Amphony headphones

Amphony 2.4 GHz Wireless Headphones

Cordless, But Not Seamless, Audio

By David Dritsas

Having a good set of headphones can be a great way to listen to music from your home system without disturbing the peace, but there is a shortcoming: the cord that tethers your headset to the stereo. Cords are either too short, or they’re too tangled, or you forget about them and jump up to change CDs and trip over the blasted things. Wireless headphones can help solve this problem. Amphony, a company based in Germany, is offering wireless headphones for $129 that use the 2.4 GHz wireless transmission many cordless phones are using today.

There are two parts to the system: the headphones and the transmitter. The headphones are the kind that completely cover your ears. Amphony has done a nice job in the construction of the headset. It is very comfortable. There is no need to adjust the headband because there is a flexible leather strap between your head and the plastic head band. This pretty much makes for a perfect fit for any head shape. Since the headphones also work as a wireless receiver, each earphone requires an AA battery. A volume control is on the right ear piece.

The transmitter is a small black box with a short antennae. There are RCA stereo inputs in the back for connecting to your audio component, and an RCA stereo cable ships with the device. I found this a bit odd, because this configuration means you need to treat this device like a separate piece of your home system. This assumes the end user would connect this directly to a CD player or DVD player with stereo outputs. To hook it up to an A/V receiver is trickier, because the only way to permanently connect it to a receiver, even a high-end one with several inputs and outputs, is to treat the transmitter as a second zone and send the audio to that zone. Otherwise you are going to have to switch wires every time you want to use the headphones from a different component, and that can be a real inconvenience. A stereo-to-headphone jack adapter so you could just plug into the headphone jack on the receiver would have been nice.

I connected the transmitter directly to my DVD player for my tests, so that I could listen to music or watch a movie. Overall the sound performance was pretty good, although at times there was too much bass. Since I was connected to my DVD player I couldn’t adjust for this, and there are no EQ controls on the transmitter or the headphones. The wireless connection worked, but at times of complete silence, say between songs, I could hear some low-level interference. I walked through my three-story row house and there were no problems until I got to the third floor. There the transmission seemed to fall apart, sounding as if the CD player was skipping badly. My microwave oven created another source of interference. When it was running, even if I was on a different floor, the headphones didn’t work. Overall, problems with the wireless connection are not uncommon with those experienced with similar devices from other companies. Once you understand the limitations, the problems are not as bad as they might sound here. Having the cordless connection is really nice, so long as you don’t microwave any popcorn while trying to enjoy the music.