Primark Travel Wireless review

They’re neat, finished nice, so not obviously cheap. One plastic does all housing, which seems more than up to it. The headband works ok and is padded, there’s an inch of adjustment too. The pads are small and plastic‐padded but fit over my slightly bigger ears ok. Both earcups can fold back into the headband. The band is springy enough to hold, though no adjustment. The cups are slightly and not obviously slewed—they fit better with the headband to the back—that’s all you get for L/R sign. Two buttons on the cups. The folding cups will help with transport—I can’t see them being fundamentally robust but I guess good as similar designs. Not tried the mic. They are easy to use and, despite the plastic everything, surprisingly comfortable, maybe for an hour or so and if you’re not sweating. The shape is neat and tidy, the matte finishes likeable, beige is a pleasant non‐obvious color choice—they look good.

Connection is surprisingly solid, and distance is good too, no problems through a wall to another room. Two buttons are not tall and feel rattly but have a positive press. First smaller button is on/off, the longer ‘‐/+’ button jumps tracks on taps, adjusts volume on presses. The packaging box claims always‐on noise cancelling, the instructions say in phonecalls? I don’t hear noise cancelling, but note that isolation is good—‐they do not leak much noise. To charge plug in the USB 3 cable until the LED goes out. Battery life is maybe 8 hrs, surprisingly good (no noise cancelling to drive). No app or frequency adjustment—‐not at this price.

Volume is only passable. There is a boost to low instrument ranges, but it’s nicely judged. Volume range is average. Mushy envelope in low strings. Suspect decay of some laziness. Timing is good. Swells are compressed heavily, though there’s no mistiming or confusion. Flutes muffle, and mid strings and voices blur. Some boom round low strings. Trumpets are a little down, though clear enough, which is unusual. An overall room‐like echo—‐this gives not grey so much as a slight muffle to all replay. Frequency range goes low, though soft high up. Detail is there, especially in high notes, but gets lost in the boom sometimes. Colour is good, surprisingly near woodwind. Scale is limited, and positions vague.

They are a thing, for sure, for soundtracks and games. Orchestral music is compromised by the blur of mass instruments, but gain from the low frequencies and background colour. They boom on rock, but they have timing. Pop… they can (surprising, I’d have thought they would be tuned for this) muffle and boom vocals especially, though yr Reggae fans will be happy. Muffle and distance again on minimal instruments, but pleasant and revealing. Must try EQ—the headphones proved resistant, maybe suggesting housing issues, but get more balanced with a slope to 100K and a table uplift above 11K.