Philips X2hr Fidelio Over Ear Headphone, Black

Philips X2HR Fidelio Over Ear Headphone, Black

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• High Resolution audio with 50mm high power drivers
• Acoustic open-back design
• Breathable velour cushions
• Memory foam ear pads
• 3.5mm to 6.3mm adaptor included.Connectivity Technology: Wired

Buy Now : Philips X2HR Fidelio Over Ear Headphone, Black

Brand : PHILIPS
Category : Electronics,Headphones, Earbuds & Accessories,Headphones & Earbuds,Over-Ear Headphones
Rating : 4.5
Price : US $159.99
Review Count : 866
SalesRank : 0

Philips X2HR Fidelio Over Ear Headphone, Black

• I see a lot of reviews that start as \"I\'m no audiophile, but...\" I will put my experience with audio, and let you decide how much my review is worth.I have owned a full 5.1 surround set of polk audio powered by a yamaha surround. I have since downgraded to a bose cinemate (the one with the two little \'simulated\' surround sound speakers and a sub) thanks to my fiance not liking bulky speakers. Honestly it has worked just fine for me, though I can tell a definite difference in surround quality vs 5.1.Headphone experienced is limited to a Playstation 3 headset, and a turtle beach before that ($90 one) My most recent headset was the Sony Pulse. I would use it mainly for gaming, but discovered I really liked to listen to music from youtube on it while working on my laptop. It was awesome, until it broke recently. So I began my quest...I haven\'t been doing as much gaming lately due to owning a business and working on my laptop writing articles and working on facebook advertising campaigns, so I wondered if I could get even better sound from a regular set of headphones. I researched for roughly a week and seemed stuck and overwhelmed.Initially, I was leaning toward wireless because I loved the freedom so much. Washing dishes, getting up to refill my water, taking a pee... it was all so easy with wireless. As I read, however, I heard about things like soundstage, muffled bass, veiled sound, dark, warm, neutral, etc. I knew there was more to the listening experience than I was ever aware of, and was really curious just how good music could sound...My budget was initially $200, as the most I\'ve ever spent was roughly 120 on the Pulse. As I\'m sure you have, I came across all the usual suspects... Sony MDR line, ATH-M50/50x, Sennheiser, Beyerdynamics... I read reviews, here and in audiophile land, like a monster. I became obsessed. I wanted that absolute best bang for my buck as I always do with important purchases. And sound quality had become very important the more I had read.I was dead set on the Sony x950bt (the one with extra bass boost button) because it was wireless and people said it was the best wireless sounding HP they have ever heard.. even people who owned infamous Sennheiser HD600 were saying that so I believed it. I read a 25 page thread on head-fi about them, following mods people were doing to them to get them to sound better. The price had been down to 99, and 149, but was currently 199, and I sure didn\'t want to have to mod it out at that price just to sound right! I would have felt cheated if I paid that much so I said \"to hell with it\" and started looking at higher quality wired ones.I didn\'t know anything about Ohms, or output or any of the other technical jargon people were talking about with amps, so my goal was to get a high quality headphone that didn\'t need an amp... was that even possible. According to one angel of a reviewer, it was. He had recommended to another poster similar to me that he should just get the Fidelio x2 and be done with it because it didn\'t need an amp. I popped that into my google search and it brought me here...The reviews for this thing, apart from a couple easily dismissed 3 star reviews, blew me away! This could be exactly what I was looking for. I will disclose that I bought it for a straight 300 shipped from amazon directly, and paid the $5 to overnight it.About an hour later, a client had a pair of ATH-M50x that he wears to work everyday. I tried it. It sounded great, but not very much better than my old pulse, and had a wire. It also didn\'t turn up nearly loud enough for me. I started getting worried that I didn\'t go high-end enough with the fidelios, as I had heard the two compared by another poster on a forum.They showed up to my work the next day, and luckily I was on break. Plugged them into the Samsung S5, and pulled up my favorite mix on Youtube for a test (Vol. 3 Epic Legendary Intense Massive Heroic Vengeful Dramatic Music Mix - 1 Hour Long) I put it to 7 min as that is a song that always gets my blood pumping, and began my initial test...First thought: OMG these are CLEAR! I could hear everything. I understood exactly what they meant by open soundstage. I wasn\'t immediately blown away because of one thing though... I felt there was a lack of bass, and I couldn\'t really feel the music as I had on the pulse. All the reviews talking about this having a lot of bass, I thought were slightly misleading for a noob like me. That\'s what I thought, but have since reversed my decision and will explain later.Comfort: Unbelievable. I have large ears and headphones become uncomfortable usually after an hour or two. Not these. I wore these for a six hour stretch while sitting in my recliner and working on my laptop, and not a single pressure point or sense of discomfort. The ear cups are the softest things I have ever felt; I believe they are some kind of velour over memory foam! As others have said, the universal strap, while it looks dorky as hell, is perfect and molds excellently to your head. I felt they were a bit clampy at first, but that went away in a matter of days with no outside influence other than my head.Side note: the Pulse, and any other headset I\'ve had ritually left indentations in my scalp after a long wearing session. It became painful and so did my ears. Not even a trace of those problems with this X2. I can\'t even describe the comfort.Fatigue: I regularly had to take off my previous headsets due to fatigue. Not sure if that was due to them all being closed cans, or the small soundstage, but it was true. I didn\'t WANT to take these off at all! I even carried my laptop in to the bathroom with me because I didn\'t want to stop hearing my music!!! I was blown away by the comfort. Yesterday I was dying to put these on and go into the other room and work, but life happens, and I have a fiance that requires some talking too (boooooo lol)This morning the first thing I ran downstairs to do was put these on and write this review! I swear your ears feel naked without them! And your music turns into crack for your ears. Life just gets boring without these on...Back to the Bass issue... I was at best buy yesterday for an unrelated purchase, and couldn\'t help myself but to go demo the Sony Extra Bass wireless headset. The guy unhooked it so I could use my phone, and I put it to the exact point I did for my first test of the x2 so I could have some consistency in my test. I was blown away by how bad they sounded! I understood what people meant by a dark veil over some HPs... they had it bad. The clarity was nowhere even close.So the bass with the X2... I understand now what people mean by \"there is bass where it was INTENDED to be.\" These definitely have the bass, and you can feel it, it just isn\'t OVERPOWERING like most less expensive HPs you might be used to. It\'s almost like the bass is in the background where it is supposed to be. Sometimes you can feel it even when you don\'t really hear it, because you are focused on the main sound of the song. I hope that helps somebody.Leakage: Leakage is bad at high levels. I had to turn it to about half volume for my fiance to watch TV in the same room comfortably. And the funny thing is, the music still sounded awesome at mid volume! Even now alone I\'m at only 2/3s or 3/4ths because it is so adequate. You know all those other HPs how you have to turn it up to actually hear what\'s going on? Not these, they are so clear you can listen to them at low levels and still love your music!Isolation: They are open back so obviously not as good as closed. But to be honest, at mid volume I didn\'t have a problem with her TV watching. At 3/4 you can only hear the gunshots or hard bass of what somebody is watching. At full volume forget about it. Perfectly fine for me.Open back HP magic effect: I have read about the effect open ears do, that it seems like the music is being played in the room, not in your ears. This effect is very minimal to my ears. I can still tell I\'m wearing headphones. I imagine you would have to either listen at low volumes, or really zone out and focus. Or maybe it is happening and that is why I feel so good wearing these things. I haven\'t had a nice set of closed backs so I can\'t really compare. But one thing is for sure... you can close your eyes and feel like you are at an orchestra or rock concert, so maybe that is the effect they are talking about.Build Quality: Top notch. Plenty of metal where it counts, plenty of cushion where it counts. One complaint is the wire is 9 feet. No problem when sitting in a chair or at a desk I assume, but getting up to move around is a PITA. I need suggestions on a 3 foot cord, so anybody who is reading this please put a comment on with a recommendation, I would really appreciate it.In conclusion I can say these were an awesome investment at 300. I haven\'t looked at options in the 400 range, so I cannot say whether or not it is better than other offerings in that range. I will say that the majority of people in the industry I have read are saying these are better than most offerings in a much higher price range. For what it is worth, I would have paid $400 for these after hearing them for a few hours.Hopefully my noob opinion will help one of you reading this!

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