Home > Consumer Reviews > Philips SHE9850 In-Ear Headphones with Advanced Acoustics

SUMMARY: The best part about these Phillips in-ear headphones is the noise isolation. Surprisingly, although the ear plugs look a little on the large size, they fit quite smoothly and snugly into one's ear. Sound quality is decent, but not as good as I'd expect of an $80 unit. Mids and highs were clear, but not spectacular. Lows and bass were pretty much nonexistent.

PACKAGING: As someone else mentioned, you don't need a box cutter to open these up. They come in a glossy (ipod white?) plastic package, that opens up easily, like a book. Everything inside is neatly packaged. It comes with an aluminum carrying case as well, which has considerable heft to it, and feels like a substantial, and very nice item.

APPEARANCES: The Philips earbuds themselves have a metallic, slightly translucent, sheen to them, which gives a modern, sleek feel. As you can immediately see, the earbuds are designed to be placed all the way into your ear, right next to the ear canal. They are slightly canted at an angle, to optimize placement.

USAGE: The earbuds surprisingly fit very easily into one's ear. The fit is snug, not loose at all. They would be very hard to yank from your ear accidentally. The connection is a standard gold plated microphone jack, which should plug into most MP3 and portable music players.

Noise isolation is perfect. I had these on, while sitting a few inches from my TV, and could barely hear the TV. They're that quiet; probably due to the effect of having in-ear placement, and noise-dampening material. In fact, I found that noise isolation was so optimal, that I could reduce the main volume control on my MP3 player by a factor of 3, and still maintain the same loudness as my cheaper pair of Sennheiser earbuds.

Mids and highs are very clear, although not significantly more than my cheaper Sennheiser unit. Bass is almost non-existent. Frankly, I was expecting more from an $80 unit. I don't expect there to be bass drowning out the other levels, but there should be some bass. And that's the primary reason for giving it 4, not 5 stars.

It's otherwise a great unit- improve the lows, and I'll give it 5 stars.

Around our home you could probably find at least 15 pairs of in-ear headphones. We've tried a few!

Used for noise reduction (i.e. 'screaming baby symphony') on planes or other crowded places, and also when we ride motorcycles, comfort and sound are very important to us.

After a long search a few years ago, I ended up with the Etymotic ER6, which we have 3 pairs of. These phones fit comfortably in my ears, are tiny enough to fit inside a helmet without creating pressure points, and (until now) I thought they had awesome sound quality.

Not anymore!

The new winner in our stash of 'phones are these Philips SHE9850's.

The first thing I did after receiving these is get out the MP3 Player and my ER6 'phones. I started by listening to a complex song on the ER6's, then switched out to the SHE9850's.

The 9850's fit my ear comfortably, no excess pressure, but enough tension to hold them in place inside my motorcycle helmet (nothing more frustrating than riding 100 miles with one headphone bouncing around inside your helmet!).

The sound quality is simply astonishing. The ER6 gives good sound, but the 9850's not only have better and more nuanced tones, they make you feel like the sound is coming from all around you - The only thing I could compare it to is 2D versus 3D. The ER6 'phones sound flat in comparison to the 9850's.

External noise reduction is excellent - on par with the ER6. This is important in noisy areas, where you'd have to crank up a normal set of headphones to hear the music, these in-ear 'phones cancel noise like earplugs, so your listening volume can be extremely low. Much safer for the ears!

Fit is good, with options for 3 different silicone-style buds, and also foam. The design of the 'phones is a bit different, left and right buds are each angled for the best fit in their particular ear - so you'll know it if you've got them switched around.

The headphones come with a very nice aluminum (!!) holder which will keep the cords from tangling, and keep the headphones from being damaged. Also inside the holder is a tool for removing earwax (yuck!) from the 'phones. My only complaint about the holder is that the slide access doesn't clip into place, so there's nothing to keep it from opening up whenever it feels like it.

Our only problem with the 9850's is who gets to use them. We're now fighting over them every time we go out riding!

These are perhaps the best in ear earphones I've ever used. They are lightweight, comfortable, stay in your ear, and offer great sound.

I've long ago ditched most earbud style earphones. They offer horrible sound, are uncomfortable, and never stay in your ear. These earphones address those issues with style, comfort, and great sound reproduction.

The mid and high range reproduction is crisp and clean without any noticeable distortion. Low range is somewhat lacking but is proberly above what most small earbud style headphones are.

They feature many great design features such as replaceable buds for the earpiece. There is small, medium, and large. There is also a set of memory foam that you can choose. This is good because as everyone's ears are different, most earpieces are not. This allows you to choose the fit of the earbuds to suit your own needs.

The part of the cable that plugs into your walkman, diskman, iPod or whatever is steel reinforced, which is nice as that is what usually breaks first on headphones. They also come with a steel carrying case to protect your headphones when not in use. They also have a cleaning tool to clean any nasty bits that may get into the canal of the phones.

All-in-all a great set of phones for the audiophile. They are lightweight, sound great, and most importantly, stay in your ear and are comfortable.

The sound of these headphones is excellent, and they do a great job of cutting out external noise. None of the four included tips fit my ears very well but the sound is good enough that I decided to keep them. They are also nice-looking and lightweight.

Being a stickler for good sound I must admit to not having much faith in the sonic quality of these in-ear headphones before ordering them. But I was very pleasantly surprised to discover they sound really good - not quite excellent, and definitely not perfect, but solidly good. I'd say they are well worth the investment, particularly for those who want earbuds with a snug fit that effectively block out environmental sounds. I haven't tried these on an airplane yet, but I'm banking on them substantially reducing surrounding noise. I plan on taking them an a forthcoming trip to Turkey and will modify this review to let potential buyers know how they hold up.

For now, I'd call these headphones a good buy and strongly suggest purchasing them.