My new headphones...

So my Sennheiser in ear headphones decided to die (well, the right headphone died, leaving an unbalanced sound in my ears) the other day which is annoying as hell. Not only is it my third set of Senn's in two years (seriously...either their quality has gone down hill or i've been mistreating them...most likely the later), but I hate being without music.

So after work that day, I decided to head down to JB Hi-Fi to check out what was available for the picking. That it was nigh on two weeks till pay day, my budget was quite low (I needed headphones quickly and didn't want to spend more than $50), so I had no delusions that I was going to be getting headphones with the best sound quality.

After a quick browse, I settled on some TDK EB-300WH (rrp $14.95). They had the in-ear sleeves that aids the noise cancelling feature (I'm so used to this from my Senn's), an apparent non-tangling cord and 1m extension cord (which confused me at first but would find out that it was quite necessary).


click on the images for fullsize pics - photos taken with Nokia 6120 classic)

So after acquiring the headphones, I left to try em out. After spending 10 minutes looking for the small ear sleeves after they had fallen from the packet (I don't know why, I can't use em anyway) I plugged them in and gave them a shake down run.

For headphones, they don't look too bad. They're weigh very little and sit in the ear quite well. The splitter is dead even, which is cool so I can feed it through my shirt or leave it in my bag when I go for runs.

After pressing play on my iPod, and cycling few a different genre's of music, it was apparent that these headphones focused too much on bass production, and when my volume was pumped up, they were on the verge of distorting. So I cycled through the different EQ settings on my iPod and found that the best setting to use for these headphones was the Bass Reducer. The reproduction of the bass line is still very apparent, but it's livable with.

The next issue: putting them into my pocket. As the cord is so short, putting the iPod into my pocket promptly removes the headphones from my ears. It's not that it was significantly short, it's about 5 inches too short (ha, that's what she said!). What were TDK thinking? Then to provide a 1m long extension cord? What the? I added the extension and placed the iPod in my pocket, along with the rest of the cord. It allows me to stand and move around comfortably, but I look like an idiot when taking my iPod out of my pocket and having to remove the rest of the cord in the process.

Conclusion: The pros are that it's lightweight and cheap. The cons are that it's not the best sound quality and that the main headphone cord isn't long enough to allow your mp3 player to sit comfortably in your pant pocket unless you're like 4ft nothing. Still don't know what they mean by tangle free.

Honestly, they're not the worst headphones, but they're not the best. I'll probably designate them to training/running/working out purposes as the even split will allow me to hide the cord in my shirt and not get tangled up with my arms or the weights when i'm working out.

Rating: 5/10 ... just.