Headphones that stick to your head

PHILIPS has a set of in-ear Bluetooth headphones called the SHB5800 that’s easily paired with your smartphone or an MP3 player as long as it has the matching NFC technology.

Finely engineered drivers ensure solid bass and good details in the music – 6mm neodymium drivers backed by a frequency range from 8 to 22,000Hz. You get 16 ohms of impedance and good sensitivity at 105dB.

Connectivity is based on Bluetooth 3.0+EDR and you can synch in with the Bluetooth profiles A2DP, AVRCP, HFP and HSP. You can be standing 10 metres away from the music player (or smartphone) and still hear every fleeting nuance in the tunes.

Weighing just 15 grams, the SHB5800 is very comfortable to wear. To guarantee a good fit |there are interchangeable |rubber ear-caps in three sizes, small to large, and two sizes of |in-ear secure locks to attach to your earlobes that stop the earpieces popping out.

In fact you’re buttoned up securely enough that you can go jogging or do other types of exercise while wearing the kit, and the headphones are sweat-proof as well thanks to special IPX2 materials.

The headphones double as a Bluetooth headset with a multi-purpose play/pause button. |Press it once to take an incoming call or press and hold to reject |the call. Press twice to dial the |last number called. There’s also call-waiting – press the same |button twice to switch between callers.

The volume buttons are right beside the play/pause button and can also be used to skip forward and backward between tracks.

I tested the headphones with a Sony NWZ-A15 Walkman player that has NFC technology and both normal and high-resolution audio Bluetooth connectivity. When I tapped the headphones’ and the Walkman’s NFC marks together, the two devices automatically established a normal-resolution audio Bluetooth link.

The music sounded fine through the SHB5800, with crisp details and solid bass. You have to make sure the ear caps are properly seated inside your ear canals, choosing the ear cups that fit best to seal out external noise. In this way the highly intricate Roger Waters album “The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking” became a revelation of previously missed ambient sounds within the former Pink Floyd bassist’s thundering deep notes.

I could easily listen to this |sort of music for hours and, thanks to the sheer comfort of the headphones and a rechargeable battery that keeps up with you (for five hours, anyway), that’s just what I did.

RTB Technology distributes the SHB5800 in black or white for Bt2,990.

 

Key Spec

 

- Frequency range:  8 to 22, 000Hz

- Magnet type: Neodymium

- Speaker diameter: 6mm

- Diaphragm: PET

- Impedance: 16 ohms

- Maximum power input: 25mW

- Type: Dynamic

- Acoustic system: Closed

- Sensitivity: 105dB

- Sound Enhancement: Echo Control, Noise Reduction

- Voice coil: Copper

- Bluetooth profiles: A2DP, AVRCP, HFP, HSP

- Bluetooth version:   3.0+EDR

- Maximum range:  Up to 10m

- Dimensions: 3.5x8x3.5cm

- Weight: 15g