The End of the Decibel Wars

It happens everyday in households around the world, your relaxing to your favourite album when your children start blasting hip-hop music around the house or on action-packed HD movie. Instead of resorting to a war of decibels, keep the peace around your palace by handing out sets of state of the art headphones to your little miracles.

Today home/studio headphones make you look like your going outside to brave the cold winter air, like you have a set of earmuffs on a headset. They can be corded or wireless depending on how you plan on using them. Corded sets, which account for 9 out of 10 sales, have a wire about 8 feet long that connects to your receiver, DVD player, or TV. Wireless sets have a battery-powered headset and an AC-powered transmitter that allows you to connect to your audio or video gear as well.

Prices will vary for home/studio quality headphones from $20 for a basic no frills model to more than $1,000 for a top-end model. We’ve tested a range of models in recent history, and our general findings still apply:

Most of the corded sets provide good sound quality; a few were very good.

Among the wireless sets, only a few had good sound quality. All were prone to interference from devices in the operating environment such as cordless phones, resulting in static, hissing or clicking sounds in the headphones.

Price isn’t always the best gauge of sound quality with the phones tested. Some low-priced corded headphones performed as well as far more expensive sets.

WHAT’S AVAILABLE

There are a few hundred different headphone models to pick from on the market today. Sony is the market leader; other leading brands include Koss, Panasonic, JVC, Phillips, and Sennheiser.

Home/studio headphones come in a few basic designs and range in price from $20 to $1,000.

Closed over-the-ear headphones cup your ears, creating a seal that reduces the amount o f sound leakage. This means that you may not hear some otherwise audible cues that you may want to hear, like the ring of a phone or doorbell.

Open over-the-ear sets have small holes in them which let more sound in and out, so late-night listening could keep your better half awake.

On-ear headphones have earpieces designed to lay flat on the ears, with no gaps for the sound to escape. Models can be open or closed depending on your needs. They let more sound in and out than closed over-the-ear models.

Comfort is a subjective concept for many users, depending on such things as the shape of the ears or head. Weight can effect comfort as well so pay attention to the things your body tells you about how a particular model feels on your head. Prolonged listening with any headphone can make your ears hot; closed models might be more likely to result in this.

On some wireless sets, including all the ones we tested, the transmitter uses radio frequency (RF) to communicate with the headphones. Other sets use infrared, much like a TV remote, which requires a free line of sight between the headphones and the transmitter. RF does pass through walls and floors, allowing you to use the headphones in other rooms or outside. Although the range can exceed 150 feet, the farther you are from the base, the more the sound begins to degrade. The downside to RF is interference between devices on the same frequency. A cordless phone could cause significant static and clicking on your headphones at home, we recommend that you buy wireless sets only if they can be returned for a refund.

Portable headphones for use with portable audio devices such as CD and MP3 players vary mostly by whether the earpieces sit on or go into the ears Many sacrifice sound quality for size, so many readers may prefer a home/studio model even with a portable player. They range in price from about $10 to $300, so pick a model that fits your requirement if you don’t want to pay for something you won’t use.

Active noise-reduction headphones are designed to block out ambient noise. They come with all types of ear covers; closed, open, in-ear, and buds, with the price ranging from $50 to $350.

HOW TO CHOOSE

Headphones should feed you clear, accurate sound with sufficient volume to provide comfortable listening. Sound quality on the sets we tested ranged form very good to fair depending on the model. Critical users might want to stick with the best-sounding corded models so they won’t be disappointed , but be prepared to pay a little more for the quality. Most of the corded models and a few wireless sets are fine for watching TV or, if your not to fussy, for music. Like speakers, headphones may emphasize various parts of the audio spectrum differently.

Among the wireless models tested, all but the best had some background hissing and/ or dynamic range compression that flattened sound to some extent. The best models differed from the other wireless headphones we tested in two ways: digital rather than analog, and operating at 2.4 Hz rather than at 900 MHz.

But devices such as 2.4 GHz cordless phones, microwave ovens, and wireless computer networks operating in the vicinity caused hissing crackle. Other wireless sets also suffered from interference, notably from 900 MHz DSS Headphones.

Headphones should produce adequate volume with any home-audio device, but those with lower sensitivity might not do so with all portable players on the market.

Headphones don’t have many features, but among those that are useful are volume and mute controls. On wireless models, multiple channels are also a plus, this allow you to switch channels to minimize interference from other electronic devices operating in the environment.

We recommend trying headphones before buying them to judge the comfort as well as the sound quality for yourself. Online shoppers should be sure to check out return policies. Sites such as headroom.headphone.com and www.crutchfield.com have a wide selection and offer refunds within 30 days of purchase.

~ by warrenhayashi on October 16, 2007.