: A moody, melancholic design inspired by jazz’s ability to communicate unresolved emotions.
3. Swing State: Flowing, fragmented patterns representing the natural movement and rhythm of swing.
4. Bebop Static: An energetic, high-contrast interpretation of bebop’s intensity, precision, and controlled chaos.
5. Midnight Session: Inspired by intimate late-night performances when musicians communicate almost instinctively.
6. First Take: Captures the spontaneity, uncertainty, and excitement of musicians beginning a performance.
7. Brass and Smoke: Evokes the warmth, atmosphere, and intimacy of a crowded jazz club.
8. Free Form: An improvisational design celebrating creative freedom without predetermined structure.
9. Low End: A more restrained interpretation of the double bass and rhythmic foundation that holds a performance together.
10. Offbeat: Uses unexpected contrasts and visual accents to reflect jazz’s unconventional rhythmic patterns.
11. Afterglow: Represents the lingering emotional impression of a performance after the final note fades.

Each variation has its own listing, allowing buyers to select the specific artwork they want rather than ordering a generic Jazz Edition and receiving a random finish.

The exclusivity is genuine. Meze is producing only one pair of each design, with no plans to reproduce, replicate, or reissue the artwork once it sells. At the time of writing, five of the eleven variations were already listed as sold out, leaving collectors with a rather narrow window to secure their preferred design.

POET Jazz Edition Headphones Specifications

The Bottom Line 

Limited and special-edition audio products have become increasingly common, but Meze Audio has taken a more interesting approach with its POET Jazz Special Edition. Rather than offering one exclusive finish with a numbered production run, the Romanian manufacturer has created eleven individually hand-painted variations, each inspired by a different mood, rhythm, or expression of jazz. With only one pair of each design being produced, these are genuinely one-of-a-kind headphones rather than another cosmetic refresh with a collectible badge.

At $2,399 per pair, the Jazz Editions command a $399 premium over the standard POET while retaining identical acoustic engineering and performance specifications. Buyers are paying for the artwork, craftsmanship, and exclusivity, not an improvement in sound quality. That makes them particularly appealing to collectors and Meze enthusiasts who appreciate functional audio equipment as art.

Whether these unique creations eventually command a premium on eBay remains to be seen, although I wouldn’t underestimate the enthusiasm of headphone collectors with more disposable income than restraint. Meze deserves credit for creating something genuinely exclusive without pretending a new paint job improves the sound. Eleven pairs, eleven personalities, and not a single extra decibel of audiophile marketing nonsense.

Price & Availability

Each variation of the Meze Audio Jazz Edition POET is only available for $2,399 at Meze Audio. 

The standard Meze Audio POET is available for $2,000 at Crutchfield and Apos Audio.

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The internet’s mad scramble on Wednesday to patch a pair of critical vulnerabilities in PHP, a widely used web scripting language, was already too late to stop every attack, newly released details reveal.

Wednesday’s release of fixes for two critical vulnerabilities in PHP caused administrators and security staff to race to identify and patch vulnerable websites and apps, while attackers inevitably reverse engineered the fixes to learn how to exploit the flaws. Some governments and other groups even proactively took key websites down in anticipation of the release, so they wouldn’t be targeted before they could apply the patches.

But in addition to detecting such active exploitation on Wednesday, research published Wednesday evening by Amazon Web Services indicates that at least one actor had started attempting to exploit the bugs—known collectively as PHP2Shell—on October 17, four days before Wednesday’s public revelations.

AWS analysts spotted the October 17 exploitation on Wednesday while looking back at activity on one of their so-called honeypots, or intentionally vulnerable web servers or other digital lures that help researchers study attack methods and trends. The attempt came from an IP address that AWS says is linked to a “commercial anonymization network,” in other words a proxy network or VPN.

“While the vulnerability was under embargo, the targeting of a honeypot from an anonymized IP address suggests the activity was conducted by a threat actor, though it remains unclear how the actor acquired exploit information prior to disclosure,” CJ Moses, AWS’s chief information security officer, wrote in the research post.

Proof-of-concept exploits for PHP2Shell began emerging publicly on Wednesday, with some seeming to appear hours before the public disclosure at 10 am ET. In the hours leading up to the disclosure, AWS researchers say their honeypots were hit with multiple exploitation attempts anonymized using various providers and seemingly with various attack goals, likely indicating multiple different actors. “Technical analysis is ongoing, and it’s unclear if any of these attempts would have succeeded in real-world systems,” Moses wrote. He added that “PHP2Shell is now being broadly exploited in the wild.”

The PHP Foundation did not immediately respond to WIRED’s request for comment.

Though it is unclear how the exploitation on October 17 happened or where it came from, AWS emphasizes that the findings underscore how coordinated vulnerability disclosure must evolve and speed up, given global access to AI tools that can accelerate vulnerability analysis and allow less technically proficient actors to quickly develop new exploits.

“The time from patch to working exploit is shrinking for structural reasons,” Moses wrote. “In the past, most exploitation we observed came after a public proof of concept was released. A small number of capable actors built exploits, and everyone else waited for them. That dependency is weakening. AI-assisted analysis makes it cheaper to turn a patch diff or advisory into a working exploit. As a result, more actors can act within hours or even minutes once technical details of a vulnerability are disclosed.”

IEEE Life Fellow Manfred “Fred” J. Schindler has been elected as the 2027 IEEE president-elect. He will begin serving as president on 1 January 2028.

Schindler, who was nominated by the IEEE Board of Directors, received 16,421 votes in the election. Senior Member David Alan Koehler received 13,874 votes.

At press time, the results were unofficial until the IEEE Board of Directors accepts the IEEE Teller’s Committee report in November.

Schindler, an expert in microwave semiconductor technology, is an independent consultant supporting clients with technical expertise, due diligence, and project management.

Throughout his career, he led the development of microwave integrated-circuit technology, from lab demonstrations to high-volume commercial products. He has numerous technical publications and holds 11 patents.

Schindler served as CTO of Anlotek, and director of Qorvo and RFMD’s Boston design center. He was applications manager at IBM, engineering manager at ATN Microwave, and a lab manager at Raytheon.

An IEEE volunteer for more than 30 years, Schindler served as the 2024 vice president of IEEE Technical Activities and the 2021–2022 Division IV director. He was chair of the IEEE Conferences Committee from 2015 to 2018 and president of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Technology Society (MTTS) in 2003. He received the society’s 2018 Distinguished Service Award and its 2015 N. Walter Cox Award. His award-winning micro-business column has appeared in IEEE Microwave Magazine since 2011.

He also led the 2025 One IEEE to Enable Strategic Investments in Innovations and Public Imperative Activities adhoc committee.

Schindler is an IEEE–Eta Kappa Nu honorary life member and a MTTS honorary life member.

Bose Corporation has acquired Skullcandy, bringing the Utah-based headphone and lifestyle audio manufacturer into a growing portfolio that already includes McIntosh Laboratory and Sonus faber. Financial terms were not disclosed, but the October 21, 2026 announcement represents another significant step in CEO Lila Snyder’s transformation of Bose from a familiar consumer electronics brand into a much broader audio products and technology company.

For anyone still convinced that Bose only makes noise-cancelling headphones, soundbars, and expensive speakers for people who don’t understand high-end audio, it might be time to update that assessment. The Framingham-based company now owns two of the industry’s most respected luxury audio brands, important streaming and interactive-audio technology businesses, and a headphone manufacturer whose roots in skateboarding, snowboarding, and youth culture couldn’t be further removed from the traditional Bose customer.

The interesting part isn’t that Bose wants to sell more headphones. It already knows how to do that rather well. What Bose gains from Skullcandy is access to a different customer, a different culture, and a brand identity that would be extremely difficult to build from scratch.

And unlike some acquisitions where the buyer promises mysterious technological synergies and everyone hopes for the best, these two companies have already demonstrated that their partnership can produce actual products.

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Bose and Skullcandy Have Already Tested the Relationship

We’ve been following the growing relationship between the two companies at eCoustics, beginning with the Skullcandy Method 360 ANC wireless earbuds in 2025.

The Method 360 launched at $129.99, with a $99.99 introductory price, and incorporated Sound by Bose acoustic tuning and licensed earbud-fit technology. It was a meaningful development for Skullcandy because Bose’s engineering expertise offered a way to compete more seriously on sound quality and comfort without abandoning the brand’s affordable, lifestyle-oriented approach.

That collaboration expanded in July 2026 with the Crusher 1080 ANC headphones.

The $279.99 Crusher 1080 ANC combines Skullcandy’s adjustable sensory bass system with Bose QuietControl noise cancellation, TrueSpatial audio with head tracking, WaveForm audio processing, SpeechClarity technology, and Bose-developed sound tuning.

The division of responsibilities was revealing. Skullcandy retained its industrial design, software integration, and distinctive Crusher Bass experience, while Bose contributed technologies intended to improve the listening experience around those features.

That is a much more interesting partnership than taking an existing QuietComfort headphone, painting it orange, and sending it to a skateboard shop.

Today’s acquisition turns an established technology partnership into common ownership. The two brands have already spent time learning how their respective strengths fit together, which may reduce some of the uncertainty surrounding future product development.

Why Does Bose Want Skullcandy?

Bose’s premium headphones are built around noise cancellation, comfort, acoustic engineering, and increasingly sophisticated personalization. The company has spent decades earning consumer trust in those areas, but technical expertise alone doesn’t guarantee relevance among younger listeners.

Skullcandy has something different.

Founded in Park City, Utah, in 2003, the company developed its identity through boardsports, music, gaming, and lifestyle communities. Its colorful designs, accessible pricing, athlete relationships, and deliberately unconventional products appeal to buyers who may not consider Bose their first choice.

Those relationships aren’t easily replicated by hiring a marketing agency and producing another campaign featuring attractive people wearing headphones in an airport lounge.

In its announcement, Bose made clear that Skullcandy’s connection to these communities is central to the acquisition, and the company has no intention of eliminating the Skullcandy identity.

Skullcandy will remain a separate brand within Bose’s Premium Consumer Audio business and continue operating from Park City.

This is important because the two companies aren’t trying to sell identical products to the same customers. Skullcandy gives Bose another way to participate in the consumer audio market without requiring every product to carry the Bose name, design language, or pricing structure.

That also creates opportunities to reach consumers earlier in their audio-buying lives and potentially introduce them to other products within the wider Bose portfolio over time. Whether that translates into measurable customer loyalty or increased sales remains to be seen.

What Does Skullcandy Get Out of the Deal?

For Skullcandy, the advantages are more straightforward: access to Bose’s research, engineering expertise, global distribution, and commercial relationships, backed by a privately held company willing to invest in long-term product development.

Bose CEO Lila Snyder emphasized that the company has “the freedom to make bold, long-term investments,” an important distinction for a business that doesn’t answer to public-market shareholders every quarter.

Skullcandy CEO Brian Garofalow described the transaction as an opportunity to strengthen the products his customers already enjoy, explaining that “Joining Bose gives us the opportunity to make those experiences even better.”

The practical opportunity is to combine Skullcandy’s understanding of its audience with technologies that would otherwise require substantial independent research and development.

That could give Skullcandy access to more advanced noise cancellation, spatial processing, voice pickup, acoustic tuning, and other engineering resources while allowing its own teams to concentrate on product design and the features that distinguish the brand.

There is also a potential benefit in manufacturing scale, distribution, and retail relationships, although Bose has not disclosed specific plans to consolidate operations or change Skullcandy’s existing sales channels.

The important question for consumers is whether Skullcandy can deliver better-performing products without losing the accessible pricing and distinctive personality that made it successful.

A $100 pair of Skullcandy earbuds doesn’t need to become a $300 pair simply because the corporate parent knows how to make one.

From McIntosh to Skullcandy: Bose Is Building Something Much Bigger

We’ve been tracking this transformation at eCoustics since Bose’s November 2024 acquisition of McIntosh Group, which brought McIntosh Laboratory and Italian loudspeaker manufacturer Sonus faber under the same corporate roof.

At the time, some audiophiles worried that Bose would compromise the identities of two established luxury brands. Nearly two years later, McIntosh continues producing substantial American-made amplifiers and source components, while Sonus faber remains focused on premium loudspeakers and Italian craftsmanship.

That history provides useful context for today’s promise that Skullcandy will retain its independence as a brand.

Bose’s more recent acquisitions reveal another dimension to the strategy.

In June 2026, the company acquired StreamUnlimited Engineering, gaining expertise in network-audio software, connected-product platforms, streaming certification, and related infrastructure.

It followed that move with the acquisition of Firelight Technologies, developer of the FMOD interactive-audio platform used extensively in video games and other real-time applications.

As we explored in our recent editorial, What Is Bose Building?, these investments are not simply about adding more hardware brands. StreamUnlimited expands Bose’s role in connected audio. Firelight strengthens its position in interactive sound and gaming. McIntosh and Sonus faber provide established positions in luxury hi-fi, while Bose remains deeply involved in automotive audio and premium consumer products.

Skullcandy adds something those businesses don’t provide: a recognizable presence in a younger, more affordable, culturally driven segment of personal audio.

Bose is increasingly positioned to participate in how sound is developed, processed, distributed, and experienced, even when the product doesn’t carry a Bose logo. That’s a substantially different business strategy from competing solely with Sony, Apple, and Sennheiser for premium headphone sales.

Skullcandy’s Ownership History and the Undisclosed Price

Bose acquired Skullcandy from a fund managed by Mill Road Capital Management, the Connecticut-based private investment firm that took the company private a decade ago.

In August 2016, Skullcandy agreed to a merger with Mill Road in a transaction valued at approximately $196.6 million, according to Reuters. That agreement followed an earlier proposed acquisition by Incipio.

The 2016 figure provides historical context, but it tells us very little about what Bose paid in 2026. Neither company has disclosed Skullcandy’s current financial performance, the acquisition valuation, or the consideration paid.

Bose also hasn’t announced any restructuring, workforce reductions, product cancellations, or changes to Skullcandy’s management in connection with the transaction.

Those details matter when assessing the financial implications of the acquisition, and it would be premature to claim that Bose acquired the company at a bargain price or that the transaction will immediately improve profitability.

The Risks: Two Brands With Very Different Identities

The strategy makes considerable sense, but executing it successfully will require restraint.

Bose and Skullcandy are differentiated by more than pricing. They represent different philosophies about industrial design, marketing, features, and how consumers relate to music and technology.

The worst outcome would be for Skullcandy to become a less expensive Bose brand with interchangeable products and a slightly more colorful logo. That would undermine the very audience connection Bose is paying to acquire.

There’s also the question of overlap.

As Bose technology becomes more widely available inside Skullcandy products, the parent company will need to maintain meaningful distinctions between their respective product lines. Offering Bose-derived ANC and sound processing at lower prices can attract new customers, but it also requires careful decisions about features, performance, and positioning.

The existing Crusher 1080 ANC demonstrates one possible solution: use Bose technology to improve a product built around a distinctly Skullcandy experience rather than recreate a QuietComfort headphone at a discount.

The companies have not announced their next jointly developed product, and there is no confirmed roadmap for sharing additional technologies across the wider Bose portfolio.

The Bottom Line

The Skullcandy acquisition makes sense when viewed alongside everything Bose has done since acquiring McIntosh and Sonus faber in 2024.

Bose has spent years developing technologies that can improve the way people experience sound. What it increasingly recognizes is that those technologies don’t always need to be delivered through a product bearing its own name.

Skullcandy brings a distinct identity, established communities, and an audience that Bose has struggled to reach through its traditional product lineup. In return, Skullcandy gains access to engineering capabilities and resources that could make its products more competitive against Apple, Sony, JBL, and other established consumer audio companies.

The challenge will be preserving that identity while making full use of the new parent’s resources. Having more brands under one roof is not inherently an advantage if they eventually become difficult to distinguish from one another.

Bose has so far demonstrated a willingness to let McIntosh and Sonus faber remain themselves, and Skullcandy deserves the same opportunity. If the company can preserve what makes Skullcandy relevant while improving its engineering and expanding its reach, this could become one of Bose’s more consequential investments.

Twenty years ago, Skullcandy was born on a chairlift in Park City. Today, it belongs to the same company that owns McIntosh and Sonus faber. If you’d predicted that combination in 2003, somebody probably would have asked what you were smoking on the mountain.

But given Bose’s recent moves, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised anymore.

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Measuring electric currents is an essential element of many electrical systems, but doing so in a way that is as nonintrusive as possible is not an easy problem to solve. Due to this we got a wide variety of current sensors to choose from for any given application, with [ElectrArc240] running us through these variants in a recent video.

The fairly low-tech, cheap and quite reliable method of using a shunt resistor is first demonstrated. This sees a lot of use in fairly low-voltage and low-current applications, with for example videocards using it to limit the amount of power the GPU can use, a feature that modders will happily bypass. Here simply the voltage drop across a known resistance value is measured, from which the current can be derived.

Of course, you got higher voltage and higher current applications too, as well as direct- and alternating current, with the latter especially allowing for easy current measurements simply from the electromagnetic field, or flux. Anyone who has used a clamp meter can attest to that such contact-free current sensing works, even for DC applications.

Beyond the basic transformer type you got many variants including Hall-Effect, TMR and fluxgate sensors, as well as the fiber-optic current sensor that uses an interferometer to measure the phase-change induced by the magnetic field – the Faraday effect – to the transmitted electromagnetic radiation. These more exotic types will improve resolution, at the cost of a rapidly increasing void in your project budget.

These various sensor types and their construction are demonstrated and discussed in the video, including when you’d want to use a specific type, and what the potential gotchas are with each type. Even if for many applications a simple shunt resistor suffices, it’s a good idea to know these different types, as well as their underlying theory of operation.