What condition are these? Grade them please.
From the listing:
Condition: Factory Reconditioned
Below is a link to the Woot item condition glossary.
(Please note: I don’t work for Woot, I just volunteer to help out here on the forums.)
I ordered a pair and I’m returning them. You might have a different experience based on your usage, but these headphones fail in the first quality necessary to function as headphones: they don’t stay on your head. I don’t have a small head either. I put baseball caps on the last or second to the last peg on that plastic strap. Yet, the best case scenario for these headphones after trying to use them in every possible configuration over the last 48 hours or so is that even while sitting more or less upright, and not moving much, they slowly slip off my head, and need constant attention in a way that isn’t just distracting, but really, really annoying.
Designed, no doubt, for what the makers would call “comfort” they are, in fact, just loose. While you can adjust the length of the “arms” of the headset, there’s no way to change the tension with which those arms “grip” your head. There is a strap below the “bow” of the headset, which you can adjust a bit (there are two pegs on either side and the strap has three holes) but that just lowers or raises where the strap is relative to the headset. It gives you more space between the strap and the “bow” of the headset, but doesn’t make them tighter. Worse, the strap is a smooth (there’s a design on it, but that design is not made to grip anything) nylon-like material as are the “muffs” for the ears, and they just slide around on my head. Again, I’m sure the designers would say that’s for “comfort” but comfort shouldn’t mean they just don’t stay on. Feeling like the thing is constantly about to fall off is far less comfortable than a firmer fit. God forbid I should do something like lean back in my chair, take a sip of water, or turn my head quickly. If I look up or down at about a 35-40 degrees they just slip right off.
I set things to the “tightest” possible with the arms at minimum length and the strap at it’s tightest, then affixed a 6" piece of velcro to the strap so it would at least have some sort of friction, but that only improves the situation slightly. I can look up/down about 50 degrees before they fall off. I was going to use my heat gun to loosen up the plastic and try to bend it into a more practical shape, but on reflection I figure that would 100% “ruin” them for return purposes. Besides, I bought these things to replace an old worn headset that actually still works better than these–at least in the sense that they don’t fall off. I shouldn’t have to mod them to make them work at that most basic level right out of the box.
So, buy these if you have the head the size of a 20 lbs. turkey, want to spend your time with one hand holding them on, don’t mind putting them in place with a few thumbtacks in your scalp, or plan to sit perfectly still while using them.
All that aside, several reviewers have noted that the buttons are fiddly. These is true, but I think you could get accustomed to that without too much difficulty–if they stay on your head long enough, that is. Most of the rest of the construction is plastic that doesn’t feel great at this price point. It’s thin and seems like it was minimalist, like plastic is expensive or something. The buttons and volume control feel “light”, as if they might accidentally get activated if you just brush them, and the construction doesn’t feel like it’ll last very long to me. I don’t intend to use them, so I won’t find out.
The plastic construction of the headset does convey an awful lot of sound to your ears when touching the headset, though. Of course you’re going to get some sort of sound touching something covering your ears but other headsets I own/use do not conduct that much sound simply by touching them. So, fiddly or not, when touching the buttons you’re like a goldfish in a bowl when someone is tapping on the glass, and since the headset doesn’t stay on firmly, you constantly HAVE to touch them. Again, some sound is inevitable, but this headset is worse than any others I own/have owned.
The sounds made by the headset when activating aren’t necessarily helpful. A rising set of three tones to denote power on and three descending for power off is OK, I guess, but other headsets will say “Power On” or “power off” tyvm. A single tone for bluetooth connectivity or not (still not sure) isn’t really helpful. Does that mean bluetooth is connected, searching, disconnected or off? They couldn’t just say “connecting…” like some of the cheapest bluetooth audio devices I’ve bought from China? A full breakdown of the sounds made by the headset may be somewhere in the tiny script manual.
Lots of Amazon reviews rave about the sound quality, and I won’t argue the point other than to say for the amount of $ they want for these the sound quality is about right. I’m wearing a pair right now that I spent $20-30 on years ago and though the sound isn’t as good, they are lighter, and they stay on my head and the sound is about 90% as good as this headset.
So, return or regift if I can think of someone with a giant melon head…
Thanks for the thorough review!