Review: Sennheiser RS-120 Wireless headphones
With the arrival of a new baby in the house next door, more specifically, the room through the wall from mine, means my late night rave sessions are going to need a bit of toning down.
Though I already have a set of Zalman surround headphones I use for gaming, the cable is quite a pain even when sitting in my chair; Let alone when trying to move around my room. I decided on RF (Radio Frequency.) headphones as, while bluetooth would be much more compact, and would mean I could hook them to my laptop as well, the sound quality is not reputed to be on the same level as RF.
I settled on the Sennheisers and, while I have some warning for those looking at wireless headphones, I am definitely pleased with what they can do.
The RS-120s are big headphones that cover the ear with open cups, run off two AAAs and, take their signal from a transmission base which also acts as the charging station. The base connects to your source of choice through a 3.5mm jack and to the mains via a wall wart.
In terms of sound quality, these are definitely the best headphones I have. Though it’s difficult to compare to the ER-6is, which I use to listen to music in loud places, I’d say they are just as good as wired headphones and even my bookshelf speakers when it comes to listening to 320kbps mp3s, TV shows and video games.
Dampening of external sound is not terribly great. You can still have a conversation while wearing them so they may not be so useful for office environments.
They loose few points when it comes to comfort as their design has a tendency to slip when tilting your head up or down. I also can’t use them as long as my speakers, as due to them pressing directly onto the ear, instead of on the area around it, they cause a pain, which I was beginning to think was from having them on too loud, until I realised I could still hear fine and, the pain continued even with the headphones turned off.
Range is pretty astonishing, I can walk down three floors with no loss of clarity (Though I have to turn them up slightly.). While you get some static, it’s difficult to notice and can be avoided by turning your soundcard up, and the headphones’ built in amplification down.
I haven’t had any major problems with interference tuning to one of the tree available channels. Mobile phones still make the beeping noise but only if they’re on the desk in front of you and it isn’t that loud.
A big plus not having to worry about how my speakers are balanced. As my PC is right next to the right speaker, I usually have to mess around with the balance. With headphones, no matter where I am or which way I’m facing, left and right sound just fine.
My biggest gripe, by quite some way, is that, after five minutes without input, the transmitter, not the headphones, cuts out, resulting in a mass of static coming through the headphones. Of all things that make me consider getting a different pair, this is probably the biggest. I’ll pause my music to read something and, halfway through reading, my ears are filled with static hiss. Neither good nor really necessary. If these were meant for people watching films, either setting the time-out to half an hour or having the headphones do the turning off, would have been a much better idea.
In terms of battery life, the RS-120s run from a pair of AAA batteries which give it battery life of about two days typical listening. While you can put the headphones on the transmitter (Which doubles as a charging stand.), I prefer to let the batteries charge all the way down in one go then swap them out with charged ones and use a separate battery charger to charge the empties.
To get the best battery life, I let my USB soundcard do all the amplifying (Turn it up to max.) which lets me keep the headphones turned down and helps cut down on background static, which you’ll get if you let the headphones do most of the amplification.
Overall, while they trip up in a few areas, the Sennheiser RS-120s are well worth the £45, letting you listen to whatever you want, whenever you want, without the trouble of upsetting others or being restricted by the length of the cable.
It’s strong points are in sound quality and excellent range but could definitely be improved by the removal of the auto-off feature and a more comfortable design.
