Excuse the quality and the shape of the headphones in the photo. My room is very dusty.
The SHP9600s that I am reviewing were purchased with my own money about a year ago, using a sale coupon that made them cost around $89. The regular price at the time was $149 in my country, which, considering the competition, was a pretty bad idea on Philips' part.
This is also my first review of an over-ear headphone - I've only done one proper IEM review aside this, so feel free to take me with a grain of salt. This hobby is subjective, after all, and I'd like to see differing opinions on a headphone, especially one like this.
Packaging, Build, Comfort
If you've ever handled Philips products before, which I have many times before (TVs, shavers and even an espresso machine), you know their packaging is pretty much no-nonsense and mostly consumer-grade. The SHPs arrive in a blue box showing the cans front, right and center. (Box bottom is cropped out due to showing the store and order details.)
The inside of the box tells a similar story, with a black-sleeved box concealing the headphones inside a black sort-of plastic bag, which, when I first opened it, hit me with such a strong factory smell I had to vent my room for a solid hour. After that, no such smell was retained, thankfully. Alongside the headphones you also get a 6.35mm adapter and a 3m 3.5mm-terminated cable.
I actually prefer the way the 9600s look compared to the 9500s. While the 9500s have a far more characteristic look, with the massive L and R on each cup, the 9600s opt for none of that, going for a jet-black color with a bronze-ish tint on the cup rings to give a bit of contrast to the overall look. L and R are signified on the inside, right above the sliders. The tint is actually disappearing from mine due to how much I use them. It's not a big deal for me.
What is a big deal, unfortunately, is the overall assembly quality. These are basically almost the same as the 9500s, and that brings in the same issues. Thankfully, and I'm giving one big pro here, these have
clamp! Not enough to matter a lot, unfortunately, but they don't have the same "they only sit on your ears through the power of God" vibe as the 9500s.
They still need more, as they fall off quite easily still, but Philips tried to fix that in the Fidelio series. Tried is perhaps a strong word.
With the assembly being similar, these are
quite light and comfortable to wear over long periods, no thanks to the material of the pads (they used to snag on my facial hair though, when I still had that), but they also still feel quite rickety. Being mostly plastic, and not a particularly quality type of plastic at that, these feel
pretty cheap, which at the price point they used to be sold at (it's around the same as 9500s nowadays) was unacceptable. It still kind of is now, and you should take additional care when handling these, as they're not big fans of punishment. Cup swivel is minimal, but to the point that adjusting them to fit better on your head is not a big deal. There is plenty of space inside the cups themselves to fit plenty of ears, mine included, and I found myself actually sleeping with these quite often. By the way, don't do that.
The
cable was always problematic for me, until my dog chewed it up, at least. Waiting on a 3rd party cable just to get these back on track. 3m (9ft or so) is mildly insane, even given the more intended use of these being in the same room for months on end. The cable is decently supple, but could use more give. The rubber coating didn't feel particularly good and wouldn't last long anyway. The metal ends were actually very good, and the provided adapter also feels nice. With the 9600 being terminated in 3.5, getting a third-party cable is a simple affair, thankfully. I'd recommend getting a shorter cable.
Sound quality
Sources used were the
FiiO BTR5 2021, M-Audio AIR 192|4 (both with stock and ASIO4All drivers),
and the Xiaomi Poco X3 (LineageOS 19). The SHPs are almost
comically easy to power, and can handle about up to 200mW of power.
Nothing strong is needed to run these. I'd actually suggest to not give these a ton of power unless you wanna blow them up, either. Pairing these up with an okay DAC is probably also a good shout.
For those that are familiar with the SHP9500 sound, you know that they're probably better suited for playing games and watching movies than listening to music, mostly thanks to their frankly egregious treble response, though still not as bad as some Beyers. The SHP9600s manage to improve on that, albeit in some parts not by a whole lot.
First off, these have
low-end..well, sort of. As with most open-backed headphones, there is a significant bass roll-off, but there's a mid-bass hump that gives the bass a bit of body that it desperately needs to make the SHPs more enjoyable. This comes at a cost of not-insignificant
bass bleed, which can muffle the mids slightly. Thankfully, the mids on the 9600s are executed in a pretty solid way, even if they're nothing stand-out. I didn't experience any particular honk or wonk. Bonus points there, as I'm a big jazz guy and I like my vocals to sound natural, or at least close to it.
The treble could still be better, though. You can still tell that these are..well, bright. The low-end helps a lot to rein in that impression, but in songs where you can hear particularly aggressive strings, this tends to be a minor nuisance. Overall, however, the treble extends well enough and doesn't give any compressed feeling, at least to my ears.
Staging, imaging
I'll keep this one short as I'm not exactly perfectly versed in this and don't listen to many orchestra recordings. The soundstage on the 9600s is actually
above average, with the presentation feeling overall nicely spacious and not concentrated, but decently diffused. This also helps the SHPs a lot, and they don't give any claustrophobic feelings when sitting on top of your head. The
imaging is mildly below-average, though, as I have a hard time actually telling apart where the instruments are placed at times, and sometimes they
aren't separated too well. These are caveats I can forgive at this price point, as they're not stuck in mid-fi hell.
Conclusion
The SHP9600s are quite decent overall. However, I still can't exactly recommend them. Especially at full price, they're absolutely massacred by the competition - you can get a pair of HD560s around that price very often. I also have to give the Koss KSC75 and KPH30i a shout here, as they're quite well tuned, even if the former lacks low-end, similar to the 9600s. Those are also around a third of the price compared to these, too!
If you manage to get these under $70, they're worth a try. Around the $120-150 mark they should not be considered.
Then again I've never heard SHP9600 so this is all speculation. However I did own SHP9500 and I didn't like it for music (didn't try gaming). My "bar" was Denon D2000 and I thought it was better on everything. My friend with HD800 and HD650 also didn't like SHP9500 either (we each bought a pair at the same time).
But based from this review it sounds like SHP9600 might be worth to try again, also if they are on sale then it makes it even better. Hmmmm...... I'm a bit curious now lol.
EDIT: Just saw the above comment now, in this case I might skip both at this time LOL.