First thing I going to say is that I receive an W800BT for my honest review, when you open the box, you will find the provided 3.5 cable and the charging cable inside it own box. Under that you will find the headphones, inside a plastic clam shell. Lets talk about the cables, most Bluetooth headphones that I have used in the past always included these cables. While the audio cable looks and feels like it decently made with gold connects. The charging cable that they included is better then the ones I seen from past BT headphones that I owned and at the same time feels like they wont break as easy such as the ones I have.
I know the 3.5 cable is meant to be used with a mp3 player or smart phone when the charge is up. But it's kinda short if you are some one who prefer to use analog over the BT function of the headphones. A second but longer cable for desktop usage would have been useful.
Durability wise the headphones is made out of plastic which feels cheap, Which looks like it could break if it took an hard drop to the floor.
Comfit
Padding on the ear’s and the head feels like p-leather, The headphone sits comfortable on the top of my head, While it doesn’t bother me on my ears, the shape of the ear pads causes it to touch the very bottom of my ear and the top. But it does not hurt. It sits on your head good enough, even with no clamping. Sound isolation isn't perfect but it did block some of my loud case noise.
Adjusting the headphones to fit a larger head is a snap, When you pull down the sides extend and locks into place with a click. Which is good because there are times where headphones that do not had this feature, would always slide out of the setting you had it, causing you to readjust it for your head. With the W800BT you won’t have this issue. But for other people with larger ears or those who wear glasses, you may have to mess with it, to get it to sit right on your head.
Power
They last quite a while when in standby mode which is 35hours, The battery size is 800MA.
Bluetooth
Before you start listening the first thing you should do is turn down the volume, as by default the volume is set to max. Lucky I had it on the table when I started to play some audio. I also tried an 4.0 Bluetooth receiver and an LG 345 Smartphone and both also paired with the W800BT,Even a comcast tv box paired without issues. Also the connection to the headphone hold and did not drop.
With the LG 345 Smartphone I was having some popping issues, it wasn't much but it was there, happen regardless if I was near it or away from it. Interesting enough I didn't have any popping issues when I paired them with my Comcast X5I box when. So it could just
been my phone, As other sources I tried didn't have the issue.
Controls
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to test the function out as the smartphone I had wasn't in service. One of the main problem that I ran into while accessing the buttons, is the location that they are in, I had a hard time changing songs due to holding down the Multi button and hitting volume, I had to put my hand in a certain way to do it and I ended up pausing the song instead of skipping to the next one. Lack of a good placement for the controls, as well lack of seperate buttons for the controls made it painful to use them.
Songs used
Tim Ismag - Bumble Bee
Egopool - Control
Kenji Kawai - Utai IV: Reawakening (Steve Aoki Remix)
Sources
CSR 4.0 BT adapter(PC)
Sound blasterX AE-5 (Direct HP) Analog
Comcast X5I Box/Ipod Mini mp3 player(Bluetooth)
Bluetooth
CSR 4.0 BT USB adapter
Right off the back hit hats,snares are not that clear,some times its an tad harsh depending on the song and other times it not clean. It also have an bit too much details and not just the tinny sound.
The bass have an sub woofer type of sound going for it, when it hit lows the bass becomes muddy, to the point that it's not clear. With Dub-step and any song that used a lot of bass, it was more apparent in the lows.
As for the sound stage, its tiny sorta sounds as the audio is inside your head and spreading out. The separation I would say is avg as some cases the instruments run into each other.
Comcast X5I Box and Ipod Mini (Bluetooth)
I paired the W800BT up with the Comcast X5i-p Box and with the Ipod mini, with the Comcast box I used the EDM music choice channel, and the sound quality was improved, the bass has improved, and it was smoother in the highs. The sound stage small and the image was outside my head. The ipod mini results mirror the results. While the bass has improved, it still has an hint of the sub-woofer style of bass. So The bass could use an bit of tweaking.
Analog(AE-5)
The first thing I notice is the highs, they are clearer and cleaner, but the down side is they are harsh and too detailed. I had the same issue with an Ipod mini and an smart phone that I tried. I had to removed the headphones off my head due to that.
Mid bass has improved, It no longer sound like an sub-woofer or sound muddy, it does have some hit to it, but its not too much. The low bass has also improved and hits hard,I don't hear the issue I heard in BT with the low bass. Drums, snares and hit hats are also heard cleanly but they do have an slight tinny sound.
Separation and sound stage has improved a lot, Instruments are no longer bunched together and I can hear there location easier, which also includes voices. As the Voices come off as being either directly in front of me or to my sides if not both. The sound is now projected outside of your head, instead of being inside, as I hear every thing outside my ears. Now the sound stage is not medium, but its not tiny, but small.
Conclusion
I found the Bluetooth quality to depends on what your pairing it with, when I paired it with the ipod mini and Comcast box and stayed away from any thing that messed with the signal. It did an very good job. I wish the bass was more refined, but that just me. The Bluetooth connection held up which was good, and I did like the long standby time which is an major plus. Which was an improvement over other bluetooth headphones I had in the past, since the headphones I had before would need to be recharge , even when I had them in standby, so the large charge time for standby is good.
The major problem for me is the location of the controls, They should be easier to get to, without having to take the headphones off, which mean if your working out or running, your going to have to fool with it til you get it an volume setting you want, or to an song you want after you take it off to switch the song. As I had to do just take, take the headphones off so i could change the song, as it was faster to just do that on the ipod.
Now the flaw with the headphone is it analog quality, While it did not pair all that great with my AE-5. When I tried to use the 3.5mm with both my LG Leon Smart phone and my Ipod Mini, both did tone down the harshness and the amount of details i had with the sound card, but it still did not help it, as the tinny sound was still there and the highs still had an some harshness to it. Which is an problem for those who rely on having the 3.5mm as an backup, when they run out of charge, as I can still see that happen.
Now if they work on the analog quality and maybe tweak the Bluetooth bass freq then they would have something good.