Gadgetory

everyone this is Jimmy with Jim's review room so I just reviewed the brand new Bose quiet comfort 25 for sure the leader in noise cancelling headphones so I tried looking for a much more budget-friendly model and run across the sony MDR ZX 550 BMS i don't that's a mouthful there but it's priced just at 128 dollars most cheaper than the QC 25 so what I want to do is see how good these sound and for sure how well they do block out unwanted noise and see if a cheaper alternatives still provides some good results so without further ado welcome to another review so these ZX 550's for short they do come in both black and also blue and right on the package you'll notice these are ridiculously light weighing in at just five point nine ounces or 167 grams it's possibly the lightest pair of cans that I've reviewed so far but with that being said when working with these headphones they do feel a bit cheap though they rattle and shake when moving around and the materials are really a basic type of plastic but overall while testing despite looking a bit basic they still have been very durable to use when those signs of issues extending and retracting the headband has been very stiff and there weren't any issues of the headband accidently adjusting the flexing the headband was flawless and all points that rotate went smoothly and keep in mind easy acts 550's do not have foldable ear cups but they do a rotating lay flat like so now regarding my comfort test the air paths that are on the headphones are the only one that comes in the box there are leather like material which is cool to the touch and although not as plush as some of the other premium headbands I've tested they still were comfortable initially now wearing these indoors for about thirty minutes straight I didn't notice my ears just slightly warm up a bit and with our number two was warm in general eventually it was not an issue but it was a notice experience of warm ears from the ear cups the headband doesn't have any padding but considering how light these are they didn't pose an issue as well when I wore them for up to four hours straight now usually with cheaper or poorly designed headphones they cause that crown of the head to hurt a bit causing wearing fatigue but again this wasn't issue more than likely due to how light these are now the other test that I do in all my reviews its clamping near the jawline now this did feel a bit firmer possibly due to less plush padding that I'm used to but again this did not hurt my jawline after several hours of news overall not 100% the best feeling pair of headphones but considering his price they're not bad at all and last regarding sound leaking since I have these headphones on playing these at maximum volume sound leakage was really kept to a minimum now quickly going over its controls and the left has your noise-cancelling on/off switch with the left ear cup offering NFC connections to basically pair your headphones easily with your NFC enabled device now on the right side towards the front features your phone call answering button with the volume button to follow on the other side and power and pairing button is next and less are the pause play and skip buttons that I found worked on at least YouTube playlist Pandora and Netflix now the USB charging port is found on the very bottom and is charged with the supplied microUSB cable and overall sony is claiming a very impressive up to 25 hours of battery life with noise cancelling on and from a dead battery it takes a price point four and a half hours to fully charge and regarding any other items or accessories there isn't any this package really comes with the bare-bones no tearing case no additional ear pads just the headphone themselves and a micro USB charging cable now to the moment that you've been waiting for the sound quality considering these are smaller drivers coming in at 30 millimeters while bigger headphones features 40 millimeters the sound isn't crazy loud now playing this at maximum volume was still very comfortable listening without a hint of me tolerating the music there's no Distortion any very balanced note overall you can say I spent a good time listening to pop in EDM which I felt like Sony did well in with just clean and clear audio throughout now trying this on more bass heavy genres of rap and hip-hop these are really just good for just casual listening the bass is conservative that genres bass focused really don't stand out now these pair of cans will not have your head bobbing or nodding at your tunes for music I can see these are just for casual listening but if you're more tuned to different sound qualities and more weird what sounds good and what doesn't you may find these a bit lacking now also try this on movies and no question I had to turn this all the way up and still I wasn't as immersed as I wanted to be depth of sound and spatial sound provided a lacking soundstage there's not much sense of sound in the distance with sound occurring closer to your ears and as for the noise canceling feature I tried this several times and over the span of two weeks of testing in different environments I was greatly disappointed most of the time I thought the noise canceling feature wasn't even on as I couldn't hear a difference the only time I could hear noise canceling was actually when I had the volume all the way down basically muted then switching to noise canceling on and I can hear the headphones toggle back and forth and black out some noise but while actively listening and playing in real world testing ambient noises in a coffee shop of people talking moving chairs the workers working it's still audible as if nose canceling wasn't even on so overall these headphones are just for playing casual listening just to have some sound without bad quality but this pair of headphones are very conservative all around from loudness to base to the noise canceling feature now if you're planning on buying noise canceling headphones as you're possibly considering from watching this video I think there will be better performers out there so hope this video helped you in any way please show you support by adding me on your Facebook Twitter or Google+ accounts every little bit helps and bring you more content like this again this is Jimmy with Jim's review room take care bye