 They Work, But You Get What You Pay For Strengths: -Full base response
-Noticeable noise cancelling effect
-Comfortable fit
Weaknesses: -Base tends to overpower treble
-Headphone adjustment has "cheap" feel
-"Two part" design
Summary: As a frequent business traveler, I've been considering purchase of noise cancelling headphones for some time. This past holiday season I stumbled across the JBL Reference 510 online for around $50 (much less than the $300+ I'd have to shell out for a pair Bose noise cancellers). With this in mind, I decided to give the JBL solution a shot. As I opened the box, I was immediately a little disappointed with two design features. First, the construction of the adjustment mechanism feels cheap (once adjusted, the headphones are quite comfortable). In addition, I was surprised to find that the noise cancelling feature is not integrated into the headset itself. The there is a small black component that houses the battery and produces the noise cancelling signal. Not a big deal, but it makes using the head phones a little less convenient.
On the sound side, this product delivers strong base, but is a little weak on treble. As a result most music sounds slightly muffled (with or without the noise cancelling effect turned on). The noise cancelling does make a noticealb difference when it comes to diminishing or eliminating low frequency ambient noise. The effect is less noticeable in cancelling high frequency noise. Overall it's not a bad entry-level product, but once I decide I'm okay with spending $300-$400 on a set of headphones, I'll be replacing them with a higher end product. Until then I'll be fine knowing I got what I paid for and it's good enough for now.
 There are no comments for this review. Post a comment.
|
100% of People (1/1) found this review helpful. Was this review 
Report this as 
