Customer Reviews

Cyberhome CH-SRD 600R 6-channel Surround Headphones with Game Decoder

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Pros:
-Takes both optical & coaxial inputs.
-Volume control mounted on unit.
-Look nice.
-Headset completely covers my ears.

Cons:
-The Optical input has some noise, but isn't so bad after turning up the volume. The Coaxial input has alot of noise, very annoying.
-The headset is kinda shallow on the inside & ends up pushing against my ears & they start to hurt after about an hour.
-The sound is poor. It isn't even average. Kinda bass heavy, then the mid-range is all over the place & the treble is non-existant. Sometimes it sounds like you're in a tunnel.
-There are a ton of cords to keep track of. There is the power supply, the line input, the little base that does the decoding. The cord to the headphones. It ends up being a pile.

Would I buy them again, probably not. If they weren't so painful, I'd probably be able to live with them, but that's just too much. I wanted them to do some nice gaming, but they ended up annoying me so much that I rather use stereo headphones. The 5.1 effect isn't all that good on these anyhow.

I hooked these up to my Xbox 360 and was pleasantly surprised for the money.

The bass response is very impressive, and the left right separation is also surprisingly good. The L/R separation is the best feature, as you can really hear the difference between front right, dead right and rear right. Walking past something in a game and hearing it sweep along you is really well done. When the sound sweeps behind or in front it's not a smooth transition. The simulated rear and center front are workable, but not convincing (not a replacement for physical speakers).

Overall I'd say the sound is comparable to a set of the lower line Sennheiser over the ear phones.

I'll be honest - I got these headphones because they were so cheap. I like playing PC action games and so the sound effects and their positional information is very important. Using multiple speakers is effective but rather noisy for the rest of the household!

Enter these CH-SRD600R headphones.

They are driven by a digital signal and will not support an analog output - so make sure you have either an optical or electrical digital output. Do not expect to plug these into an MP3 player etc. I believe most DVD and CD players these days have digital outputs. My Creative Audigy 2 sound card has a digital output which works nicely with these phones.

They can be powered either by an AC adapter (supplied) or a rechargable lithium ion battery (also supplied).

The headphones come with their own decoder to drive the 3 speakers in each phone so any PC internal decoding is redundant - it just treats the headphones as the front two speakers. This is where the manual could be more helpful - it effectively says plug the phones in and use them. I found that the best approach was to configure the sound card for simple headphones and then select 5:1 audio from the (game) software. I've tried using the headphones with a PlayStation 2 via the optical digital output, and while they seem to work, there appears to be just two volume settings: 'very loud' or 'off' (and so probably suits most players). I've not yet tried direct connection to a DVD player to see how that decodes.

I won't claim that they are the ultimate in audiophile quality but they are very nicely made and sound absolutely brilliant in games. The electronics are very quiet and there's no background noise or hiss detectable. The transient response is impressive and there's a great ambient presence. These phones will literally make you jump out of your seat. The positional information is difficult to judge as I think it does depend so much on the (game) software being used but I could certainly discriminate between things being in front, behind or to the side.

Listening to music was a bit disappointing. These are 'over the ear' phones but are extremely comfortable to wear. The sealing pads are very effective at eliminating outside sounds. Unfortunately, like a lot of cheaper headphones of the type, they do tend to sound a bit 'boxy'. I think that listening to music for long periods may be rather wearing. This is, of course subjective, but I will continue to use my Sennheisers for listening to music.

The blister box contains the headphones, the decoder, an extension cable for the phones, an AC power supply, a lithium ion battery, an optical cable and an electrical cable. The only extra thing I needed to get was an adapter to connect the RCS coax plug on the electrical signal cable to the 3.5mm digital output jack on my sound card.

For the price I paid for them, these headphones are a fantastic bargain. I suspect however that CyberHome are no longer making them and what is being currently sold is old stock so get a pair while you still can.

This set of headphones was a complete waste of time. Do not buy this if you expect 5.1 surround sound as it states. The headphones do not produce this effect and the sound quality is absolutely horrible at every thing possible. The sound is muffled and when the sound is traveling from one side to the other it cuts in and out; sound basically disappears for a second which was annoying. The rear was absolutely silent, I heard nothing. Just in case your wondering I ran several surround sound test on this device through the optical input and it was disappointing. I tried several settings giving them a chance but no luck at reproducing the surround sound effect. Also the headphones have a weird connector so your not going to be able to use them on anything but the decoder. I hope this helps anyone in the future. Have a nice day ; )

Like a previous reviewer mentioned...Don't get your hopes up.

I thought I'd give these a try because they were extremely cheap.

Basically you do get a lot for your money here, 5.1 Headphones, Optical\Coaxial Decoder with matching cables and Li-Ion battery for the unit. Although I'm still trying to figure out why you need that last one since you will always have to plug in an audio input in the back.

Anyway Long story short, the audio quality of the actual Headphones is not very good. Everything sounds muddy and distant, all the 5.1 processing manages to do is add strange audio artifacts that sound vaguely like some things are underwater.

I tried them out on my XBOX360 with Modern Warfare 2 and noticed that everything in general was really murky. For example, my own gun when shot, sounded 50 feet away and wrapped in a blanket. I plugged some old Koss Ksc-50's into the headphone jack on the decoder and got crystal clear sound from the decoder, so it IS just the headphones.

All in all, for $17 what can you expect? Good news is that the decoder can function as a cheap headphone output device if you don't have a receiver.

OK, these are not the highest end headphones or highest quality. THe optical cable that came with it is not useable and shoudn't be anyways. However, these headphones worked great, especialy given the price and optical compatibility. I have hooked them up to my TV, my directv HD box, stereo receiver and my Xbox. Better than the corded turtle beaches I paid $80 for.

If u use the amplifier on battery, i noticed a slight amount of buzz. HOwever, use the power cord, make sure item is switched all the way to left, which actually is "DC" and use a decent quality optical cable, not the one provided and you will not be dissappointed. The coax sound is fine as well.

Also, if u can, make sure to turn up the input volume into the headset. THis amplifier is fine, however, like most amplifiers that do not cost "an arm & a leg", there will be a small amount of distortion when u max volume/amplifier unit out. Using lower volumes on the headset controller via higher input volume will keep the distortion, ie buzzing away.

I want to watch TV when my family is asleep without disturbing them. So, I searched for headphones I coud use. However, my TV's audio out is only optical digital. I was trying to keep this as inexpensive as possible, but never imagined that I could resolve the issue for so little. The surround sound is not even a key feature for me, I just needed headphones that would work for my TV. I thought I would have to by a cable, a unit to convert digital to analog, and something to extend my headphone cable. This product brought all that, plus more (including surround sound)! I received it yesterday, two days after I ordered it. It arrived nicely just as pictured. The headphones are quite comfortable and the sound quality is excellent, better than without them because I don't have a home theatre system with surround sound. It was all easy to install and works fine. The volume adjustment on the unit works fine for me too. I did not install the battery because I knew I would always have it plugged in. It now sits atop my DVD player in my entertainment center. From the product description and the reviews I read I was not sure if I would be able to connect regular 3.5 mm stereo headphones to the unit instead of those included. Sometimes my wife and I stay up to watch tv when the kids go to bed. This would allow us both to watch without me having to buy another Cyberhome headset. I may buy one anyway, but I tried connecting regular headphones and it did work. My wife and I watched a DVD we rented last night with our regular stereo headphones just fine. However, I did notice a limitation. When I tried using regular headphones with this unit some things (like my DVD movie) came through fine. However, when watching regular TV I could not hear the sound on the shows on last night. I suspect it has something to do with whether the sound is being transmitted as 5.1 or 2.0 because I heard all the TV commercials perfectly. I'll probably do a little testing and try to verify this. Either way, it is well worth the price. If you can afford it and like to watch tv with your spouse when the kids are asleep, it is probably worth it to buy two sets. I haven't had them for long, but so far so good!

For 20 bucks you really can't go wrong here. I will mention, like most reviews, the light hissing noise in the background. Every once in awhile I have to wiggle the cord in the input to get both headphones to function. Besides that the quality is average and the surround sound works as I would expect. The headphones themselves are more comfortable than I thought they might be.

Overall, if your looking for something to do the job but you don't want to spend a lot, I recommend it. It has its flaws; if you want something better, spend more money. (part of the reason it gets 4 stars is because of the price)

So I figured $17.00 what the hey... I just received them today, and I have to give my first impression. Buy these and turn on MTX Bass! I can't believe it. It reminds me of when I was in high school and early college. I used to work on car audio systems, and these things actually have decent bass without problems.

Details: No DTS. Dolby surround works well. No WMA Pro Audio. I ran a surround sound test file that I used with my Logitech Z-5500. Front Left, center, and front right sufficiently accurate. The rear left and rear right could be positioned more towards the rear, but you can hear that it is slightly behind. The sub in the test file didn't work that great, probably because of the frequency range. That was why I tested it using MTX Bass, and "BAM!" I was shocked! It sounds good! The interface is fairly simple. Cordless doesn't actually mean anything. You still have to have cords everywhere. It just meant you don't have to plug it into a powersupply because of an on board li-on battery in the decoder (assuming you've charged it up). The earmuffy things are pretty comfortable. As of yet I feel no pressure or strain. I've only been wearing it now though for about 45 min. My presumption is that it will stay that way though. If you expect noise blocking due to the ear muffs, don't! I can hear a dustmite sneeze. Oh and with regards to the hiss. Yes, everyone is correct there is a very light hiss that goes away when playing something over optical. It's barely noticeable with me just sitting here typing. If you are a music buff who needs super high quality audio without white noise then this isn't for you, but if you want surround sound cheap! DANG!

Personal: Like I said I just got this product and had to write about it right away. I used to be impressed by my MDR-EX71s. Then I used ER-4P's (Not as good bass, but great everything else). I will definitely be using these surround sound headphones most now!! Unless I travel, then I'll use my ER-4's (Main reason I don't want to use the ER-4's too much is results of research into interaural earphones and their effects on hair cell survival.) I am very very happy with these new headphones! I put a second one in my card already... now I just need something else to buy so that I can get the free shipping! =)

I purchased these to test the surround headphones theory. They were quite the disappointment. They sound particularly bad when watching movies. The dialogue sounds muffled and distant, as if you are hearing it through a tank of water. In a pinch, the phones work acceptably for gaming. With the digital out cable, there is enough separation of sound to get a sense of direction, but the volume levels of particular channels aren't adjustable, so it's not a substitute for a normal room system. I used these for Socom Confrontation and COD 4 on the PS3. It was generally difficult to tell how close sounds were coming from. In general, I'd say save the 20 bucks that you would waste on these and save for a higher quality pair. If you don't agree, I'd be happy to sell you mine.