Wireless is more (Philips SBC HC 8350)

Member Name: WierdNatox

Product:	Philips SBC HC 8350
Date:	02/01/04 (1176 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Stylish, Free to roam wherever you want, Rechargeable batteries supplied

Disadvantages: Big, Good but not excellent music quality, You might look a bit daft wearing them

The Philips HC8350 are wireless headphones with an effective range of 100m. They use FM stereo to transmit sound from a base station to the headphones, so you don't need to be in the line of sight of the basestation in order to use them. This means you can wander around freely, as long as you are within the effective range of the basestation.

The basestation is a stylish silver and blue unit and would not be embarrassing to have on display in most people's lounges. Of course, because these headphones use FM stereo, the unit does not need to be out in the open, and can be hidden away if required. The basestation also houses the compartment for recharging the Nickel Cadmium batteries that are supplied with the headphones. Taking the batteries out of the headphones to recharge them is a bit fiddly because you have to remove one of the earpieces, but once you get the hang of it it's not too bad.

The headphones themselves are silver, and quite large. They're certainly not discreet "in-your-ear" types, but then they don't need to be. These are not designed to be mobile, so who cares if you look a prat in your own home. Looking a prat is not necessarily the fault of the headphones, I think that most big headphones make the wearer look a bit daft. Anyway, on the headphones themselves is a power switch; useful for preserving battery life, a volume control, and a tuning control; which allows you to fine tune the headphones into the basestation. I have just discovered that just because you can hear sound through them doesn't mean it's right. Careful adjustment of the tuning control gave much improved sound quality when the correct setting was found.

In terms of sound quality they are not bad. If you want perfection then these are not for you though. I personally wanted a set of headphones I could use to watch TV, play on the playstation/computer or listen to a bit of music after everyone had gone to bed, and for
this purpose they are perfect, but at £28 you get what you pay for.

To sum up them, I think that if you want to sit and listen to your favourite music on your top of the range stereo for hours at a time then don't buy these headphones. If, however, sound quality doesn't need to be 100% perfect , but you want to be able to still listen to your music while you make a coffee, wander round the house, sunbathe or just sit more then 2 metres away from the sound source then you can't really go wrong with these.


In the box
==========
Headphones
Basestation
AC power adaptor for the basestation
2 rechargeable batteries
3.5mm to 6.3 mm adaptor

Summary: