Review: Philips wireless headphones

Despite having numerous pairs of earbud headphones lying around the house, when it comes to listening to music or playing games on a handheld console, I always use my Sony old-style headphones.

You know, the ones with the padded cups that cushion your ears. They offer far superior sound, plus, for some reason, earbuds always seem to fall out of my ears.

But if there was one negative to my current padded earphones it's the fact that they're wired, meaning I have to contend with a tangled mess of snaking cable from device to ears. Not so with Philips wireless headphones, which claim to work up to 30 metres away from the audio or TV source.

Set-up is easy-peasy. Grab your audio device of choice (or TV even), plug one end of the supplied AV cable into the handy headphone dock that doubles as a recharging station and the other in the audio device, then press play to start listening. The headphones automatically select the right channel using the 2.4Ghz wireless frequency.

I'm not going to dwell on what type of magnets the headphones have (neodymium) or what the signal-noise ratio is (>88dB if you're interested) because, to be honest, I have no idea what that stuff means. Basically, I judge how good a pair of headphones are by how good the music sounds and how good they feel on my head.

Using the above criteria, then, the Philips SHD8900 are very good indeed, producing a crisp, clear sound and comfortable to wear.

I even did a highly unscientific test at work to see how far I could wander from my desk before the sounds of the Foo Fighters stopped playing in my ears, and I reckon it was pretty close to 30 metres, give or take a metre or two, when Dave Grohl's edgy rendition of Breakout started breaking up. Good job.

The headphones are powered by three AAA rechargeable batteries, which Philips estimates will give about 10 hours' use, and the handy docking station doubles as a recharge point. The ear cushions are comfortable and easy to adjust, and the handy on-off switch and volume controls - one on each cup - are easy to reach and use.

Of course, you'd expect performance nothing short of brilliance when the headphones retail for $449. Yes, you read that right: $449.

While the price falls outside my bracket, if you're a dyed-in-the-wool audiophile who must have top-notch sound piped to your ears, you'd have real trouble going past these beauties.

* Philips wireless headphones SHD 8900 (RRP $449)

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