****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
I've tried a few RF wireless headphones for TV use now, and these are the best yet. Unfortunately, I'm starting to understand that no wireless headphones are ever going to be as good as wired models. For me, the gold standard remains my Sony Professional MDR 7506 that are wired via the headphone jack of my AV receiver. I've been told that connecting headphones to wireless rear-panel jacks may give cleaner sound that using that jack, but, very unfortunately, I've found that audio outputs on almost all affordable AV receivers are limited to stereo — i.e., any signal that reaches the receiver digitally (by HDMI from a cable box, DVD player, or smart TV [Netflex, Amazon, etc.]) is NOT output to those jacks. That makes them essentially worthless for wireless headphones. Likewise, modern receivers have a plethora of optical and coaxial digital inputs, but none of them that I can find has a digital output. The Sony phones reviewed here don't have optical inputs, anyway, but some of the top of the line models from other companies like Sennheiser do, and I now understand that these are probably usable only with TVs, which generally do have optical digital audio out. They are not of use, though in the home-theater setting in which all the components are connected digitally to a central AV receiver.With these drawbacks, then, why did I give the Sony 900MHz Wireless Stereo Noise Reduction Headphones five stars? It's because, given the limitations of this type of headphones, I suspect that these are as good as it gets. The charging system works quite well. The phones are recognized instantly by the transmitter every time. The volume control is easily reachable and its granular adjustability is laudable. The sound is not up to the quality you can get from wired headphones costing less, but that's not a reason to reduce the rating. For radio-frequency headphones, I think that the sound is as good as it gets. The enclosed phones give good noise reduction, and, very importantly, they rest softly on my head. The seals are good, the material of which the earcups is made feels good, and they simply don't cause any physical fatigue -- even when worn for hours during a movie, they're so gentle that I usually forget that they're even there..Their range is not better than the older Sennheiser model they are replacing, but their advantage is 40mm drivers for great bass (NOT overpowering, just faithfully reproduced), and the circumaural design provides isolation from surroundings that makes everything sound better to me that the on-the-ear cups of my old phones. Moreover, with my hearing impairment, I can wear my hearing aids under the Sony earcups in perfect comfort, which also helps improve fidelity. (No, the aids do not whine or squeal when worn with headphones.)
