Thomson WHP3001BK Wireless Headphones

GOOD WIRELESS HEADPHONES AT A GREAT PRICE.

If you are an audiophile then these headphones are not for you, but is you are looking for a good clear well balanced set of phones for listening to the Television or radio without cables or if you are a bit hard of hearing and want to listen at a higher volume without annoying the rest of the family these are ideal. Although these are closed back headphones they allow enough sound through to let you hear if someone is talking to you or the phone rings. The phones are quite large but look smart and they are made of a mat black plastic that looks strong and good quality, the base station is also quite large (about 6"x4"x2")and is made of a nice quality black gloss plastic. All in all these phones are as good as other phones i have had from well known makers but at a fraction of the cost and the fact that the phones sit on the base station to charge is a very useful bonus

Very good for the price. The sound is clear. Started testing the range of the headphones by walking away from the house and they worked at high distances with no audible loss of quality.

What a shame that this product was let down by poor radio electronics.

The Pros.
Overall I was very pleased with the headphones. I took note of previous reviews and made sure that the TV setting for the output signal to a headset was turned up to about halfway and it gave brilliant reception with no distortion or white noise. The headphones are comfortable, but even closed up were a little loose on the top, otherwise they felt comfortable enough although an oval ear dish would be more comfortable to wear. The volume control worked very smoothly and the stereo sound is excellent even to my diminished hearing quality, the on/off button is well placed on one ear cup and the signal search button on the other. All audio functions for on/off, volume and signal tuning are on the headset and nicely accessible, the set up was simple and uncomplicated and worked first time and battery life seems good.

Cons.
It very quickly failed!
The initial irritation I had was splitting the ear cup to fit the two rechargeable batteries and although they do include a diagram it is not much help. Let me say here and now that you will have to apply more force than you would imagine in order to separate the two plastic parts. It is not as you may first think i.e. a click in connection around the circumference of the ear cup that will just prize apart easily with your fingers. Instead it is held together by (4) pop- in type pegs arranged in a square pattern about ½" or 12mm in from the outer edges, so you will need to work your way around prizing outwards as you go and even then you are expecting something to break. Once open, the battery fitting and reassembly is quite straight forward. The next annoyance is the lack of any supplied adapters, the audio input to the base unit is via the standard Red & Black audio plugs which is OK, but they terminate in a 3.5mm stereo jack at the other end which needs to connect to your TV audio output, so unless you happen to have a 3.5mm output socket on your TV you need adapters of some kind such as a `Twin audio plug to a female 3.5mm jack socket' to plug into.

The base radio unit gave me most concern as it is really lightweight and looks poorly made, it did not inspire a lot of confidence and this proved correct. After it working beautifully for about a week and deciding one would be just the job for my elderly mother who's hearing is not so good, it just stopped working. No crackles, no smoke, no warning, just utter failure which from the lack of any red indicator signal light on the base unit, I assume it is a radio failure. So basically that is all I can say, it was quite good while it lasted and I was about to purchase another one for my mother so I was reasonably happy to start with.

My decision now was to just ask Amazon for a replacement which they are doing and I will see if it is just a rogue or something worse with the quality of manufacture of the base unit. I would like to have given this a reasonably high score as I was more than happy with the signal range and sound quality of the headset. I will try to update this review after I receive the replacement and given it another fair trial.

EDIT UPDATE: A replacement was very quickly sent by Amazon and I returned the faulty goods at no cost to myself by using a local collection agent from the supplied Amazon information, all very quick and painless. To date the replacement has worked perfectly and my mother who is well into her eighties can use it easily and it is never off her head. She tells me that she does not even put her hearing aids in anymore to watch the TV, which is great bonus for neighbors as now the TV can be mainly left on mute. If they are put on charge overnight they will last all afternoon and evening with really clear crisp audio. I have changed my initial star rating and deduct half a star for the base unit quality, but give a full 5* for value for money, so a 4.5 star overall.

Update Update! still working very well without any problems and mum loves them.