Here we review the Philips SHQ1000-28 ActionFit Headphones. In short, these earbuds are not high fidelity. But they are very durable, sweat proof, waterproof. Just be sure to use the rubber cups they come with. These buds are well-fitting for sports, comfortable, and not bad sounding.
Clearly though, they focused more on the ruggedness that sports requires. Less on how good the Philips SHQ1000-28 ActionFit buds sound.
But this trade off that favors durability over sound may not offend people who listen to while working out. Why? In a common workout, there are so many other noises around. So, the lower high-end and weak bass is easy to overlook. You can still hear the defining parts of the music, even though it does not sound as full. Nonetheless, the sound profile of the music rises way above the ambient workout noises. E.g. Treadmills whining, footfalls thumping, and weights clanking.
Excellent strain relief provided on all critical joints (the two ear pieces and at the jack end).
You get approximately 47 inches of usable cable length.
The audio cable itself is highly flexible.
You don’t hear much noise in the Philips SHQ1000-28 ActionFit earbuds when you tap on the cable. So too when you run, and the cord flops around.
The instructions included detail how to change the ear inserts.
These Philips headphones are in the same style as Apple iPod stock ear buds. E.g. They do not stick into your ear canal. Their little speakers sit in the ear, just outside the canal entrance.
Light weight and comfortable. Just keep the rubber ear piece boots in place. Without these, these buds are not comfy, with a jagged edge that pokes the ear.
3.5mm gold-plated connector is provided.
Fit and stability are hallmarks of this earphone. Once placed in the ear, they do not move around too much until you take them out. This is a valuable feature for equipment for rigorous physical exercise.
Philips marks each headphone at the top of the cable stem, with a white letter. This tells you which channel each earbud is. Either left (L) or right (R) channel.
You get a black spring-loaded clip on the cable between the plug and the Y vertex. It slides up and down the cable. It fastens the cord to a shirt or belt. So, the cable does not flop and whip around as much as you work out hard.
They also provide a black mesh and red carrying pouch for the earbuds. This looks like a gym-style clothes bag. So you get the idea loud and clear that this is sports product.
The mid range frequencies are the best sounding audio components here. So these work well for the speech found in audio books, podcasts, and so on.
This achieves good waterproofing.
These phones work well in indoor or outdoor workouts. They block outside noises very little. So you get max safety while riding or jogging along busy roads.
They produce plenty of volume, in spite of their higher-than-typical sensitivity rating. They’ll indeed hurt the ears at full iPod volume.
The higher-than-typical impedance (32 ohms as opposed to the common 16 ohms) means less power consumption here. But you may also experience lower volumes as well.
My copy has a red cable with white driver units, black strain relievers and jack body, and red anti-microbial boots.
The Philips SHQ1000-28 ActionFit earbuds are quite comfy to listen to in bed with one ear stuffed into your pillow. But they do leak sound. So with a partner sleeping beside you, you may have to cut the volume way back.
The left and right earbuds are not exact copies. Insert them backwards (right bud into left ear, and left bud into right ear). Then you lose some good fit and comfort. So this is why we prefer completely swappable ear drivers in our buds.
So you may disturb your sleep mate if you play your music too loud while sharing your bed. Moderate volume levels however, we barely hear several inches away from these Philips SHQ1000-28 ActionFit earbuds.
Though the specs available for this product are quite extensive, they still do not mention harmonic distortion figures.
Not a very good high-fidelity audio device. We listened to these for a couple of hours. Indeed, our ears did adjust somewhat to the mostly mid range sound profile. But with so little highs, these phones never grew pleasant-sounding to us. We never could abide the missing treble.
Yes, we like our highs. In fact, we need them. But the rubber cups mentioned above, since they completely cover the speaker grills, seriously cut the high-end sounds.
So we tried removing the boots and listening that way. This indeed did restore much of the highs. But it also made the overall music sounds even more piercing and harsh. Philips designed the drivers to favor the high frequencies. They did this to try to make up for the treble loss when you have the covers in place. But unfortunately, they did only a poor job at this tuning for sports, as they call it, in our opinion.
Either the covers trim too much treble. Or the drivers output too little. Whatever the case, the result is a less than stellar audio profile. This may mean that only beginner listeners would enjoy these buds. Especially if they have an ear for good sounding music. Indeed, to get a waterproof earphone, Philips gave up much of the crispness of treble. They also lost the very low bass components.
So no phone conversations through these while jogging.
Quite a bit of harshness in the mid-high frequency range here. That’s even with the waterproofing rubber boots in place.
The extreme high frequencies are virtually non-existent. As such, these phones failed our Hissy Master test. That is: On recordings that have higher hiss, we barely heard it through these buds.
We paid $25 roughly for this pair. True. But how they sound does not impress us. But their durability is perhaps the best we’ve seen in a set of in-ear headphones. We wish thus, that the more costly buds used the same high quality cabling and strain relief found here.
We believe that Philips put too much emphasis on the sports requirements of these earbuds. Also, they placed too little priority on audio fidelity. While the SHQ1000-28s are second to none in terms of good durability, they sorely lack audio performance. Thus, we advise against these to any serious audio listener. But unless he understands these quirks as a sports enthusiast, then he might think them not too bad.
In other applications, the audio problems here would quickly become unacceptable. We thus rate these sports phones at 75 out of 100. Unfortunately, these buds sound really bad to us. So bad in fact, that we’d rather buy a better-sounding yet non waterproof set. Then take the chance during workouts that we would not break them.
I bought mine at Walmart. But you can also buy them on Amazon, eBay, and other larger online electronics vendors. Look for the red, white, and blue outer package, and the clear plastic inner packaging. The earphones are visible through a window on the box front.
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