Customer Reviews

Plantronics Voyager 855 Bluetooth Headset (Black)

5 star:		(116)
4 star:		(143)
3 star:		(58)
2 star:		(44)
1 star:		(37)

 

 

I love the new plantronics voyager 855. It pairs great with my Nokia N82. My only gripes are that the call/talk button can be difficult to press and the audio quality is good but not great. For audiophiles, the 855 wont cut it. But I think I can safely say that no BT headset has great audio. If fidelity is what you want, you favorite headphones are better suited for the job, but if you want to walk around town, make calls, and listen to tunes this headset is awesome. It has great audio isolation and decent sound quality.

The Plantronics Voyager 855 is the best gadget I own.

I do not listen to music over bluetooth--bluetooth is simply too "lo-fi." It is mega-compressed and distorts your music no matter what fancy headset you get.

However, it is absolutely wonderful for podcasts of AM talk radio. I listen to that stuff all the time--and now I can do it in any environment. Best of all in this type of application, you can remove the stereo earbud and you have a single-ear bluetooth cellphone headset that can also receive A2DP signals from your phone--the only mono device I'm aware of that can do this.

The only time I attach the stereo bud is when I'm mowing my lawn and want the extra sound insulation. I use the triple-flange Etymotic eargels for it. It's a fight to get them attached, but the great sound insulation that results is an absolute wonder. Makes the noise of the mower nearly disappear, and lets me enjoy my favorite talk show at the time of my choosing, while getting actual, noisy work done.

If you like to listen to talk but don't want to bother those around you who may not prefer it, this is an elegant solution. They just think you're a geek with a bluetooth on the side of your head, and you don't have to tell them you're listening to Rush if they don't want to know.

And when a call comes through, I don't need to jam this thing further into my ear with the call button to answer it. I just extend the little mic boom, and it connects. Others mention that this action can pull the thing out of your ear. But with the Ety eargel it has a good snug fit that stays secure.

My favorite sports podcast sounds better on this headset than it does on my car, even with its expensive Bose system. Same for every other radio show I download to my blackjack. How nice it is to hear a 3-hour show in just over an hour and a half with no commercials, and over my bluetooth to boot.

As you may expect, I charge my 855 when I'm not using it. I've only had it run out of juice once, and that was after a very long session of listening at relatively high volume with the stereo bud in. It charges up fast, and goes for a longer time than it ought to. If you want to listen to podcasts on your mobile, this is the best piece of hardware out there to do just that.

I couldn't get any of the included eargels to fit with this device, but with my weird-shaped head, that's no surprise. the Ety plugs are a lifesaver, and you can buy them in bulk from Etymotic so you can have a supply of clean ones. You are, after all, sticking it in your ear.

I love this product. It does more than I hoped it would, and enhances my life far beyond its low cost (got mine for $35). If you have an mp3-enabled phone with lots of memory (like a Q or Blackjack with a good-capacity MicroSD card) and you like talk radio, get one of these and prepare for a great experience. You'll find yourself leaving the iPod and headphones at home because they're just too much of a hassle and this stuff works great.

Love the functionality this item gives to products and services I already had.

I am very picky about my music's sound quality, and my electronic gear.

This is my review of the Voyager 855 after 4 days of using it.

PROs
It appears that the design team was right on.
The controls are easy to use, and very functional.
It works great as a bluetooth phone headset, especially with the boom mike. The styling is great. My officemates are jealous.
The rubber seals to close out external noise work great, maybe a little too well. The bluetooth pairing function is excellent!!!!

CONs
The sound quality is lacking. Sounds kind of tinny. The bass is not great, and the 855 does not produce much volume.


Also the Voyager 855 skips for a second every now and then. The music
continues as though someone had muted it for 2 seconds. My guess is that
they need a faster audio processor in the Voyager 855.

Overall a good first attempt at such a design. I hope the next version will be better.

This is a really fantastic headset. It's my first bluetooth product but I had it working within minutes after the first charge. My Blackberry 8300 recognized the headset instantly, and it fully supports bluetooth stereo and remote controls from the headset.

The sound quality for calls is very good, and the boom fits in my ear very well without the optional ear loop. For extra security, the ear loop helps even more. Sound quality for music is good, but not great. I didn't give this headset 5 stars because the sound quality could be better, but it's hard to imagine how Plantronics could deliver better sound wirelessly at this price point. The default earpieces are extremely comfortable for me, though I am used to this type of earbud.

I haven't had any problems with the connection dropping or hiccuping with normal use. It will drop after I get 20 feet away or so, but that is understandable (to me, anyway). No issues if my blackberry is on my person.

I do agree with the commenter that said it can be uncomfortable to press the call button when the earpiece is in the ear, but sliding the boom in and out has the same effect, and if you hold the sides when pressing the call button, it's fine.

I highly recommend this product. Will update when I give it a try at the gym.

After using my massive Jabra BT stereo headsets for over a year. I decided it was time to upgrade. I was specifically interested in sound isolation.

The voyager is amazing to say the least. I've been using BT stereo headsets since they came out about 6 years ago back when they cost about $300 bucks. Anway, the voyage is small, sleek and look good.

Of course looks aren't everything, sound and control are critical. Stereo sound is ok not great. Ok in that, I wish it was just a bit louder. Also, for in-ear earphones they certainly do lack in bass. In terms of answering/making calls. Nothing special there. The voyager takes calls excellent. Sound is great.

If you want to move into the next generation of BT stereo headsets the voyage is a good deal. By the way I use my voyager with my Sprint Mogul. It works seamlessly. I also havent experienced the skipping that others have reported. But then again I've always used high quality phones so maybe thats a factor.

Ok so I will say I am a bit of an audiophile so some of the other customer reviews worried me. I tend to get higher grade earbuds so I get better sound all around. I have had Shure e-series headsets from church worship/monitoring. I mainly use my Etymotic er4 and er6 headsets for personal listening to my players and laptops. Either way when I got my Voyager I did feel the same lack of fit and lack of sound isolation others mentioned even with the smallest eargel (I have small ear canals). Well all etymotic earbuds come with a great variety of sizes and designs and for me I went ahead and pulled out the etymotics smallest 2 flange ear gels and with some coaxing was able to get them over the outputs of the Voyager. What I have now is a headset which sits great, feels great, and most importantly SOUNDS great. Sound isolation is creepy. I almost get the same silence I feel when wearing my etymotic er4s.

I am using the 855 with my HTC Mogul and the controls for changing tracks and such work seamlessly. I do hear a significant difference in volume between music and phone calls. Phone calls seem much softer so I might try tweaking with the registry on my phone to see if I can pump out a little bit more fidelity, that is prolly just something other Windows Mobile users will be able to do.

I would give this joker 5 stars if it came with eargels like the etymotics but since I had to do that myself I gave it 4.

If you can... I definitely think that a investment in some Etymotics will get you a great earbud and then add those gels with this BT headset and you will be GOLDEN!!
Etymotic Research ER6i Isolator In-Ear Earphones (Black)

The voyager 855 is a well-engineered, stereo headset. It's designed in such a way that many of its' features are optional, and it is shipped with all the components you need to customize it to your specific needs and likes. To start with you can just use the single earpiece with one of the different size ear buds. (It's shipped with 3 sizes of soft silicone rubber ear buds, and one expanding foam option similar to the moldable foam earplugs you use for noise reduction.)
It fits well into the ear, is light, and the angle between the earpiece and the microphone boom seems appropriate. For a more secure fit you can add one of the ear hooks; it comes with 2 different sizes and they can be installed for use with either the right or left ear. They attach securely to the headset and while using the ear hooks there is little risk of the headset falling off, even during an entire day of construction. When using only the single earpiece, I should note that you do not have a true monotone broadcast; you are just listening to one side of the stereo.
If you want to listen to stereo you plug in a different ear hook, which has the wire leading to the second earpiece coming out of the end of the ear hook. It loops from the top of your ear hook, back around your neck and to the second earbud. They've used a very nice braided wire, which remains flexible, does not kink, and seems to be the right length so as to give you freedom of movement, without getting in the way. If you are using both earpieces and you want to pull out the second earpiece to talk with one of your coworkers, it easy drapes around your neck and is small enough that you hardly notice it is there. The quality of the sound is good, although I have to admit I researched stereo headsets carefully before purchasing and this is the only one I've tried. But, it has a much better quality even for voice, than the single Samsung earpiece I purchased with my Samsung Sync.
The controls on the voyager are small, but I have found them workable even when wearing nitrate work gloves. You have a mute/play button on the top side of the headset, and a volume rocker switch underneath which can be used for volume adjustment, or to select next or previous songs on your play list. There are two ways to answer calls. The microphone is located on the bottom, leading edge of the headset, and there is a sliding boom extension, which gets the microphone closer to your mouth and contributes to talk quality. (I've had very few complaints from those on the other end of our conversations.) If you receive a call you can either slide the boom down, which will answer the call, or press the power button on the top middle of the headset. I've found that sliding the boom down can dislodge the earpiece a little, especially if you use the tabs on either side of the boom which are intended for that purpose. A better way to extend the boom without moving it in your ear is to pinch the boom extension and the body of the headset between your thumb and forefinger, top to bottom, and while squeezing them together, slide the boom down using your finger or thumb. This holds the headset in place and still extends the boom.
One interesting feature of this headset, which I do not remember reading anywhere, is that when you turn it on the next day, it remembers what you were doing during your previous use and starts up right where you left off. As I head to work and turn it on in my truck, it connects with my phone and starts the music automatically. If I'm not ready for the music, I just hit the mute button and wait until I am. This headset is shipped with a handy little drawstring bag, which holds the ear hooks, second earpiece, and spare ear buds.
My only complaint about this headset is the battery life. If I want to use to it all day and I'm listening to music, I need to remember to charge it during lunchtime and it takes a good hour plus to fully charge it. It does not come with an automotive charger so you need to carry the one AC charger it's shipped with or purchase a second AC charger or a 12-volt charger to keep it working throughout the day. Other than that, the voyager is a great headset, and I cannot think of much I'd change about its' design........ good job Plantronics!

I bought this product again after returning it the first time for a sennheiser bluetooth stereo headset. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying this is better than sennheiser. Let's just say that this was more professional looking than something hanging on my neck. Now, I had a Jawbone before and I really had nothing much to complain about. But I got the latest iPhone 3.0 preview and I always wanted a stereo bluetooth. So I decided to go headset shopping again after giving my trusty Jawbone to my friend.

My initial preference was the Sennheiser due to its extremely good sound quality and multi point technology. But after using it for a few days I realized that it was not perfectly compatible with the new iPhone OS. It would skip songs a lot, the playback controls wouldn't work and multipoint was a pain to configure sometimes requiring a hard reboot of the phone. So, after one week I decided that maybe I should go back to my roots of a simple looking, not high tech and casual music type headset. That's how I ended up with Plantronics 855.

Let me just brief up the pros and cons below.

PROS:
1. Works great with iPhone 3.0
2. All audio controls work with iPhone 3.0
3. Can switch from professional looking mono headset to more casual stereo headset.
4. Doesn't drop signals that badly.

CONS:
1. No multipoint (I really love this feature)
2. Switching b/w mono & stereo can be a hassle as you need to carry around two ear loops
3. If you don't use the stabilizer, it will keep popping out of the ear.
4. A lot of key combinations to memorize.

In my opinion this is the perfect form factor for a stereo bluetooth headset. It is very small and light and paired quickly and easily with my Samsung M620 phone. The sound quality and volume were very good for phone calls, but like other bluetooth stereo headphones the music quality was just fair. This is perfect for use while working out or running, but I would stick with wired headphones for normal music listening. 5 stars for phone use, 3 stars for music.

Since July 1st was rolling around and California was going to implement their new law of handsfree calls while driving, I had to get myself a new BT unit. I already had experience with the Plantronics 640E but wanted something with A2DP (wireless music) support. The Voyager 855 fit the description perfectly. I was slightly hesitant though since people had gripes about the sound quality. I'l break down my view into two parts.

Voice Quality in a call:
The voice quality is decent enough...its as you would expect from a cell phone. That's to say it's about the same as talking directly on the cell phone, but you're not gonna get clarity like a land line. For most environments it does well and I think the extendable boom helps with that a LOT. I did a series of tests to hear how clearly my voice would sound with intereference. One test involved standing in front of a fan while the other involved playing loud background music. The results were both the same. While the BT unit did not cancel out the background noise, it did a great job of still keeping my voice clear despite the distracting wind noise and background music. Not bad!

Sound quality of A2DP:
I have to strongly disagree with some reviewers that the stereo sound quality isn't up to par. I suppose it depends on a few factors though. First, which type of ear buds do you use? The black foam ones or the clear silicone ones? The black ones invariably produce better sound since they act like foam earplugs (they also don't irritate my ears like the silicone ones). The silicone ones allow more ambient noise to seep in. The second factor is the audio source. For example, on the default setting on my Sony Ericsson P1i, the music sounded ok. As many people have mentioned, this BT headset seems to lack in bass. However I have to disagree. This unit is capable of reproducing the richest bass. All I had to do is tweak the EQ of my P1i from "Normal" to "Rock" and immediately there was a superb difference. The headphones were able to reproduce very rich and deep bass without cracking. And even the mids and highs were surprising since I was hearing some things I had never noticed in some songs. I am very pleased with this and plan on using it with my notebook. By the way, did I mention this unit does Multipoint AND also allows stereo phone conversations. It has a good battery life too. All in all for it's price its a great deal.

Some Cons:
I don't like the ear hook so much. It kind of forces the BT unit to stick outward a bit instead of sticking flush against your cheek. Another issue that warrants further investigation is that if you are in an area with a lot of interference, the A2DP might be intermittent.