Epicurean
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2005
- Posts
- 277
- Likes
- 10
I don't see a lot of people with these phones in their sig. I suppose one major reason is that Philips just isn't regarded as very 'hifi', so most people simply ignore them. They are probably also hard to find in the US.
I first heard of these headphones over a year back at a finnish forum, where there was a lot of hype about them, i guess mostly because they happened to be on sale for 99€ in a lot of places. I just so happened to be looking for a new pair of headphones and had heard of the mighty Sennheiser brand, which was - and is - the trendy and most readily available choice in Finland. I happened to walk through one of the stores which had the Philips on sale, and decided to try them out. I compared them to the only other decent headphones in the store, which were the Sony's mdr-580 and mdr-780. It took only a couple of listens and I walked out the stores with my new Philips SBC-HP1000, and I haven't regretted my purchase for a second.
I have now used them as my main headphones for over a year and have yet to find a worthy replacement. They have - to my ears - a very balanced and natural tone and work excellent with just about any music genre. They are very good all-rounders. If I were to trust the frequency response diagram on the box, I think they would actually have the flattest response I've ever seen. I could post some pictures of the diagram later.
The areas where these need to improve would be detail and bass accuracy. My combination of EMU-0404 and PPA can get out a lot of detail from them but I think the limit of the Philips' is passed here. The bass also seemed a little blurred over all, but goes very low and with decent impact. Another thing I like about these cans is that they can go very LOUD without getting too harsh. They actually get better at higher volumes. The soundstage is also very large, and one of the best I've heard.
Rated at 32Ohms and a sensitivity of 106dB they can also be driven un-amped quite well, but they definately improve when amplified, especially the bass.
And priced at around 100€, I definately think these are the best bang for buck in their price class(At least in Finland, that is, where grado rs-1s cost 1200€
).
So, are there any other happy Philips owners out there?
I first heard of these headphones over a year back at a finnish forum, where there was a lot of hype about them, i guess mostly because they happened to be on sale for 99€ in a lot of places. I just so happened to be looking for a new pair of headphones and had heard of the mighty Sennheiser brand, which was - and is - the trendy and most readily available choice in Finland. I happened to walk through one of the stores which had the Philips on sale, and decided to try them out. I compared them to the only other decent headphones in the store, which were the Sony's mdr-580 and mdr-780. It took only a couple of listens and I walked out the stores with my new Philips SBC-HP1000, and I haven't regretted my purchase for a second.
I have now used them as my main headphones for over a year and have yet to find a worthy replacement. They have - to my ears - a very balanced and natural tone and work excellent with just about any music genre. They are very good all-rounders. If I were to trust the frequency response diagram on the box, I think they would actually have the flattest response I've ever seen. I could post some pictures of the diagram later.
The areas where these need to improve would be detail and bass accuracy. My combination of EMU-0404 and PPA can get out a lot of detail from them but I think the limit of the Philips' is passed here. The bass also seemed a little blurred over all, but goes very low and with decent impact. Another thing I like about these cans is that they can go very LOUD without getting too harsh. They actually get better at higher volumes. The soundstage is also very large, and one of the best I've heard.
Rated at 32Ohms and a sensitivity of 106dB they can also be driven un-amped quite well, but they definately improve when amplified, especially the bass.
And priced at around 100€, I definately think these are the best bang for buck in their price class(At least in Finland, that is, where grado rs-1s cost 1200€
So, are there any other happy Philips owners out there?