Shine on you crazy diamonds: Loewe's jewel-studded headphones cost nearly $140k, making my AirPods Max feel like a bargain basement buy

• Tech brand Loewe and Jacob & Co. are collaborating on limited-editing headphones with real jewels
• Two versions: one with sapphires and one with diamonds
• Hi-res audio, ANC and 65-hour battery life

Luxury electronics brand Loewe have teamed up with luxury timepiece creators Jacob & Co to create two sets of headphones so expensive you'll need to give them a bodyguard.

The Loewe x Jacob & Co. over-ears have "have reimagined headphones as objets d’art." There are two versions: the Noir Rainbow, whose ear cups feature a 14K rose gold circle with 15.97 carats of multi-colored sapphires; and Ice Diamond, which is "radiant" with a 14K white gold ring and 12.47 carats of white diamonds.

Whichever pair you choose you're making a statement, and that statement is "I clearly don't pay enough tax". Because the cheaper Rainbow pair is €99,000 (about $115,235 / £85,440 / AU$176,945) and the Ice Diamond pair is €119,000 (about $138,500 / £102,700 / AU$212,690).

Loewe diamond headphones: features and availability

If you happen to have enough cash for a six-figure set of headphones you'd better move fast: there will only be five pairs of each model.

I suspect the would-be buyers couldn't care less about the specs, but whichever pair you go for you're getting hi-res audio "with expert tuning", adaptive ANC, integrated AI "for voice assistant and real-time translation" and up to 65 hours of battery life.

It's easy to go all Class War here and suggest that spotting such headphones in the wild is a great way to recognize the people who'll be first against the wall when the revolution comes (the launch is taking place on Loewe's luxury yacht, with the orcas).

But underneath all the gems there's what could be a very credible rival to the likes of the AirPods Max and other high-end headphone options, and I suspect that considerably more affordable versions of these headphones will arrive in due course.

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