by Ken Johnstone

Created on: June 18, 2009

I recently changed my old TV for a new flat screen model (Mikai), so at the same time decided to replace my ancient headphones which were quite literally beginning to fall apart from constant daily use over the years. The foam ear protectors were long gone, so after wearing the headphones for anything more than a few minutes your ears began to ache from contact with the hard plastic. The ratchets for adjusting the headset to fit your head size were also worn out, so the earpieces had a habit of slipping of your ears.

My old headphones were made by Philips, and because of their years of faithful service I decided that their replacements would be from the same manufacturer. So off I went to one of my favourite eBay shops and after a couple of minutes browsing I found what I was after. A lovely set of big headphones (Philips SHC2000) at a bargain price. It was a fairly expensive visit mind you, as I was also tempted into purchasing a new surround sound system to supplement the fairly poor tinny speakers on my new TV (why are TV speakers ALWAYS so poor?) and a new 4Gb Philips MP3 player for my wife.

Anyways, back to my new headphones. What I was after was a set of headphones that had large, well padded earpieces, were remote so that I didn't have wires dangling out of them, which gave good, undistorted stereo sound, and which weren't going to put too big a dent in my Paypal balance.

The Philips SHC2000 scores on all counts. The pack consists of an infra red control unit that you connect to the electricity supply via a mains adapter, (also supplied) a set of large, comfortable headphones, a couple of rechargeable batteries for the headset, and a wire to plug the unit into the headphone socket of the TV. They were very similar to my old headphones, so I had absolutely no problem setting them up, and in a couple of minutes was up and running.

The headphones themselves are extremely comfortable. Rather then fixed position earpieces (like my old headphones had) the earpieces are mounted on plastic swivels, so they automatically adjust themselves to the shape of your ear. The padding is sturdy soft plastic and extremely snug and comfortable, covering the whole ear so you aren't distracted by other household sounds. No ratchets to adjust here. The SHC2000 has a self adjusting inner elastic headband that stretches to accommodate the head size of the user.

The sound is crystal clear stereo with no distortion, at least none that my untrained ears were able to decipher. The range of the infra red is stated as being "only" 4 meters, (about 13 feet) and while this may cause a problem to someone who wants to use their headphones to listen to music from the music system in different rooms of the house, it doesn't cause me any difficulty as my set are used simply to listen to the TV once my wife and teenage daughter have retired to bed for the night. They work perfectly practically anywhere in my living room, although if I wander through to the kitchen to make myself a coffee with them still on then I am immediately assaulted by a barrage of "white noise". (Loud hissing)

There's a whole load of technical specifications, but I won't bore the posterior off you by listing them all here, as to be honest they are all double dutch to me anyways. (And, I suspect, to the majority of people!) If you *ARE* interested in all the technical jargon, then you'll find it on the Web. Last (but not least) comes the price. I paid 14.78 Sterling at eBay, and I'm not sure of the postage and packing as the total cost was 10 Sterling which included my new surround sound system and MP3 player. The headphones are currently listed at Amazon at prices ranging from 18.65 Sterling to 24.46 Sterling.

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