A Few Days with Philips SHP 9500

The Philips SHP 9500 has been absurdly popular lately. That Smzdm thing kept pushing it until it was everywhere — it’s cheap, and the word of mouth is good.

I wasn’t impressed at first. The price bracket is what it is, and yeah, people hype it as “this used to cost X back in the day,” but in the end it’s still a budget can, isn’t it. Then one day — I forget which bastard on G+ egged me on — I somehow ended up placing an order. Newegg international, no less. After ordering I completely forgot about it, and only remembered a month later. Turns out I’d registered on Newegg too early and the phone number on file was an old one, so the delivery address got flagged as undeliverable and the package was in limbo. After a whole runaround I found out Newegg doesn’t have its own logistics and had handed it to Tiantian Express, so more phone calls, and only then did I finally get the thing in my hands…

I don’t really have much to say about this one. My mom said “why did you buy another pair of headphones, the house is already full of them,” and I said “I’m a music lover, of course I spend more on this stuff.” She shot back “your dad loves listening to music too, why doesn’t he spend money on it?” All I could do was explain that “what dad listens to is vulgar errenzhuan and unhealthy songs like ‘Mistress’s Tears’ — not comparable to mine.”…

Anyway, the box is big but the contents are bare-bones: one pair of over-ear headphones, one cable, nothing else.

Unboxing photos of these are all over the internet, and every armchair audio mystic has already dissected the sound, so I can’t be bothered. I’ll just give my personal impressions.

My biggest takeaway: these things are comfortable as hell!

Seriously. Compared to other headphones, these are the only ones that genuinely deserve the word “comfortable” — the rest are torture devices. I wore them all afternoon with no discomfort, and even forgot I had them on. That stupid Creative Live starts clamping my head after a bit, and the Grado SR225 needs pad swaps to improve. This one needs nothing — just put it on your head! For that alone it’s worth buying.

I said I wouldn’t talk about sound, and honestly I didn’t listen that carefully — I just wore them while playing music and Doto. But after a round of listening, I think the sound is… natural. How to put it — very light and plain, highs don’t float away, mids are okay, no artificially boosted bass. In short, the legendary “balanced three-frequency monitor tuning.” Similar to the X7 paired with the IM03 I’ve been listening to lately.

Actually I started to suspect I’d regressed to tin ears, since everything sounded the same. So I pulled out the Grado SR225 and Creative Live to compare, and the difference was obvious: those two sound like they’ve had MSG added, while this one is as plain as boiled water.

Usually at this price they deliberately boost the bass to push sales, and this thing didn’t do that. And the plain sound plus the comfy fit is just perfect — very pleasant to listen to, great for long sessions.

Probably the only annoyance is that it’s open-back: whatever you’re listening to, the person next to you hears it too.