Hi i've been thinking about buying a pair of Wireless Headphones but i have heard some negative things about them.

Could anyone lay out the pros and cons of them bearing in mind i probably won't notice any minor changes in sound quality compared to speakers because my Hi-Fi isn't exactly amazing.

If anyone can recommend any pairs that would be great, i've been looking at Sennheiser RS45's and some cheaper Technics pairs but i would be open to suggestions of corded pairs if they had a massive cord on them.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

[simon1967]

Pros:
no wires (obviously)
can sit further away from the telly
can pick up stray radio stations
can walk around the house while listening to mtv
er thats it

cons:
short battery life
interference - sometimes it is clear and then you move your head then you get background noise
not a patch on sound quality with corded phones
never silent

this is based on my personal experience with my own sennheiser phones - RS30 - an impulse buy from south africa last year. I have a really old pair of sennheiser corded phones which are about 10 years old so I figured that sennheiser wouldn't put out a design that doesn't work - unfortunately I was wrong.

If you do decide to go for a wireless pair then the best advice I can give would be to buy a set that automatically charges when on the stand with the battery still connected with an additional battery ready to swap over when it runs out. In order to use my RS30's, you have to take the battery out of the phones and place it in the charger. Although the phones look like they charge while they sit on the stand they do not. Not very logical but there you go. FWIW, I have had mine for approx 15 months and used them about 4 times.

good luck

simon

[NicolasB]

The main "con" is one of price. If you buy a pair of normal 'phones for (say) £80 then you're spending £80 on headphones and cable. If you spend £80 on a wireless set then you are spending £80 on headphones, a rechargeable battery, a transformer, a battery charger, a radio or IR transmitter, a radio/IR receiver, a signal modulator and demodulator, and a couple of power switches. So it's not surprising that the quality of a pair of cordless 'phones will be a lot lower than a pair of with-cord 'phones that cost the same money....

Sennheiser RS65 are probably the best buy out there in terms of quality.. avoid the RS85 as they have a noise-reduction circuit built-in which tends to tone things down when it comes to music... battery times around the 4 hour mark usually... anything less than the RS65 really fail to deliver music wise.

You fail to mention how long a cord you would be looking for (for a proper set of cans) .. as extension cables are available.. and what its for.. music or tv.

I want to use them mainly for music but i wouldn't rule out watching TV or DVD's with them at some point.

I would probably want about a 5 Metre cord to let me go anywhere in my room while wearing them.

You can always get an extension cord anyway, I'd be more inclined to get a quality entry-level pair of cans and an extension cable rather than a cheap wireless set.. something like the grado sr60 or sennheiser hd-25sp.. altho if you can spring for the RS65s I doubt you'd regret it.. either way audition where you can and as many as you can first... headphones can be very subjective.

[LV426]

If you DO choose this route - I'd pick something that comes with anything other than NiCd batteries. NiCds are quite unsuitable for electronics because they don't fully discharge and you get the infamous memory effect. NiMh and Li-Ion do not suffer from this.