vvzvlad March 11, 2013 at 09:34

Philips O'Neill The Stretch - Sports Headphones

The collaboration between Philips and O'Neill continues to bear fruit in the form of sports audio accessories. I've already talked about the very pleasant vnutrikalnalnyh headphones (I use them so far ) of The specked with braided wire. This time we'll talk about the older brother - the SHO9565 model, or by the name of the line - The Stretch. This name was not chosen by chance - the headphones are positioned as a product for sports people whose accessories must withstand heavy loads. Is it so?

By the way, the TR55LX is not a headphone model, but a brand of plastic from which the headband is made.

Packaging and equipment

Packaging is a serious box made of thick cardboard, in which, according to a good tradition, there would be enough space for 3 pairs of headphones if you try to push it.

A branded label on one of the sidewalls tells about the properties of the braid of the wire:

Inside everything is as usual - a lodgement of thin plastic, to which the wires and the headphones themselves are attached with a flexible wire.

Wires

But with the wires is already more interesting. The wire of the headphones themselves is very short:

So short that you can hang some kind of mini-player on it and it will hang on it in the neck area. Of course, the bundle comes with a normal-length wire with a control panel, and a small adapter for devices that use a non-Apple-like control system.

There is nothing else in the kit - the adapter is not provided for either 2.5 or 6.35. We connect a long wire to the headphones:

And already, if necessary, a short adapter is connected to it. Apparently, this is done so that when you jerk the wire simply disconnected from the connector, and not break out of the headphones. In addition, another plus was discovered - you can eliminate the twisting of the wire along its axis by simply turning the plug around it - you do not need to get the player or remove the headphones.
The wire itself is braided with fabric, and noticeably thinner than a similar wire from The Specked.

I hope that this will give a serious plus to the strength of the wire. By the way, winter has shown the full suitability of such a wire for frost - although it hardens a little, it does not crack or break.
The connector is located in a rubber shell (to which fine dust and villi stick remarkably - it is very difficult to photograph)

The plug is in a metal case similar to that of the younger brother:

On the wire in the neck area there is a plastic bead of a microphone:

And a little further - a control panel with one button and volume control:

About the console is worth mentioning separately. The volume control on it is analog. Those. just a resistor slider, which is very cool - it will work completely on any player, even the simplest one. Of course, this solution has its drawbacks - during the movement of the slider in the headphones, small noises are heard. Well, okay. The button is the most common, and its implementation depends on the device. In 90% of devices, it will answer the call - the headphones have a microphone, and they can be used as a headset for conversations. Most modern phones and players can pause when a button is pressed once, and switch to the next track when pressed twice. For Android phones, a long press turns on voice search.

Headphones

Back to the headphones. My model is made in strict black and gold:

I have a model SHO9565BK. Be careful, SHO9560 - does not have a remote control and an additional adapter, SHO9567 - have a remote control only for Apple devices (they also do not have an adapter).
The headband consists of two parts - rag, which is adjacent to the head, and nylon, which provides rigidity and flexibility at the same time. True, holding headphones on one ear in a DJ-style is inconvenient, the headphones do not have a third degree of freedom.

There are no size settings. They sat normally on my head - the lower part of the headband rests on an elastic band, which makes it possible to maneuver, there is about 5-6 cm of space. The cups are hinged. By the way, very comfortable - soft and providing good isolation from external noise.
In a very tricky place, the designations of the left and right ears (or ears?) Are hidden - on the inside of the mount:

After they were discovered, I was surprised to realize that I wore the headphones incorrectly - the left part is the one from which the cable comes out.
As the name implied, the headphones are very durable and flexible:

I admit, I bent them at first with some concern, but then I got a taste:

They didn't break.

Inside

Headphones are disassembled simply, but not intuitively. It is not necessary to remove the covers, but simply bend the fabric covering the speaker grill:

4 screws around the perimeter, after which the earphone splits into two halves:

Soldering is good, without snot, everything is neat. Of the interesting ones, there are two tricky-bent phase-inverter tubes:

Sound

Is there sound. And even a good one, except that the high frequencies are a little lacking, and the mid frequencies are a little soapy - not as clear a detail as we would like. Nevertheless, the sound is quite pleasant, without dips and distortions. The bass sounds very noticeable, and in combination with good noise isolation create an excellent effect - boom-boom-boom is heard inside the head, but not so much that it was unpleasant. At least for me.
People complained about the low volume of previous models, but I did not notice it - at maximum volume they sound so that the sound is perfectly audible even when the headphones hang on my neck, and I can’t even think about listening at such volume when wearing.