Review submitted by Bearwife
Author’s Rating:
My initial review was great — I said “I really love these headphones. They are comfortable, make a quick bluetooth connection with my Ipod (just add a bluetooth dingle like Sony’s and an armband Ipod holder) or anything else bluetooth, and provide good quality sound for workouts. They have their minuses — you can’t get them wet, so people with sweaty ears should not buy them, and they are not well made so if the set you get doesn’t work right don’t wait to return them. But there is no better set of wireless bluetooth headphones available, and it is just great to have your music with you when you run without worrying about wires. The controls on the headset are very easy to operate too.”

I stick with what I said before about liking wireless headsets and easy to operate controls, but let me repeat these ARE NOT WELL MADE. My FOURTH set just broke – will no longer take a charge — and I give up. They always break, always. Sony’s headsets are more expensive, but sound just as good, and I will bet they are more durable. I would add that although these headphones are reasonably comfortable, the earpiece tends to bounce out of at least one ear when running, and you can’t wear these headphones and sunglasses at the same time.

Review submitted by I. Wiegman
Author’s Rating:
I run with this thing four times a week. It hooks up seamlessly with my window mobile phone. So I can listen to songs and click over to answer a call without so much as sticking my hand in my pocket. Then the music picks up where I left off. I’m also amazed at the fact that this thing sticks to my ears so well, because I have kind of a narrow head. The thing is light, sweatproof, comfortable, and stylish. The buttons on the side are easy to use and provide a lot of control. I love this thing!

Review submitted by Dax
Author’s Rating:
I have two of these headsets. I use one for the office (everyday use) and another for the Gym (3-4 times a week). I bought it for listening to music on my cell and not for phone calls. It is great. I can change the track & volume without touching my cell, directly from the headset. I don’t really have anything bad to say because it does everything I expected it to do. It fits perfect around my head (I have a big head) and really is comfortable. Really easy to remember the controls (left is volume & right is track changes). I highly recommend this for those who can’t live without a cell phone and use it for everything. Plus, I hate iPods so I download mp3s from anywhere and add it to my cell and I never miss a beat. Hope this helps someone.

Review submitted by C. Antonelli
Author’s Rating:
This headset works well. Be warned though that the device or phone you pair it with MUST support stereo bluetooth protocol A2DB in order to work in stereo mode which of course is the only reason to buy it. The IPhone (even 3G) does not support this protocol and I mistakenly purchased without verifying this fact beforehand. You can purchase an iPod/iPhone dongle that plugs into the bottom of either but they are pricey and some work with some models and not others.

I was able to pair it with my Treo and it worked fine.

Review submitted by R. Mcmillen
Author’s Rating:
I bought a pair elsewhere and am returning them. What I like is they are light, fit well, have long battery life and were easy to pair with my T-Mobile G1. What I didn’t like was that the S9’s have very little background noise cancellation. One person said the microphone is built into the left speaker so it picks up only what is coming out of your ear canal, but it doesn’t sound that way. Your callers hear everything in the background. Talking while driving my car was very frustrating for my wife and I had to turn it off and hold my phone to my ear. I had the windows closed, no A/C running and yet the road noise and other cars around me were clearly heard through the microphone. Also being outside with any amount of wind makes it nearly impossible for her to hear me. I like to cycle and these won’t work for me. Quality of construction seems very good and they are very stylish. I get a lot of crackling in the headphones when my cell phone is in my front pocket. I’d recommend for listening to music from your computer while working.

Review submitted by Matt Pinkston
Author’s Rating:
These headphones do provide vastly superior sound quality to any of the other bluetooth headphones I’ve tried. This is understandable as there is almost a $100 difference between these and any other headset I’ve tried..

But that difference in price was more than worth it as I no longer feel as though I’m compromising sound quality and comfort.

Pros:

- I use them 7+ hours a day with little to no ear fatigue.

- Very clean sound with responsive bass. I listen mostly to electronic music with lots of bass and these do not leave me wanting. The difference between these and other headsets I’ve tried (some even wired) is huge.

- The battery easily lasts an entire work day without need for recharge. (the manual says the batteries will last ~17 hours of continual use and I don’t doubt it)

- Replaceable battery! I haven’t seen this in many bluetooth headsets. Although it is not designed such that the battery can be easily replaced, there are instructions in the manual should replacement become necessary.

- Pair with up to 8 bluetooth devices. Most headsets stop at 2 or 3.

- Easy to use controls. The control buttons are easily told apart by touch. (there’s even a music folder navigation button for devices that support it)

- Effective PASSIVE noise cancellation. as in they’re muffs. they just block out outside sound and block it well.

- Built-in mic of decent quality for voice calls.

- Works perfectly with my Samsung SPH-M620 (UpStage) cell phone.

though any cell phone with the A2DP and AVRCP bluetooth profiles should work fine.

Note to Mac users: OSX 10.4 does not natively support the A2DP bluetooth profile (though there is a hack to get it working) but 10.5 (Leopard) will, so you should be able to pair these to a mac running 10.5

I think Windows Vista does have built-in A2DP support. As long as your PC supports bluetooth, these should pair up just fine.

Cons:

- susceptible to interference from other electronic devices that operate in the 2.4Ghz wireless spectrum. (wireless internet, some wireless phones, and other bluetooth devices). Of course, no bluetooth headset is immune to this. There is no loss in sound quality, they may just cut out if interference is extreme.

- the fast forward/rewind switch is perhaps just a tad to easy to accidentally hit while going for the volume control.

- I’m getting a permanent groove in my hairdo.

If you’re willing to drop a little extra, I believe these headphones will more than make up the difference.

Review submitted by K. Murphy
Author’s Rating:
I recently purchased a blue-tooth compatible pda phone. I know I had to immerse myself in the unit in order to fully use it. I ordered two headsets to use with my new phone, a Jawbone, and the Sony DRBT50’s.

While the jawbone is probably one of the best of noise cancelling headsets out there, there’s still occasional static and drop outs. I didn’t really believe that A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile) could really pass two channels of music to a pair of headsets without dropout and static.

I charged the units till the lights indicated full charge (about 2 hours) just like you have to do with any electronic before you play with it. The pairing was easy, exactly like every other blue-tooth pairing you’ve ever done. Next I put the headphone’s on my head.

Let me tell you that while these units are comparatively large, they fold nicely and yet have some of the nicest and softest feeling padding around the cans I’ve ever felt. More like high end audiophile headphones then the usual blue tooth level consumer stuff. Adjust the fit, (stiff sliding shafts just like traditional headphones) and they felt comfortable enough to wear for hours.

I like the travel-ability of my Shure and Etymotic earbuds, they also sound great. I was often intrigued by the Bose (active) noise cancelling headphones but put off by the price and the generally flat reviews from serious music folks.

Next, I opened media player and hit play on one of my favorite songs. The sound was beautiful. Crisp highs, deep lows, and crystal clear. I ran through about 2 hours of music and couldn’t find a song that wasn’t truly impressive on these cans. I totally forgot about static and dropout, I never heard it once.

Finally, when getting ready for bed, I gave them a quick distance test. I set the player on my kitchen counter and walked about 20 feet to let the dogs out. Crystal clear all the way. I even stepped outside the door and the music played on. I had to walk an additional 8-10 feet outside before I got the music to start breaking up.

The DRBT50 controls are a bit hard to use until you get used to them. Next, back, volume up and down are the primary music controls. There’s also a nice big button for use as a blue-tooth headset while on the phone. A small omnidirectional mice built nearly invisibly into the right can serves as a mic. While the phone call I placed with them was crystal clear, I felt that in loud conditions there might be quite a bit of noise for ht e person at the other end of the line to deal with.

If I lived in a place with a train commute, I’d get a blue-tooth 2 device and these cans. I’ve logged hundreds of thousands of miles with my ear buds, but my next trip, they’ll stay home and these relatively compact (put your two fists together for a size approximation) yet beautiful sounding headphones will be with me.

I would recommend these unites to anybody. Most impressive wireless tech I’ve seen yet.

Review submitted by K. LARSEN
Author’s Rating:
I’ve owned three sets of bluetooth stereo headsets, the sony DRBT50 is by far the best. The other two, Motorola S9 and S805, aren’t even in the same league.

1. Comfort. DRBT50 great, soft padding and angled ear cups, smaller than the S805. S805 ok, the padding gets hot but the controls are good. S9 terrible and not adjustable, bad buttons, hard to put on.

2. Sound quality. The DRBT50 are incredible, the other two are really bad. Make sure you have the right drivers and settings. For my T-mobile Dash I had to modify the registry to get the best sound quality. See:

http://www.pocketpcmag.com/blogs/index.php?blog=3&p=2004&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

3. No problems with wireless connectivity or range with any of the headphones. I’ve tried 3 different BT adaptors with my Sonys and no problems. One note: the toshiba BT stack sounds better but A2DP is nessed up, call and skip buttons don’t work and i can’t connect the head phones and the headset up at the same time, if I use the headset then the sound is bad, if I use the headphone then the mic doesn’t work. The broadcom stack seems to work properly but the sound is not good. I’m still working out the kinks. The stack on my windows mobile 6 phone work great after the registry mod, functions properly and sounds awesome.

Review submitted by L. Tkach
Author’s Rating:
I got these headphones today and was surprised at how light they were.

Charged them fully in under 2 hours.

Held down the power button for 2 blinking lights, paired them with my Katana II (Sanyo 6650) and my XPS M1330.

Dialed my mom and she said she felt like she was on speaker, but no serious issues.

I didn’t like the fact that the headphones were muting my own voice because they go around the ear…so I couldn’t be too sure if she heard me well because I could barely hear my self.

The initial feeling of headphones on my ears were painful…but I just extended the reach…and that put less stress on my ears, ended up comfy enough.

Then I powered up my laptop and started watching a video clip.

The sound quality, I have to admit, is very good.

The problem is, the latency is a huge issue. Words do not match the lip movement. I have tried several clips and it’s there…everywhere.

Couple of times the connection would break off for a second or two.

I got these headphones to watch movies on the laptop and listen to music, movies are unacceptable so these are going back.

I hope this review helps.

P.S. I don’t foresee any issues with music playing (there are no lips to read)

P.P.S. The buttons are awkward, especially for volume. One has a small edged out dot, like on keyboards to increase volume, the decrease volume is plain smooth, hard to guess just by touch…

Review submitted by Ryuji Suzuki
Author’s Rating:
This headphone is the first bluetooth device that convinced me that bluetooth can be truly useful. Wireless keyboard and mice did not really change the way I use the keyboard and mouse, except they increased frustration. This headphone did change the way I use headphones at home, office, coffeehouses and elsewhere. I have many headphones, including Bose Quiet Comfort, Sennheiser HD-280 Pro, a few more circumaural and a couple of canal type earphones. I do appreciate the advantage of each product I bought, but this headphone is the one that I use the most often, and the one I take with me in my bag the most often.

If you are looking for a headphone with good sound quality but also with the convenience of wireless connection, this headphone is probably the best available product at this point. The sound conveys sensitive details as well as dynamic bass and rich vocals. It tends to be a bit bass heavy depending on the source, but, it is so without any of the cheapness. The sound is pretty close to neutral, natural, and not too dissimilar to Sony MDR7506 Professional Large Diaphragm Headphone or Sony MDR-V6 Monitor Series Headphones with CCAW Voice Coil. I usually listen to music encoded in AAC or MP3 at 192 kbps VBR or higher, but for these sources, I can use this headphone without noticing “degradation” compared to wired headphones. (This headphone is good enough to tell if the source file is 128 kbps or 192kbps with fairly high confidence.)

The wireless connection via bluetooth is pretty reliable as long as you are not too far and also there is no wall in between. The actual range seems to vary depending on the host device. However, there are some very occasional sound drops. The sound may drop or become choppy for a brief while but it comes back. It gives you blank silence without unpleasant noise.

The background noise level is pretty good. I can enjoy very quiet piano like Chopin Nocturne or Satie in good digital recording. The noise floor is certainly low enough to tell analog recording sources immediately.

The headphone is easy to use, but you probably need to open the booklet to see how to pair it with the device (push the power button for 7 seconds or longer). The pairing and setup with MacOS Leopard was very easy, and just as easy with Snow Leopard. It also works great with iPad and iPod Touch’s built-in bluetooth, and also with iPod 5th gen with an external bluetooth adaptor Sony Bluetooth Wireless Transmitter for iPod (Black). Well, for that matter, I haven’t seen a device with which this headphone doesn’t work well.

This headphone frees me up. I can listen to music or podcast late at night and still clean up my room, fold laundry, lay on couch and read magazines, etc. Wired headphones, no matter how long the cord is, annoyed me enough to keep me at the desk. This is great for home, office and many other situations. I work in a photographic darkroom, where I have to walk around in a small, dark room with monotonous labor and lots of thinking in between. Music and podcast are essential material, but loudspeakers don’t work very well because I walk around all the time, and there are noise sources like ventilation fans, an air conditioner, and running water. This headphone is great for darkroom work. I tried to put an iPod in my pocket and use wired earbuds but they were terrible. This headphone uses a head band that’s tight enough for the headphone not to slide down while walking or light labor.

Another nice thing about this headphone is when working with a laptop computer in a library or a coffeehouse. The headphone cable between my head and the laptop is not a big deal but surprisingly annoying. Also, when the computer operates without a wire, it is so nice to use a headphone without a wire.

The strength of this headphone is the sound quality and convenience; the “headset” function should be laughed at once and forgotten. I wouldn’t use this thing for telephony. It is inferior to some other headsets designed for that purpose alone. This is because the microphone is located inside the right earcup, not close to the mouth. Also, the bluetooth connection has to operate in different modes between “headphone” (high quality stereo sound but with longer latency) and “headset” (low quality sound but shorter latency) mode. For this reason, when you pair this device with a computer for “headphone” use, I recommend to ignore the headset use and pair the device just for the “headphone” function alone, if possible. This simplifies and reduces the confusion every time you use this headphone on the computer. Otherwise, when you choose the output audio device, the options for headset use keep coming up and this can be confusing and annoying.

I also have several critical comments.

The headphone has controls for fast forward, rewind, folder/playlist, volume and power. In my view, the most important control is pause, but this is not easy to use without inadvertently touching other functions. The usability engineering is also not there–these control buttons are small and located very nearby, and they are very easy to hit by error. Ideally, volume, pause/play, ff/rew and folder controls should be located on different sides of the headphone so that blind operation can be done error-free.

The shape of the ear cups is too narrow oval and pinnae are pressed a bit. Bose Quiet Comfort is a bit more comfortable for long hours of use… (only if Bose QC 2 were wireless…) However, the Bose has annoying bass boost (both the music and the wire/case microphonic noise) that makes me tired acoustically. DR-BT50 does not have that.

The charger is a proprietary one that comes with the headphone. Why not mini USB? Also, why doesn’t the headphone function while the charger is plugged in? The headphone is completely turned off, not even in the standby mode, while the charger is plugged in. You’ll have to turn it on and establish the connection with the device again when you take the charger off.

The headset functionality (with the microphone, but with a lower audio quality mode of the bluetooth connection) is probably a useless marketing gimmick. If I were to use this as a headset, I would need an external microphone that plugs into this headset. The internal microphone does a very lousy job.

I want this headphone with a better noise isolation, like Sennheiser HD-280 Pro. This headphone blocks external sound just a bit, but not as well as HD-280. This headphone would be a lot more useful with either passive or even active noise cancellation, especially when using in subways/trains/busses, kitchen, and noisy offices.