Digital Trends

Sony Altus MDR-D777LP December 26th, 2006 | by Brandon King

Design and Features

In the Sony Altus’ molded plastic package, you’ll find the headphones, a carrying pouch, and a few random booklets. The soft rubber cord is attached to the left earpiece, and the headband can be adjusted to fit any sized noggin. On each earpiece is a switch that allows the headphone to operate as an “open” headphone (allowing background sound in) or “closed” headphone (isolating the sound). The adjustable headphone strap has very nice, wear-resistant padding, as do the ear pieces. The outer shell of the earpieces is either brushed aluminum coated with sealant or a plastic painted to look like brushed aluminum. The design is collapsible and easily adjustable. The headphones look professional and sleek, and the whole setup feels very well-made and sturdy.

The “Open/Close” switch intrigued us, but after trying every imaginable situation and music type, the best we could discern was that in the “Closed” position, bass sounded a little warmer. We could not detect outside noises any better, nor was the sound signature significantly different between the two. Upon closer inspection, we noted that all the switches did was move a small plastic blockage in front of a small hole at the bottom of each earpiece. We think that this hole might have been too small to allow in enough sound and too awkwardly placed to really allow the differences in air pressure that give open and closed headphones different sound signatures.

We noticed that out of the box, the headphones had an almost vice-like grip, but the headband is bendable, which alleviates this problem. The earpieces themselves are about the size of the Bose Triport’s, which we found to be slightly too small for our average-sized ears. This led to discomfort after moderately long use. The soft, leather-like padding of each earpiece should wrap around the outside of the top of the ear and rest on the head right behind the temple, but on 4 of the 5 people we had try on the headphones, the top of the ear was partially pinned to the head.

Image Courtesy of Sony