Sennheiser RS130 Wireless Headphones

Reviews: Multimedia

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Nicholas Hart
Kurtis
Sennheiser
Feb. 14, 2007

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Testing

Before use, you have to let the batteries charge for at least 16 hours. When the batteries are fully charged, the red charge light on the base station will begin blinking slowly. After that simply pick up the headphones and turn them on. You'll hear beeping until the headphone and base sync up with each other and after that you should start hearing audio through the headphones.

Unlike the Altec Lansing headphones, the Sennheiser RS130 headphones didn't require any manual tuning of the signal to get a good audio level. Just as the manual described, the headphones self-level and I found a good range of volume control on the headphones. In fact, with the manual dial for volume adjustment, it was very easy to get just the right volume adjustment even at the lowest or the, ear splittingly, highest volume.

As is normal around here, I listened to a lot of internet radio, some songs from my library and that George Acosta stuff that Kurtis is into. Immediately I was impressed by how "full' everything sounded. You know how some songs can make the hair stand up on the back of your neck? I don't think I've gotten that feeling from a set of headphones before but I was with the RS130's.

For bass, these headphones are a bit more capable than Altec Lansing's AHP612 wireless headphones, but they still lack the head-rattling oomph you can get from your surround system. They also fare much better in the case of songs that carry bass or have a lot of bass notes in close proximity (think Korn). With the Sennheiser RS130s, the notes are much more defined and don't get all muddied together.

Most games won't stress headphones any as the sounds tend not to dwell in the bottom of the frequency range. I'm still stuck with only Oblivion installed on my PC but hopefully it will do as a test. When games start putting bass-heavy sound effects in, you can complain that I'm not doing enough. Anyway, I have no complaints from these headphones as they handled all the monotonous voice-overs (the guy who does all the high-elves particularly drives me nuts), creaky skeleton walking and sword clangs without skipping a beat.

To try and keep the Altec Lansing comparison going, I stuck with another Lord of the Rings movie. This time the Fellowship extended edition; and yes, once again I stayed up late to watch the whole thing. Now that I think of it, this movie is similar to Oblivion in the sword clanging, creaky skeleton sense what with all the battles and the dead dwarves laying around Moria the fellowship have to keep stepping over. Luckily though, LoTR doesn't have the high-elf guy and Frodo's screams aren't nearly as annoying. The background music covers a good range of mid-high and it all sounded great. I also watched Cars but again, there really isn't much to stress any headphone set really.

The Sennheiser RS130 headphones also have an SRS feature. This is supposed to add a "surround' sense to the audio experience but I failed to find any benefit in my testing. It definitely affected the sound, but I wouldn't really say it was surround. Rather it just seemed to amplify the mid-range a bit more. For example, in LoTR, the background music gained much more prominence but it still didn't give me a sense of anything being in front of, or behind, me. This ended up being something that I simply left off.

For comfort, I was pretty certain the Sennheiser's were going to fail miserably. It seemed when I first put them on that I just couldn't get the right fit. Even after multiple uses, for the first ten minutes they just feel odd. But, with that being said, even after a four-hour session, they didn't get uncomfortable or cause pain. This is the only set of headphones I've ever had for which I can say that.

In the realm of interference, the RS130s also take the gold. I didn't get nearly as much spotty interference problems and I could walk much further than with the Altec Lansing headphones. I guess fifty years of professional caliber RF engineering could have something to do with it.

Wow, it's starting to sound like I don't have any complaints, which would be rather odd for me. Well don't worry, because I do; but only a couple. The first is with the buttons on the headset. As I mentioned earlier, there is no LED to indicate on/off and, a couple times, I found I had simply left them turned on. An indicator on the headset would be nice as it would be hard not to notice a bright LED still lit after I put them down for charging. The volume button works great, but the Tune button is right underneath it and they both are controlled by the same motion. The proximity of the two meant that I would often hit the Tune button instead of adjusting volume. There wasn't much of a downside, the audio would cut out for a couple seconds and then come back. After more use, I simply paid more attention to which button my finger was on.

The other complaint I have is also rather small but has a negative affect on the perception of ambient noise with these headphones. You see, when you have the headphones on but no audio actually coming into the base for a period of time, the headset and base seem to disconnect. Then, there are a few beeps and a lot of white noise in the set. On first experiencing this, I thought it was interference and only when I hit Play did the white noise go away while the headset and base sync'ed up again.

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

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Add Comment

6 User Comments

1 - Posted by Big Pete on June 12, 2007 - 5:55 am

A great review. Comprehensive and packed with real information. I am off to order a pair!

2 - Posted by Kurtis on June 12, 2007 - 11:31 am

Glad you found the review helpful! :)

3 - Posted by Gil on December 17, 2007 - 1:22 pm

I own a sennheiser RS130 and very satisfied with it. I was recomending it to a friend and found this article which confirms my satisfaction. However before submitting this article to friend, i am noticing the the sponsor is Sennheiser. Does it mean that they paid for the evaluation? Thank You for the response

4 - Posted by Kurtis on December 17, 2007 - 3:06 pm

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

As for your question, sponsorship just means they provided the product for us to review - this is how review sites operate; we don't buy all the things we review (though we do sometimes buy things to review them). We never accept money for a review, and even if a company is advertising with us and sponsoring a review, that would never affect our evaluation. As a matter of fact, we don't even handle advertising ourselves, a third party deals with that for us which helps ensure editorial integrity.

5 - Posted by Tim on January 13, 2008 - 2:58 pm

I have a pair of my own and they work great!! I purchased a set for my dad and I can't get them to work!!! I am connecting to a Vizio 50" HD TV through the headphone jack on the back of the TV and also trying to connect to the audio output of a DishNetwork DVR receiver. The battery is fully charged and the on light is coming on. It seems the receiver and the headphones are not syncing with either connection. Can you help??

6 - Posted by andy on June 17, 2008 - 4:02 pm

I came across this review while shopping around online for a wireless headphone for my father. This review is definitely superior to any other one I read. I appreciate the writer's style and the fact that he reviews each step of the process; opening the box, first appearances, setup, etc. Reading this clear and thorough review is the last step of my online search (thank gd....), and I will be purchasing these headphones tonight.
Thank you! Awesome work!

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