Altec Lansing AHP612 Wireless Studio Headphones

Reviews: Multimedia

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Nicholas Hart
Kurtis
Altec Lansing
Dec. 15, 2006

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Testing

There really isn't a whole lot to getting the Altec Lansing AHP612 Wireless Studio Headphones setup. Plug the wall-wart to a wall socket and the barrel plug into the base and set the headphones on it for the initial charge. Hook up the RCA cable to the adapter and plug it into the base and your PC (or however you plan to use them).

The only tricky part is setting the proper audio level output from the PC to get good audio to the base and thus the headphones. If you set the level too high, then volume adjustments at the headphones will be very large. By that I mean that with the level high, when you press volume up, the volume will rise by a large amount. If you have the level set low and press volume up, the volume will only change slightly. It is important to get the right level set so that when you adjust the headphones, you have good control over the volume level.

To set the audio level, there is a small adjustment dial on the back of the base. With audio from the PC, turn the dial until the green LED on the front of the base begins to blink periodically. It should blink in time with the audio at the loudest points. If it is constantly lit then you should turn the level down and conversely if it rarely blinks you should turn the level higher. To test if you have the level set properly, turn on the headphones and see if volume presses on the headphones let you adjust the volume up and down to your liking. If you have trouble getting the level set properly, you can also adjust the output volume on the PC. It was my experience that I needed to adjust the volume level on the PC a little higher than I normally have it to get the proper level set. I found the same thing on my PC at work so this may be a normal procedure.

Now that the headphones are all charged up and we have the audio level set properly we can start actually using the headphones! When you press the power button on the headphones the LED underneath it will turn red to indicate power and then orange to indicate it has connected to the base. Once orange you should hear audio from the headphones and you can adjust the volume as you see fit.

My first test was to start up iTunes and play some music to see what kind of frequency response I could get from the AHP612's. The larger speaker size afforded by studio headphones should get me some much more significant bass (read: any bass at all) than with the earbuds that have come with the MP3 players I'm accustomed to reviewing. Happily I can say that they do indeed accomplish this task. They don't thump mind you, but they do try with the appropriate musical selection. I found that songs with strong mid-bass hits fare pretty well with these wireless headphones; think Deftones or Linkin Park. Songs that have more deep bass or that carry it, many Korn songs for example, don't fare so well as the headphones simply can't go that low. In that scenario, you're left with a rather unsatisfying small thud. Of course I'm disappointed but the 10" sub in my car has trouble with some of those songs so I really won't hold a grudge.

With regards to the mid and higher frequencies the headphones do quite a good job. I spent a lot of time listening to whatever random song came up from the library and also quite a bit from SomaFM and the Limbik Frequencies internet radio channels. Anything that didn't require a 12" sub sounded rather nice.

The only game I could really play was Oblivion as I simply don't have any others installed on my system. I'm sure my son would volunteer to play some Sesame Street games but that's really not the audience I'm aiming for with this review. Anyway, swords clang loud and clear and the low rumbling background music when I'm spelunking sounds as it should. Perhaps best sounding of all are the odd little grunts and screeches from the goblins as they stand around scratching their asses waiting for me to stick Goldbrand in their gut.

For movies I watched Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. Aside from being sucked in to watch the whole thing, all four-plus hours of the extended edition no less, I was again happy with the sound quality. The soundtrack has a lot of vocals and string instruments which really are the forte of these headphones. There are also some good explosions when the catapults send giant boulders hurtling into the white walled city. I also watched Cars which, aurally, is pretty much just NASCAR mixed with Owen Wilson's often whiny sounding voice. KACHOW! The racing scenes have plenty of rumbling of various types and quite a bit of squealing tires when Chick Hicks sends someone into the wall. The closest the movie comes to any kind of extreme highs or lows is when the 'street punk' cars show up to send Mack into dreamland. Even then, there is nothing that will stress the headphones and I felt they handled this movie quite well.

With regards to comfort over extended periods of time I found that four hours was my tipping point. At three hours things got a little uncomfortable and by hour four no amount of fiddling or adjusting was going to make it go away and it was time to take them off. For battery life, during my four hour stint the headphones did not fail. I'm not about to wear them for any longer and I didn't just let them sit to try and find the threshold. Be assured though that you will tire of wearing them before the batteries tire out on you.

Altec Lansing wouldn't have put three channels in for interference control if they didn't think that interference could be a problem. I find myself mostly sitting near my computer when using the headphones but I was sure to walk around the house just to see if I could. It's hard to quantify the interference I found or describe how often it occurs simply because it was never consistent. Sometimes I could be sitting in my desk not three feet from the base and if I tilted my head I would hear a bit of fuzzing. Yet, five minutes later I could lean my head the same and wouldn't have any problems. Now, when walking away, I would certainly hit spots of interference but it never seemed to be related to range. I would hit a spot of interference in one place and keep walking and it would clear right up.

I also took the headphones to my office where I have a significantly higher concentration of fluorescent lights. This did indeed give me a bit more trouble than the few compact fluorescents I have around my house but it was the same odd spotty interference. In the end I couldn't really find any particular pattern and trying the various channels on the base didn't really help either. Overall my interference problems were slight and didn't negatively affect my impression of the headphones. The lack of wires to tangle in other wires or pull out accidentally (I do have kids) more than made up for the random interference. I could simply wheel a couple inches left anyway and clear it right up.

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Page 1: Introduction & First Impressions
Page 2: Testing
Page 3: Conclusion

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