Wireless-Headphones
Don't be fooled by the toys!With wireless-headphones, you can walk around the house and still hear the stereo or tv and not disturb anyone else. Or sit with your significant other and each listen to something else at the same time! How to watch TV in bed while your partner sleeps.
Our neighbor's story:
We have the same identical TV. I always thought ours had a great audio section, and the built-in speakers sound amazingly good. You can even turn them up darn near all the way and the sound remains undistorted. But in HIS house, in his great room (which IS great) the sound bounces around like it was a gym! It's darn difficult to even understand what they are saying on TV! My initial suggestion - acoustic panels to tame the echo - but, 'Won't work for him aesthetically.' Then I hit it - WIRELESS-HEADPHONES. The wife can clatter in the connected kitchen, the sons can bang around all they want and he can clearly hear the lifetime cigarette count in Larry King's voice!
But don't confuse high fidelity wireless-headphones with the toys that are pretenders. If you read the In-Ear Monitor section, you know that rock stars are often listening to wireless headphones on stage. This is like that, except we're going to talk about 'over the ear' headphones that don't come with groupies.
Underlined links will take you to more information on select headphones and an opportunity to purchase them at great prices through our affiliation with Amazon.com
Now these are different from the others below - as they transmit by infra-red rays, not radio frequency (like your remote control). So they only go a short way, and not through walls. (26 foot limit) The sound quality is reasonable. There is a switch on the base which allows you to listen in one of three different sound "experiences" - music, cinema, and voice. Digital hookup possible.
Good sound. Good range. Charger stand. What else could you want? Well, they aren't SEALED, so you will still hear what's going around you. And if you lay in bed trying to let your sig other sleep, there will be some leakage. Comfortable and easy to operate. Hang them on the stand and they recharge. On the headband there are controls for tuning, volume, and on/off.
And this couldn't be any simpler - you hook a line output to the base station/charger and it turns on the transmitter when it detects the presence of a signal.
They claim a transmission range of 100 meters, but you know... that's across a meadow or something without walls, and more walls, and walls. Nevertheless, these are da bomb, another way of saying, quite nice. They should cover sufficient distance for most household needs.
The headphone receiver is self-tuning, so the only controls on the headphones are a power on/off switch and a volume control. The battery slips in and out of the earpiece for recharging in the base unit and comes with a spare battery.
At about $1000, The AKG Hearo 999 Audiosphere II Wireless-Headphones
Clearly named by someone who doesn't speak English as a first language, this system is tricked out to include a virtual acoustics processor for a stable and immersive listening experience. Great reception quality. Just a bit bass-shy. It can connect to your home theater system in either the analog or digital domain. But here's the biggie - you can adjust various surround and virtualizing functions. What? You know how headphones 'happen' in your head? Now you can expand your head, so to speak, for a different soundstage that isn't so stuffy. The headphones ship with a spare pair of cushy velour ear pads if you don't like the leather ones supplied on the cans. The transmitter unit is small. The name sucks.
Ca-Ca Doo Doo
Back at the top, we mentioned that there are toy wireless-headphones out there which are crap. Here's an example (in my opinion, so don't sue me if you are the attorney assigned to finding negativity of your client's crappy gear.) I found a major manufacturer's headset system discounted to about $50. Claims a 100 foot range (don't believe it.) Signal to noise ratio of 45db. Whoa! That's TERRIBLE. That means you hear a LOT of hiss or god forbid other noise under - and not far under - the music or dialogue. I promised to try to not get technical so I won't explain signal to noise except to repeat - that's terrible. So the point to be made, and I am trying, please give me that, is some wireless headphones will stink the joint up and you'll think they all do that. It isn't true.
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