A Feast For The Ears For A Wonderful Price!

For a number of years, I had owned a pair of Sony MDR-V600 studio headphones that I had received as a gift about 15 years ago. Although their price at the time was about $150 CDN, I had always been disappointed by the lack of rich bass. As a result, I never really listened to them as much as I would have listened to better-sounding ones. And despite their lack of use, the cheap vinyl ear pad covers began to crack and flake away after only a few years of use. But I stuck with them mainly because I think I feared that I would have had to spend a lot more to get better quality for over-the-ear headphones. I just didn’t want to spend a lot and be disappointed. So I longed for the day when I could get a nice-sounding pair for a decent price.

So on a whim last week, I saw this nice pair of Panasonic RP-HTX7 headphones in a store then did a quick Google search in order to read customer reviews about them. Although few existed, they were mostly all very favorable, so I decided to pay my $80 CDN and try them out. I liked their look plus the fact that the 3.9-foot cord was supplemented by a supplied 6.6-foot cord extension and a 1/8” to 1/4” plug adaptor. On top of all this, I’ve always been quite satisfied with Panasonic products.

I never really noticed how good these headphones sounded until I played part of a song with my old Sony phones then immediately did the same with the Panasonics. I repeated this process with several songs until I was convinced that I was actually hearing what I thought I was hearing! Frankly, I was shocked at how rich and deep the bass was when compared with the Sonys – the Sonys could barely compete with the Panasonics. And the treble complemented the bass nicely by not being too crisp or ‘tinny’. Overall, the sound was so close to what I consider to be perfect that I couldn’t believe I was listening to $80 headphones!

Comparing these with typical bud earphones, these have far richer bass unless you’re willing to pay a lot for the in-the-ear sound-blocking style of bud earphones. But I’ve read that people have been using these Panasonics on their iPods and other portable players, so you can still get that rich sound for a much better price, although they obviously lack the portability of bud phones.

In terms of build quality, this is the only area where these headphones lose points. I wasn’t surprised to be getting vinyl ear and headband padding for the price, but leather would have been a nice touch nonetheless. But I guess in this case you get what you pay for. My only concern about this is durability, as once again I don’t want the vinyl to be so cheap that it begins to crack and flake away after only a couple years of use. But I’m assuming this, aren’t I? This may or may not happen. Also, the ear cups themselves are made of plastic, not something more durable like metal. On the plus side, the rails along which the ear cups slide are made of metal, and the range of ear cup adjustment appears large enough to adapt to practically any head size.

In addition to fantastic sound, these headphones are amazingly comfortable. Having used them to watch lengthy movies after my kids have gone to bed, they have never once felt heavy or irritating; I hardly notice that I’m wearing headphones at all. Both the headphones and cords are very light. I suppose this is where vinyl and plastic win out over leather and metal. And the ear cups fit nicely over my average-sized ears, blocking sound effectively both ways: I can hardly hear the outside world, and it can hardly hear what I’m enjoying.

The bottom line is that you’re getting incredible sound quality from these headphones considering what you’re paying, although the build quality is what you’d expect for the price. So all things considered, I give these headphones a very high rating. If you insist on much better build quality, expect to pay at least double, although I argue that you would likely get only a marginal improvement in sound quality.