GQ™ Headphones

Canadian startup Ora’s GrapheneQ™ (GQ) headphones fall squarely into the latter category. GrapheneQ is the company’s proprietary composite material, used to make the 40mm acoustic drivers that actually deliver sound to the ear. Consisting of more than 95 per cent graphene, it retains most of the material’s mechanical properties, while at the same time being easier to shape and less expensive to produce. Rather than recreating graphene’s single layer of carbon atoms, GQ consists of flakes of graphene deposited in thousands of layers bonded together with proprietary cross-linking agents. It is lightweight and stiff, with a low density, making it an ideal material for loudspeaker membranes.