It’s been several weeks since I’ve started using bluetooth headset to listen to the music on iPhone and my PC. The comfort of being Wireless is amazing and once you experienced it, you can never go back to wired.
But here is the thing. Audio Quality of each products in the market differs so much, and if you choose a wrong product, you will be never happy with the idea of using bluetooth headset as a listening device.
Course it really depends on your purpose, and as for me, I’m using it to listen to downloaded Youtube videos and news podcasts, all of them English. I’m using intensively, like 4~8 hours a day. Since English is not my mother tongue, my need is very clear, ‘As clear speaking voice as possible’.
After going through a bunch of reviews, I narrowed my choice down to two headsets, Jawbone Icon and Plantronics voyage pro +. Here are their specs.
Plantronics Voyage pro +
|
Jawbone Icon
| |
| weight | 0.6 oz | 0.3 oz★ |
| A2DP | Yes | Yes (Must be updated) |
| Run time Standby time | 6 hours★ 120 hours | 4.5 hours 240 hours★ |
| Button | Volume control, On/off switch, Answer button,★ | On/off switch, Answer button, |
| Style | Over-the-ear | Ear-bud |
After all, I got both.
Convinced by several reviews describe it like “With this, you will never fail”, I got Voyage pro + for 7,000 yen first. And it was amazing, very comfortable to wear, sound quality is almost as good as Bose earphones when listening to spoken words. But it turned out it’s a little bit bulky, especially when I am putting glasses, it fits really tight between my ear and the temple of glasses. So I got Icon. It may look like a waste of money, but since I almost always wireless headset to listen to anything from iPhone and PC, having two headset is still not enough considering their battery life.
Anyway now I’ve used both of them for over 2 weeks, I found a significant difference between these two headset which you would never know before you purchase them and use them.
So the significant difference lies in their sound quality. As everyone says, Voyage pro + is superior to Icon in terms of audio quality. But the difference it’s far bigger than I expected. Here you can listen to them.
*Sorry Jawbone is not with donut but default earpad*
*Icon has no volume control, so I increased the volume on PC from 5 to 20 for the better comparison of Audio quality not Audio volume. (But still smaller than Voyage, sorry!)
This is a huge difference, and difficult to believe, maybe something wrong with me? Nothing. I think one of the reasons is they are different in a distance between ear and headset. In Voyage’s over-the-ear style, Earpad doesn’t go deep inside an ear, it just touch an earhole softly, while with Icon the Earpad fits very tight in an earhole. So Voyage has to be louder at the same distance in order to deliver the same volume to your ear. But the sounds of Icon is WAY TOO SMALL, and the true reason is in their earpads. Look!
left: Jawbone Icon, right: Plantronics Voyage pro +
It’s, for me, ridiculous that Jawbone has put such earpads on their headsets as default, because even a baby can understand this earapd’s form prevents sound out, and it actually does!
Jawbone Icon has another option in their package. More like Plantronics one, and I call this type Donut (Doughnut).
Don’t you think this one sounds better than the previous default one? Yes it does. Listen!
note:
--All sample sounds in the video is played from PC which is connected to headsets and recorded on iPhone.
--If you connect those headsets to your iPhone, audio volume is not that different between them, some people may even feel Icon is louder. I can’t think of any reasons, just they are like that. But in terms of sound QUALITY, Plantronics is much better just like what you listen in the above videos.
