Reviews, Articles, Ratings and Comparisonsen-usSat, 04 Jul 2009 06:43:25 EDTSat, 04 Jul 2009 06:43:25 EDThttp://www.headphoneinfo.comThe iPhone 3G S is here, and it comes with some freebie headphones. We tested these headphones. They\'re not great, but they aren\'t nearly as bad as we would have guessed.http://www.headphoneinfo.com/content/Apple-iPhone-3G-S-Headphones-Review-899.htmThe DT 770s are another set of headphones in Beyerdynamic\'s MANUFAKTUR line. The MANUFAKTUR service allows users to create customized color schemes as well as fine-tune other aspects of their headphones. The DT 770s are a solid pair of headphones with good sound quality and average isolation for over-ears. We had some issues with fit, like with other Beyerdynamic headphones. Try them on for a few hours before your warranty lapses. The DT 770s are available for $285 via Beyerdyanmic\'s website.http://www.headphoneinfo.com/content/Beyerdynamic-DT-770-Headphones-Review-897.htm The Sennheiser HD 650s are a set of high-end, open-backed, over-ear headphones. The HD 650s implement their open-backed design in an aesthetically interesting way, covering the backs of the ear cups with a grey grate which offers barely any physical barrier between your sound and the world around you. This will create a large, open soundstage, but means the headphones won\'t be good isolators. The headphones also feature a removeable cord. Since the cord is often the first thing to break, this feature should help extend the life of your headphones. The HD 650s are currently available for about $500.http://www.headphoneinfo.com/content/Sennheiser-HD-650-Headphones-Review-878.htmhttp://www.headphoneinfo.com/content/top-reviews-875.htmhttp://www.headphoneinfo.com/content/blog-links-873.htmThe DT 990s recently got re-released under Beyerdynamic\'s MANUFAKTUR line. This line lets you pick out the headphones\' color, impedance, and cord style. These new, improved DT 990s have above average audio quality, but suffer from some significant fit issues. The DT 990s can currently be purchased for about $350. http://www.headphoneinfo.com/content/Beyerdynamic-DT-990-Headphones-Review-867.htmThe SE115s are Shure\'s new entry-level edition in their popular SE series of in-ear headphones. At first glance, there isn\'t much to separate the SE115s from the rest of Shure\'s options. They have the same design, their performance results have similar trends, and the headphones come with similar sleeve options. The main thing you\'ll notice are the SE115s don\'t come with Shure\'s regular batch of extras.http://www.headphoneinfo.com/content/Shure-SE115-Headphones-Review-851.htmThe ATH-W5000s are a super high-end option from Audio-Technica. The ear cups are made from striped ebony wood and the ear cups are lambskin. Looking at these headphones, it\'s easy to tell they\'re for people that are serious about audio. Interestingly enough, the ATH-W5000s didn\'t perform particularly well on our audio tests. http://www.headphoneinfo.com/content/Audio-Technica-ATH-W5000-Headphones-Review-844.htm   In an effort to get you guys the awesome headphone reviews you salivate for, we\'ve let the Headphone ReviewBot collect dust lately. Allow us to remedy this by quickly summing up our last four reviews. If you like reading, we recommend you read the full reviews. If you hate reading, then you will love this blog post.http://www.headphoneinfo.com/content/A-bunch-of-review-retrospectives-832.htm The SE530s are at the high end of Shure\'s in-ear options. Like other Shure in-ears, the SE530s come with a variety of extras, such as eight different sets of sleeves, an optional volume control, and an optional remote and mic. The S530s have a modular cord, meaning it\'s a bit under a foot and a half long. This is ideal for connecting to a media player in an arm band. The headphones also come with an extension cord that makes them a typical length for a set of in-ears.http://www.headphoneinfo.com/content/Shure-SE530-Headphones-Review-825.htm The PS200s are Phiaton\'s first entry into the in-ear headphones arena. Their packaging looks fancy and their price, $250 says great quality, but our testing showed the PS200s would be more comfortably priced as entry-level models.http://www.headphoneinfo.com/content/Phiaton-PS200-Headphones-Review-811.htm The Apple In-ear Headphones with Remote and Mic are Apples newest latest set of headphones with an overly generic name. These headphones do, in fact, feature a remote and mic, which are supported by iPods and iPhones alike. The remote is a bit awkwardly placed and doesn\'t have the best tactile feedback. Also, the remote and plug don\'t have cord guards around them; no cord guards means the cord can bend sharply in these areas, which is a significant durability concern. The last issue we ran into was with comfort: the ear buds fall out constantly. Make sure you wear the Apple In-ears for a while to make sure they\'re a good fit. These issues aside, the headphones have above average audio quality overall. http://www.headphoneinfo.com/content/Apple-In-ear-Headphones-with-Remote-and-Mic-Review-795.htm The Sennheiser CX 300-II headphones are an entry-level set of in-ears. They don\'t have much to differentiate them from other in-ears aesthetically, but they are a better than average value. The CX 300-II did well on our sound quality tests. They have a good frequency response with strong bass, low distortion, and even tracking. The CX 300-IIs will be available in the US soon for about $75. http://www.headphoneinfo.com/content/Sennheiser-CX-300-II-Headphones-Review-774.htmSennheiser\'s MX W1s are an interesting look at some technology that might, in the future, be affordable. At the moment, though, it isn\'t. The MX W1s have audio quality that\'s about what we\'d expect from a good set of wireless in-ears: not good by any stretch, but not horrible either. We suppose the MX W1s will be attractive to some, if only for the novelty factor, but we really, really recommend waiting for the price to drop. At $500, we cannot recommend buying these.   http://www.headphoneinfo.com/content/Sennheiser-MX-W1-Review-Retrospective-772.htmThe Sennheiser MX W1 headphones are a set of wireless in-ears. They are the first pair of wireless in-ears we\'ve reviewed. Since they use wireless technology, don\'t expect the best audio quality: sound has to be compressed in order to stream from your transmitter to the ear piece smoothly. This results in some low-end distortion, but not as much as we had expected to see.http://www.headphoneinfo.com/content/Sennheiser-MX-W1-Headphones-Review-769.htmOne myth a lot of headphone users hold particularly dear is that of burn-in. The idea is that your headphones sound less than ideal straight out of the box. What you have to do is play 100-200 hours of music, which gets the headphones\' innards to loosen up. The problem with this is that, while burn-in is a very widely held belief that isn\'t limited to headphones, there really is no proof of its existence or nonexistence. What we\'re going to do, starting right this very second, is run a battery of audio tests on the headphones fresh out of the box, and then after getting burned in for at least 100 hours (we\'ll note the total time the headphones were burned in; sometimes we\'ll need to ship the headphones back before the 200 hour mark). We will be using different genres of music each time we do the burn-in, and we\'ll try to get in multiple copies of the headphones so we can test with different genres of music to see if the effects are different. If you have any suggestions on different stuff we can do with this experiment, email us! [Bad Photoshop courtesy of images from HeadRoom and chuckbauman.com]http://www.headphoneinfo.com/content/The-great-HPI-burn-in-experiment-767.htm Well, we have the MX W1s in for review, but we\'ve run into a strange issue: they don\'t want to recharge. At first the headphones complied with our requests, their orange "I am charging!" LEDs shining merrily. As time wore on, however, we started having more and more trouble getting them to charge. When we\'d plug them in they wouldn\'t recognize their orange LED would flash briefly, but we couldn\'t get it to stay on. Our PR contact said it\'s a known issue and set me up with Sennheiser\'s tech support line (860-434-9190 if you need it). We\'ve left a message and are awaiting a response. We will update this blog post as we delve deeper into this mystery. UPDATE: Apparently some of the early production units are simply broken. If you own a pair and run into a similar issue, Sennheiser will replace them for you. Just call the aforementioned support number. http://www.headphoneinfo.com/content/MX-W1s-have-a-problem-charging--764.htm We just got in a pair of Sennheiser\'s MX W1s, which are wireless in-ear headphones. Our super-fast initial impressions? The audio quality seems fine for a pair of in-ears, especially wireless ones (in-ears and wireless headphones, separately, often have poor audio quality compared to wired, full-sized headphones). The sound was a bit muffled/blanketed and suffered from some high-pitched noise. We didn\'t really notice the whine unless we listened to classical or quiet music.  The headphones have two pieces that go into your ear: the first sits in the ear, like Apple\'s packaged-in headphones, and the second helps wedge the ear piece between your concha and tragus to keep it from falling out. We were very surprised to see they didn\'t come with any sleeves for the main in-ear piece; the result is some discomfort and very poor isolation. UPDATE: haha, we\'re dumb and didn\'t fully empty one of the boxes. They do come with one pair of sleeves for the main part and two sets for the smaller nub. Keep an eye out for our review, which we hope to get up soon(ish).   http://www.headphoneinfo.com/content/First-listen--Sennheiser-MX-W1-wireless-in-ear-headphones-759.htmIt\'s been a while since we\'ve done one of these, so our apologies to those who follow our sadly neglected RSS feed. We just got our review up of the ATH-ANC7s. Our verdict? They aren\'t anything special, but they\'re priced very generously. They don\'t have great sound quality and their active noise cancellation isn\'t quite good, but they cost $100. Have you seen what active-cancellers generally cost? At this price, the ATH-ANC7s are a good pair of entry-level active-cancelling headphones. You should check these out if you want a pair of headphones to wear on the go, but hate sticking headphones into your ears.  http://www.headphoneinfo.com/content/Audio-Technica-ATH-ANC7-review-retrospective-756.htmThe ATH-ANC7s are a pair of active noise cancelling over-ears from Audio-Technica. The ATH-ANC7s have the ability to turn their active noise cancellation feature on and off, which immediately puts them leagues beyond many other active-cancellers. The headphones can also play back music once their batteries have died, or without a battery at all.http://www.headphoneinfo.com/content/Audio-Technica-ATH-ANC7-Headphones-Review-752.htm