Good quality, long range wireless headphones

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JBNZ

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#160545 11-Jan-2015 07:45

Hi, I'm looking for a recommendation for some decent wireless headphones preferably with a mic although that's not a necessity.

They will be used for listening to music mainly, rock, punk, pop and folk genres. I'll also use them whilst watching a bit of TV and playing the occasional video game. Plus the very occasional Skype session, although I have another setup for that which would suffice so the mic isn't a deal-breaker.

Possibly the key feature will be the wireless range as I'd like to use them around the house and may be even outside, so a 20 metre range would be good, but I realise you generally compromise on quality once you start to stretch the range (or so I'm led to believe).

Price-wise there's probably a limit around the $400 mark, but if there's a super-cool pair for $450, for example, I would consider them. Although I am hoping to get something for around the $200 mark.

No in-ear options either.

Any help greatly appreciated!

Cheers
John

timmmay

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#1211890 11-Jan-2015 09:44

I run a headphones review website, most wireless headphone are bluetooth, which is short range. That'd be fine for music from your phone, maybe from a TV when you're in the same room, but not much more. You probably want some headphones that work via wifi, which I've never head of, but google brings up some options, like this (not actually released yet) or this.

richms

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#1211956 11-Jan-2015 15:57

Big issue with digital wireless headphones is latency.

Bluetooth usually results in unusable lag making a disjointed skype call even worse, and you get bad lipsync issues (when you actually get a framerate high enough in skype to notice it)

The propitiatory ones with a USB stick to do the PC end are not as bad, but still noticiable in things like movies etc, where the audio lags a few 100ms behind the onscreen action.

There are nice professional solutions for live performances that are used for the in ear monitors and wireless mics that have close to zero latency, but expect to pay much $$ for them, and watch out buying used as there are a lot that are on frequencies that are not now licensed for end users being sold. Plus 700MHz lte will trample all over their weak output.

The pro IEM stuff seems to cover a normal house sized are quite nicely, and they are diversity receivers so you don't get any swooshing noises as you move thru dead spots as you move around.

Richard rich.ms

Sideface

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#1211960 11-Jan-2015 16:46

Good quality, long range wireless headphones for $400?

Which two features would you like? - you won't get all three.

Unfortunately, good audio quality and long range wireless don't co-exist in that price range.

$400 would buy you some excellent wired headphones.

Sideface

ChrisNZL

309 posts

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#1211969 11-Jan-2015 17:21

I bought a PlayStation Gold headset recently, really happy with them. $130 @ Mighty Ape. 4.5/5 stars on Amazon.

You get a USB Wi-fi dongle. Simple plug'n'play, works well with my Windows 7 and PlayStation 4 (I haven't tried my Mac yet).

Built-in mic seems okay; other parties can hear me fine.

Several hours of use in a day and it seems to last, charges via included USB cable, I just plug it in before I go to bed every day or two.

Range, I'd say about 10 meters (though this is me walking past two walls with insulation). So it's good if you want to go into the next room over, or maybe walking around a big room, but doesn't reach my entire house. Once you get too far the sound starts to crackle, and then cuts out once you've gone past its limit.

So the range isn't super super, but not having to muck around with cables is sweet.

Creator of Tallowmere. Working on Tallowmere 2.

rhy7s

623 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1211976 11-Jan-2015 17:39

I have some Sennheiser RS160s for home entertainment listening which are pretty cheap but have digital transmission so they're not hissy. For your use case I don't think you'd need too much more than that really. It's easy to start spending too much in this category. Examples of these and other headsets using the Sennheiser 'Kleer' tech at Amazon.