Panasonic RP-HT722 Monitor Headphones with Built-in Surround Control
- Built-in Surround control
- Convenient volume control
- Long 16ft./5m cord
- Single-sided cord
- Neodymium rare-earth magnet for rich and powerful sound
Product Description
Panasonic RP-HT22 is a headphone specifically designed for use with surround sound home-theater audio systems. It expands the sound field to make the sound appear as if it is coming from all around you, providing a 3D virtual-surround effect.
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Panasonic RP-HT722 Monitor Headphones with Built-in Surround Control
- Electronics: 0 pages
- Publisher: Panasonic
- Label: Panasonic
- Studio: Panasonic
- Average Customer Review:
 based on 15 reviews
Avg. Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Needs Power! 2008-07-29
Comment: If you're looking to use these on your PC or as a portable solution for your DAP (iPod, etc) then keep looking. Seriously, do not buy these - you will be disappointed. The bass will be nonexistent, weak midrange, distorted highs and $25 bucks wasted.
If you're like me and looking for an adequate pair of headphones to use with your receiver at night or any other time you don't feel like waking the neighbors, this set will serve you well.
The truth is these headphones need a decently powered source to get the most out of them, and most portables/PCs just don't feed enough power to the headphone jack to supply these. Attached to a receiver or other amplifier is where these will shine, although if you have a dedicated headphone amp you're probably not looking at cheap headphones to begin with. The sound is pretty balanced and they can get quite loud before getting some nasty distortion. Considering you can buy these for couch change, they are rather impressive.
I recommend putting the volume control on the headphones somewhere between 50-75% and cranking your receiver. With the headphone's own volume at 100% I find them to distort at comparable loudness to lowering the phone's volume and cranking the source power.
The surround feature isn't much of a feature, as other reviews have noted. If you really want surround headphones you're going to want to get a pair with multiple drivers (like the LTBs which sound great). This surround implementation sounds like an incredibly simple DSP effect similar to the surround mode on many PC stereo solutions of the mid-nineties. Personally, I don't see myself getting much use out of it and I'm betting most people with these won't either.
Also I think it's worth noting the foam padding on these is covered by fabric. I initially thought it was the soft fake leather, which I would have preferred. They are very comfortable (very soft headband as well) but the drawback here is my beard. Unless treated carefully I can foresee my beard tearing up the fabric covering fairly quickly. YMMV!
The cord is fairly thick, and covered by that nice tough rubbery plastic which leads me to believe it will be fairly durable. It's also quite long so it should be good for even medium size rooms. I haven't measured it myself but the box says 5m (16.4ft) and at a quick glance I'm inclined to believe it.
So bottom line these are an amazing deal at <$30 for those times when you are unable to blast your speakers. My star score reflects my opinion of these based on the price range of about $0-$50.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating:
Summary: Worth the money - good set for the casual listener 2008-06-24
Comment: So I did what the wife wanted me to do and installed a Panasonic 50" plasma and ceiling speakers to clean up the family room. She always hated the Hitachi DLP and Polk Audio floor speaker setup. Needless to say, she didn't anticipate the bleed through from the ceiling speakers into our bedroom upstairs. Usually it's not too bad, but I like to watch movies late at night when the kids are sleeping and Saving Private Ryan or Cloverfield doesn't go over well at midnight.
So I got the green light to pick up a pair of headphones for Father's Day. Off I went to the Sony store to check out the latest Dolby Digital 5.1 wireless h/p. Nice. Sounds great. $400. Better check out the internet and see what else is available.
If your like me and did a search for "headphone"+"surround" you came across the Panasonic RP-whatever that I'm reviewing currently. $30. Tell me more. Most people seem to like them. Tell me more. Most of the people that didn't like the h/p thought that they should sound more like the $400 5.1.
So what's the verdict? Bottom line - for $30 you can't go wrong. They sound really darn good. Better than any earbuds. I only wish that active noise cancelling was also added to the package. As for the "Surround" sound, it's more like Dolby 2.0. Opens up the mid-range a bit - but deep bass is still missing.
You ask what I did with the $370 that I saved? Put it into the kid's college fund.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating:
Summary: Better than expected. 2008-02-17
Comment: The sound is great - much better than expected. The "surround sound" is a nice little feature, but it is not really a "wow" factor. The cord is WAY TOO LONG.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Sound for the price is AMAZING! 2008-02-08
Comment: I was absolutely stunned by the sound of these bad boys! The surround sound works extremely well. I use them for gaming with the Xbox 360 and could not be happier with them.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Not worth the price 2007-11-17
Comment: I recently moved into an apartment and needed to downgrade from a 5.1 speaker system to a pair of headphones. I was sorely disappointed with the performance of this pair.
The surround sound effect is a joke. The best way to describe it is to take a regular pair of headphones and pull them about 1/2 inch away from you ears. That's it, it's a slightly more open sound, but hardly surround. Additionally, using the surround sound feature muffles the sound and lowers the maximum volume.
The bass and maximum volume were also a major issue. First the bass, there is none. You get bass noise, but no bass effect. The maximum volume also turned out to be very disappointing, especially when gaming. I adjusted every windows setting, speaker setting, application setting to make sure I was get as much noise as possible, but it fell way short of what I was looking for.
To sum it up, avoid these headphones. They ruin the immersion quality of games where sound is important - Half Life Series, Call of Duty series, etc. These headphones also lack any sort of power if that's what you're looking for. I literally could have cried at the lack of bass with this unit.
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Panasonic RP-HT722 Monitor Headphones with Built-in Surround Control
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