I had been trying to put this up for a while, but December-January was a bit of a break from work for me. I got a good amount of extra work done that I had been meaning to get around to, in addition to selling some old games and beating older ones (damn you FFVII). Anyway, I digress.
I promised someone I would do some research on wireless headphones, just to do a bit of webcrawling for fun. However, I realized some things:
-Wireless headphones are a mixed bag for me. I am a cheap person; wireless headphones are generally not as inexpensive as their corded counterparts due to the cost of adding the wireless component.
-However, I am also a lazy person: walking around my house and listening to my music on my computer (not mp3 player) without cables is nice, and also blaring it without bugging my roommates at 3am is great also.
-But in the end, quality wins: wireless headphones sound quality isn't as good as corded headphones due to signal interference.
I noticed my parents had two of them when I came home for the holidays: dad watches his action movies at night without waking my mom and mom can watch her chinese/korean/american dramas without waking my dad or forcing him to watch said drama.
They got these: Sony-MDR-RF960RK-Wireless-Headphones
They're not bad, but I still wasn't impressed and thought they could get better. I think they got these as a gift from my uncle tho, so I can't blame them. And the reviews look okay on Amazon too. But here are some things to look for if you're shopping around for these:
Brand. Any audiophile will tell you the brands that are the best and those same brands apply here: Sennheiser hands down offers the best quality, but Sony puts out many decent headphones as well. Buyer beware though with Sony: they have many models that range from suck to great so look up your specific model carefully.
Infrared, Radio Frequency, or Bluetooth? There are different ways to transmit audiot wirelessly:
-Radio Frequency uses radio waves to transmit to your headset, allowing you to wander up to 100 meters away from the base unit. The downside is that the signal is easily interfered with by cell phones, microwaves, tv signals, and wireless routers. Good headphones will scan different frequencies to find the best channel to transmit with as little interference as possible however.
-Infrared are good for movie viewing or laying in bed. These require a direct sight to the infrared transmitter in order for them to work, but they provide less interference compared to radio frequency headphones.
-Bluetooth seem to be the most varied and work with things from computers to cell phones and have a very high quality output, but you can't use them for a theatre set up, for example.
Use: Are you using it for a movie setup, bedtime, wandering the house, or wandering in general? Bluetooth can be used with any bluetooth enabled device, but you can't easily set it to work with your tv. RF headphones will let you walk around the house, and IR is good if you use them in one specific spot with one specific device and offer a clearer sound. Also, if you buy bluetooth, make sure that the thing you want to use it with is compatible with the headphones. Some headphone makers have headphones that will only work with certain ipods for example.
Price: Adding features such as audio-canceling will also jack up the price like mad. In addition, Infred is usually more expensive than RF.
The safest bet looks to be the Sennheiser RS120 for about $80, RS130 for about $120, or RS140 for about $190 based on your price range. Again, make sure you distinguish between RF and IR, I think these are all RF and I would vote for that only because I could walk around with them on, but be aware that RF gets hissing sounds in moments of silence due to interference.
Headphones are one of the things you can't skip on for good quality sound. You can pretty much buy the crappiest mp3 player out on the market and if you pick up a good set of headphones it'll sound amazing.
Which is why I'll stick to corded headphones, thank you very much. Stay smart, stay cheap.
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