threedee
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Dec 6, 2007
- Posts
- 34
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- 0
Well, had them a week and now my impressions about Philips SBC HD1500u.
Thats the set i have:
http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1...x/ed275496.jpg
Now decoder/amp is connected to PC (X-Fi) over d-coax, TV over analogue, PS2 over optical. One analogue input left.
Headphones will live for 7-8 hours on a supplied battery pack (2x1200mAh supplied battery pack) or about 14-15 with my 2x2500mAh AA rechargeables, which is very good either way. The recharger in a base station is a brilliant idea. No nonsense like charging HEADPHONES on a base station, or additional cables running to separate charger to the wall, etc. When headphones start run out of juice they cut the signal and beep to make you aware they're about to die (which will happen in about 30 minutes or so(on 2x1200mAh pack)). I like the idea of two supplied battery packs, that you can exchange instantly between base and headphones, almost no interruption in whatever you're doing. Photo shows a charger trapdoor on front left.
Distance so far is a mystery, never tried. But there is 100% signal in the darkest corner of my house, which is good enough. No breaks, noise and all that. You do get the occasional quiet pop when headphones switch frequencies, when...losing a signal ? Very rare, in my house at least.
Got into my car outside the house, thats where signal started to get weak. But if to take straight line from a base station to headphones in this situation - theres at lead a meter of brick in between. So no wonder. But if you stay still where signal is bit rubbish headphones somehow stabilize output. Dont ask, dont know. Pure voodoo if you ask me.
Transmission is digital so, there is no "bad sound" as in noise, crackling popping, picking up neighbours mobile phone transmission (i'm looking at you Speed-link Medusa) and whatnot... Digital is digital. Either there is signal or there is not.
If there is no input (from any source) to the decoder for about one minute, headphones go to power saving mode. It takes the headset approximately one second to wake up from that when any sort of input is detected. Nicely done.
Supports Not only Dolby Digital and Headphone, but also DTS, PL (II?) and plain old stereo. I liked the night mode, which compresses sound so there is no need to grab the volume when you barely can hear dialogue or some stuff is blowing up all around you.
The headset is surprisingly comfortable, but on a heavy side to compare with my old Technics RP-F350, but it is sort of "feel good" sort of heavy, quality sort of heavy. Initially i was afraid the cups would be a bit too small, but after wearing them for couple of hours i start to feel that they are exactly right and my former RP-F350 is a bit too loose, too big
The head band is an interesting thing. I dont feel the need to adjust them, they sort of "adjust themselves". They even fit to my daughters 7 month young head
(she can only barely keep the head up and level with those, though
Still too tipsy while sitting, bless her)
On the right shell (or rather equipment housing) is all the controls for headphone side of things - BASS and TREBLE boost buttons, On/Off button and volume control returning slider. As name suggests the volume slider is held in a centre position by a spring, and you adjust volume by pushing it up or down from central position. No analogue controls exist such as knobs or dials.
I gave just finished watching Otomo's Steam Boy, was well impressed with DH (DH1 in this particular case). There was enough hiss and enough boom in that 5.1 fed through X-Fi's coax spdif. Only by turning off the DH i understood how clinically "clean" is 5.1 sound. Didnt like that at all. Now everything i stuff through decoder goes through DH1.
Music sometimes has to be listened without DH, likes of Jean-Michel Jarre, his stuff is atmospheric as it is
One major let down were analogue outputs for wired headphones. Hiss is there even when all inputs are physically disconnected. Defeats the purpose of having a good quality decoder for good quality input and then messing it up with crap analogue output... What is hood is that you can hook up up to four wireless headsets to the base station (i think, need to confirm, RTFM so to speak).
Overall its an impressive piece of hardware and i think it deserves every penny i spent and time wasted locating/buying it.
Very rare at that. There is no way in hell you can easily locate this unit in online shops in UK, let alone brick-and-mortar. I have imported from germany. Paid 230eur in all, 213 for the set, rest for shipping. If you'll shop around for highest price i've seen them units go for almost 500 euro (nuts !!!)...
One more (bad?) thing about this unit is that it doesnt have a 5.1 analogue inputs. I knew it wouldnt have it, but being a gamer i like to have things like that. Now i'll have to flog my X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS and buy Auzentech X-Fi Prelude 7.1, which has Dolby Digital Live realtime encoding capabilities, outputting either through coax or optical. Shopping begets shopping i guess... 130 more quid for a sound card
There, i did it. Any comments ? Questions ?
Thats the set i have:
http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1...x/ed275496.jpg
Now decoder/amp is connected to PC (X-Fi) over d-coax, TV over analogue, PS2 over optical. One analogue input left.
Headphones will live for 7-8 hours on a supplied battery pack (2x1200mAh supplied battery pack) or about 14-15 with my 2x2500mAh AA rechargeables, which is very good either way. The recharger in a base station is a brilliant idea. No nonsense like charging HEADPHONES on a base station, or additional cables running to separate charger to the wall, etc. When headphones start run out of juice they cut the signal and beep to make you aware they're about to die (which will happen in about 30 minutes or so(on 2x1200mAh pack)). I like the idea of two supplied battery packs, that you can exchange instantly between base and headphones, almost no interruption in whatever you're doing. Photo shows a charger trapdoor on front left.
Distance so far is a mystery, never tried. But there is 100% signal in the darkest corner of my house, which is good enough. No breaks, noise and all that. You do get the occasional quiet pop when headphones switch frequencies, when...losing a signal ? Very rare, in my house at least.
Got into my car outside the house, thats where signal started to get weak. But if to take straight line from a base station to headphones in this situation - theres at lead a meter of brick in between. So no wonder. But if you stay still where signal is bit rubbish headphones somehow stabilize output. Dont ask, dont know. Pure voodoo if you ask me.
Transmission is digital so, there is no "bad sound" as in noise, crackling popping, picking up neighbours mobile phone transmission (i'm looking at you Speed-link Medusa) and whatnot... Digital is digital. Either there is signal or there is not.
If there is no input (from any source) to the decoder for about one minute, headphones go to power saving mode. It takes the headset approximately one second to wake up from that when any sort of input is detected. Nicely done.
Supports Not only Dolby Digital and Headphone, but also DTS, PL (II?) and plain old stereo. I liked the night mode, which compresses sound so there is no need to grab the volume when you barely can hear dialogue or some stuff is blowing up all around you.
The headset is surprisingly comfortable, but on a heavy side to compare with my old Technics RP-F350, but it is sort of "feel good" sort of heavy, quality sort of heavy. Initially i was afraid the cups would be a bit too small, but after wearing them for couple of hours i start to feel that they are exactly right and my former RP-F350 is a bit too loose, too big
The head band is an interesting thing. I dont feel the need to adjust them, they sort of "adjust themselves". They even fit to my daughters 7 month young head
On the right shell (or rather equipment housing) is all the controls for headphone side of things - BASS and TREBLE boost buttons, On/Off button and volume control returning slider. As name suggests the volume slider is held in a centre position by a spring, and you adjust volume by pushing it up or down from central position. No analogue controls exist such as knobs or dials.
I gave just finished watching Otomo's Steam Boy, was well impressed with DH (DH1 in this particular case). There was enough hiss and enough boom in that 5.1 fed through X-Fi's coax spdif. Only by turning off the DH i understood how clinically "clean" is 5.1 sound. Didnt like that at all. Now everything i stuff through decoder goes through DH1.
One major let down were analogue outputs for wired headphones. Hiss is there even when all inputs are physically disconnected. Defeats the purpose of having a good quality decoder for good quality input and then messing it up with crap analogue output... What is hood is that you can hook up up to four wireless headsets to the base station (i think, need to confirm, RTFM so to speak).
Overall its an impressive piece of hardware and i think it deserves every penny i spent and time wasted locating/buying it.
Very rare at that. There is no way in hell you can easily locate this unit in online shops in UK, let alone brick-and-mortar. I have imported from germany. Paid 230eur in all, 213 for the set, rest for shipping. If you'll shop around for highest price i've seen them units go for almost 500 euro (nuts !!!)...
One more (bad?) thing about this unit is that it doesnt have a 5.1 analogue inputs. I knew it wouldnt have it, but being a gamer i like to have things like that. Now i'll have to flog my X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS and buy Auzentech X-Fi Prelude 7.1, which has Dolby Digital Live realtime encoding capabilities, outputting either through coax or optical. Shopping begets shopping i guess... 130 more quid for a sound card
There, i did it. Any comments ? Questions ?
