The TopTenREVIEWS Silver Award winner for infrared headphones is the Sony Infrared Wireless Headphones. While these headphones don’t offer the effective range or effective-degree of our top product, they have their own strengths to flaunt. These headphones have the best frequency range in our lineup, which allows you to feel and hear a remarkable range of sound. Their battery life is also the longest that we found. We are impressed with these Sony infrared headphones, as you can see through their ranking, and believe that you will appreciate their versatility, sound quality and design.
As we mentioned in the introduction, the Sony Infrared Wireless Headphones have the best frequency range of 18-22,000Hz. It’s the greatest frequency range that we found in a pair of infrared headphones. Infrared headphones typically produce the best audio quality you will find in wireless headphones because of the direct line of infrared light connecting the transmitter to the headphones. With that high-quality infrared audio and the large frequency response, we were very pleased with the audio quality.
The headphones have a power switch as well as a personal volume control. We feel this is a must-have feature not only for preserving battery life but also for comfort and convenience. With each user having a personal volume control, everyone can listen at their own comfort level. And it’s more convenient to just switch a dial at your ear than to find the TV remote or walk to the TV and manually change the settings.
These particular infrared TV headphones have an effective range of approximately 24 feet. You can move freely but must stay within a 90-degree angle of the transmitter at all times or else you will lose your connection. This gives you a 45-degree leeway to the right as well as to the left. These features are comparable to many other infrared headphones. Throughout the research that we performed on the Sony Infrared Wireless Headphones we learned that most users were pleased with the range of motion they had and were able to walk around their TV room without losing audio reception and without interference.
Like many other infrared headphones, these are made of a hard plastic. They rest on top of your head instead of running behind it and are adjustable to fit a variety of head sizes. We found that adjusting sizes is very easy, which is important if a variety of people will be wearing the headphones. The ear cushions rest on your ears instead of cupping them, allowing you to hear what others are saying around you. The on-ear cushions aren't necessarily better or worse than the over-ear cushions – it's all personal preference and will largely depend on where you want to use the headphones. We found that many users enjoyed being able to hear the people around them while others had hoped to get more of a noise-canceling effect.
As you will find with all infrared headphones, you must keep the transmitter in your line of sight as long as you want audio. If you walk into a different room, you will lose your connection and no longer hear the audio. The transmitter cord is approximately 40 inches which will give you a decent amount of room for strategic placement, if required. The headphones weigh 4.4 ounces and are light so that they can rest on your head for an entire movie, or two, without causing discomfort or pain.
As we mentioned above, we were very impressed with the battery life of the Sony Infrared Wireless Headphones. The TV headphones come with a rechargeable NiMH battery pack but will also run on two AAA batteries. The battery life is the longest that we found and will last approximately 60 hours with the optional AA batteries or will last for 35 hours on the rechargeable NiHM battery alone. This was a huge benefit because you don’t have to worry about the headphones shutting off nearly as often and you don’t have to constantly be charging batteries or purchasing additional ones.
You will find that the help and support section is the area that Sony ranked the lowest. While their customer support team does provide adequate service, many of the users we spoke with weren’t pleased with the service they received. The Sony infrared headphones have a 90-day limited warranty, which is the shortest warranty that we found among the infrared headphones. While this disappointed us, we still believe that the headphones are one of the top choices because of their features, design and audio quality.
Our best suggestion for contacting Sony’s customer support department is to scroll to the bottom of the site, locate the toll-free telephone number and call them directly. It was the easiest way for us to speak with a customer support representative. Within two minutes of placing the call we were speaking with a representative, and this happened every time we called. The representatives were quickly able to access information regarding the TV headphones and answer each question or concern we posed. One positive aspect of Sony's customer support department is they are open later than each of the other manufacturers we contacted, making it more convenient for you to contact them.
At the top and bottom of the site are links for technical or product support. Through the link for support you will find a chat option, an email option and more information on reaching customer support over the phone. Unfortunately, the chat option isn’t much help because it doesn’t work properly. Each of our reviewers was unsuccessful at using the chat feature, which is a disappointment because that is usually one of the most convenient ways to receive help and support.
After emailing Sony regarding the infrared headphones, we received a response within a couple of hours. This, we felt, was pretty efficient. The difficult part about emailing is that you can’t communicate back and forth quickly and will normally wait a couple hours between each message, which is why we recommend using the toll-free phone number. However, if your questions aren’t pressing, then we recommend email as an excellent way to contact the company.
As one of the top infrared headphone products on today’s market, Sony Infrared Wireless Headphones are a great choice. They offer the best frequency response we found in infrared headphones, they have all of the convenient features that make use simple and they have the longest battery life we found. We were pleased that they are easy to reach over the phone and via email and that their customer support department is open longer than other TV headphone manufacturers so you have a greater chance of getting a hold of someone when you need them. We believe that you will be impressed with the audio quality, the effective range, the design and the battery life of these infrared headphones.
