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Advent AW770 Traditional Over-Ear Wireless Headphones (Silver)

Advent AW770 Traditional Over-Ear Wireless Headphones (Silver)

List Price: $99.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: OK for TV, not hi-fi though
Review: I really like these for watching my TV.
I don't use them too much for music though.
Distortion and signal interference is a little too distracting.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Pretty darn good
Review: Not the highest fidelity you will ever hear in a headphone, but if you aren't in a recording studio, and are just listening to music while sitting at home or cleaning, or watching the TV and want headphones so as not to disturb the neighbors, these are perfect. They have more than enough range - I can even go well outside, and still hear the music just fine. They are not quite five stars, though, due to not being fully 'fi', so to speak, and for the annoying need to use another plug cord to recharge the batteries.

As far as some other reviewers talking about complications with tuning, maybe I just lucked out, but I had these things tuned in about three seconds. I've also never lost a signal randomly, or had the tuning slowly go out of phase as some others complained. I will say, though, that the tuning knob on the headphones is right next to the volume knob, and it's very easy to accidentally bump the tuning knob when adjusting the headphones, or when one wants to adjust the volume. But this is a minor complaint (though I would like to see advent begin to put the tuning knob on the side opposite the volume, or in some other less easily accesible spot).

The lows are good, the highs are good, and the ear cushions are very comfy, even for my large head, for extended periods. The cushions I find to hold in heat from my ears and cause sweating (sorry if that's gross, but you need to know this stuff to be informed). I've always had that problem with all cushioned headphones since many, many ages ago, and so is not a problem with just these headphones, but the Advents cause it sooner than others I have owned - they make a very airtight seal around your ears.

For the price, and for the built-in rechargable batteries, these are an excellent deal in my opinion, and I've enjoyed having them and using them, and have just ordered another pair so that my partner and I both can use them to watch movies with explosions and/or loud orchestral soundtracks late at night.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Fugetaboutit!
Review: I bought the Advent AW770 for pickup at Circuit City as a Christmas gift for my mom. She installed it for TV listening and discovered that it would not change channels. After many tuning attempts by herself and with the help of neighbors she called Advent for assistance and they insisted their equipment was not the problem and were rude to her. She took the unit to Circuit City and they plugged it in and had the same problem. She called Advent back to talk to a supervisor who was more insulting than the first guy.

She now has a Sony MDR RF975RK.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: You'll be sorry if you buy these. Seriously substandard!
Review: Although at first these seem like they'll do the trick, a number of poor design features make these a much poorer choice than some other brands. Advents are several years behind the leaders in technology and design, yet Advent charges a premium price. After looking at other brands in the same price range, I'm amazed that anyone buys Advent headphones. These should really be bagain-basement phones. Here's why:

1) Highly uncomfortable. I couldn't stand to wear mine more than an hour or so because of pressure on the ears and head. My ears start burning and I get a headache. They are noticably uncomfortable after 10 minutes. Supposedly they are self-adjusting, but they always clamp my head and ears too tightly -- perhaps the designers thought I'd wear them while jogging. It's true they are cushioned -- but how'd you like to have someone pressing cushions hard against your ears for hours? An ear-vise I don't need! And there is no way to manually adjust so they don't press as hard. Bottom line is that I don't use these at all because they're so uncomfortable. I checked out a Sennheiser headphone set in a store (haven't bought them yet) and they were much, much lighter, didn't clamp hard, and so much more comfortable. Weight on Sennheisers is listed in specs as only 3.5 oz with battery! The battery pack for the Sennheiser I looked at in the store is TINY, while the Advent takes 3 AAA batteries (so there's extra weight there).

2) Advent sound quality is good, but as others have complained, the tuning of the transceiver and headset drifts often. I need to retune headset to tranceiver every 10 minutes or so. Otherwise, the sound keeps cutting out like when you're listening to a radio station while driving through mountains. Another design annoyance is that the tuning wheel is identical in size and is right next to the volume wheel on the headset, so there's a good chance that when you're trying to retune you'll turn the volume knob instead and blast the top of your head off!

3) The battery system is really REALLY lame! The battery system alone will make you curse the day you bought Advent. With Sennheiser (and I think some other brands) you can purchase an additional battery pack that charges in the base of the tranceiver when you're using the other pack in the headphones. Then, if the headphone battery pack runs down, you can just swap for the fresh pack. With the Advent you're stuck with one set of batteries. In order to recharge them you've got to stop using the headphones and plug the headphones into a charger and wait for hours. The only other option is to buy your own additional batteries and buy a generic recharger. So that's additional expense plus a big mess of having an additioanal charging unit sitting around.

The whole charging system is poorly designed. Sennheiser and some other brands have "on stand" charging. With "on stand", when you put the headphones on their stand, they charge automatically. (I have a great wireless phone headset by Vtech that charges by induction when on the stand, so this technology is available.) With Advent, you have to plug a charging wire into a small hole in the headset. This means a) you need to find the wire and plug it into the small hole and b) you have an extra wire running from the tranceiver to the headset when charging. So you have a real rat's nest of 3 cords -- the tranceiver power cord, the audio input cord, and the headphone charging cord. Plus, as mentioned above, if you want an extra set of batteries to charge, you'll have to have a generic charger sitting around too with its cord.

Yet another problem with the battery system is that, as mentioned, Advent uses 3 AAA batteries. This means that if you did want to buy your own batteries to use as backup when the Advent batteries run down, you've got to pull out three AAA batteries, replace the little cloth "pull out the batteries" tab, and then insert three new batteries. This is a big pain compared with Sennheiser that uses a single pop-in battery pack.

Jeeze! Didn't Advent bother to look at their competition before designing something that works like a 10-year old prototype?

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good sound and comfortable
Review: These headphones offer good sound and are very comfortable.
What more could you really ask of wireless headphones? There is
a little hiss during the quieter moments of CD's or DVD's, but
nothing unbearable. I can walk through any room in my home and
get a nice strong and clear signal. Sometimes I need to "retune"
the headphones or base unit, but not that often. I have used
both standard and the rechargeable batteries, both offer 6+
hours of use without needed recharging or new batteries. The
rechargeable batteries charge easily by plugging the headphones
into the base unit when not in use.

I needed some good wireless headphones for watching DVD's
and listening to music loudly late at night, and these
Advent wireless headphones were just the thing to get. I
highly recommend them to audio and video buffs.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: flaky
Review: These worked fairly well for a day, then inexplicably failed (wouldn't tune to base despite fresh batteries and shutting off every electronic device in the house) and I returned them when directed to do so by Advent Tech Support.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: This didn't work well in my home
Review: The headphones have too much static for use in my home. I ended up buying a set of wired headphones (Sennheiser eH2200) which work great. I suspect the problem may be caused by interference by our two 900Mhz spread spectrum cordless phones, but that's just an educated guess.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: decent, but not outstanding
Review: I can't complain about the cost, I actually won these, so mine were free.

These headphones provide hours of wireless listening throughout your house and even the surrounding outdoors. The sound quality is ok, the low is good, the midrange is ok, but the high just sucks. With some EQ adjustment they sound better but they always seem to have too low of a tone for my taste. They completely cover the ears and block most outside sound which helps in noisy areas. They are rather comfortable but due to the ear pressure after about an hour or so they become uncomfortable.

Let me go over a quick Pros and Cons list:

Pros:

- Good wireless reception, works well all around the house and even near by outdoors. Similar range to a good cordless phone.

- Good low and ok midrange.

- Fairly lightweight for this type of device.

- Comes with everything you need including batteries.

- Easy to setup.

Cons:

- Bad highrange, low tone.

- Becomes uncomfortable after a while due to the pressure of the pads.

- When the batteries get low the tuning may have to be adjusted some times, but not really a problem I had much.

In the end I have found it a useful product to have if you like walking around your house listening to tunes from your computer or some other non-portable device. If you want great "highs" look elsewhere, but for general listening these will provide you with a relatively cheap, average wireless solution. For this I give the product 3 stars.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: a great product for first time wireless users
Review: I bought theses wireless headphones because I wanted to be able to walk around my room without the constraint of a wire and still be able to hear my music. These headphone have allowed me to do that. I think they are impressive with only a few drawbacks. The clarity at high volumes is a little distorted but that is to be expected with a wireless device. I walked around my buidling to test the range and at about 100 feet I started getting distortion and loosing the signal but I was expecting that. I live next to a airfield so there are a lot of competing signals and there are a lot of cordless phones in my area but so far everything is good. I believe I got my money's worth for my first pair of wireless headphones.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great sound, hard to tune!
Review: I was very upset after I first got these hooked up. Tried and tried to get them to tune in to no avail. After many expletives and a hissy fit or two, I managed to stumble into the right tuning and was amazed at the clean sound and range. I plug into my pc for my mp3's, digital box for music and news channels while working in yard or lifting weights out in the garage 100 feet away and through 3 walls! I recommend these. Just be patient untill you tune it in right.


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