When you buy your PSP, one think you’ll quickly realise is that the PSP comes prepackaged with a pretty sub-standard headphone set, quality aside one thing that really let’s it down is it’s low sound volume, it’s fine playing in a quiet room, but if you’re thinking of taking it anywhere noisy like in the subway, you’ll struggle to block out outside noise. So we recommend you buy a new pair!
So, to summerise here’s why we think you need to get yourself a new pair
- The pack pair have a low max volume limit
- The in-built speakers on the PSP are quet, and some games require you to wear earphones like Manhunt
We’ll walk you through some of the options available to you in order to choose your new set of headphones, we’ll dwell you into someone of the factors you should be considering, to get the best portable audio device for you PSP.
Design
First and foremost there are different types of headphones available to choose from, there are 3 distinct types we have the external earphones aka DJ headphones which sit outside the ear and are foam padded for comfort. Only a few people tend to sport these, namely DJs and other music enthusiasts. We also have in-ear headphones, and in-ear bud headphones. We’ll explain all three,
The external headphones are sported by DJ’s and music enthusiasts’, there is a reason for this, whilst cheap external headphones tend to have really poor sound quality and are really no match for in-ear headphones of the same price, as you go higher up the ladder the headphones have some truly amazing sound quality. Now you have to bear in mind what your needs and requirements are. For gaming you probably won’t need to get hold of £200 headphones, and you have to consider the bulkyness of wearing external headphones.
You also have the in-ear option, which we paticularly like as they cancel out outside noisy, and really give a truer and richer sound quality for your enjoyment. Now I know a lot of people who don’t like these types of earphones, especially cheap knock-offs which can be quite uncomfortable to wear, for me personally, I have quite big ears and with a tiny bit of force they tend to come off.
Ear buds are my most favoured option, they tend to go deeper into the ear, inside the ear canal in fact, because they are closer to your ear drums they need to emit less soud (possibly saving a bit of battry life), and they reduce the external sounds a lot more. You probably will need to be careful at what level you listhen to. The sound is also a lot more clearer than the other 2 options.
The Cabellling
A lot of cheap earphones come with low quality cables that have the habit of twisting the tieing into themselves, this leads to all sorts of knots and jumbles being formed in your earphone cable. This can be quite annoying as you have to keep untying your earphones before you use them.
A few high end models will come in non-twisting designs (which should be stated in the packaging), if it does not state whether it’s non-twisting or not the chance is probably is that it doesn’t have non-twisting attributes.
Sound Quality
Unfortunately due to hygiene reasons there aren’t many stores that allow you to soundtest the audio quality of your headphones, in paticular the earphones or earbuds which go into the ear.
However the good news is that if you buy online you can check out the reviews before purchasing on sites like amazon.
Generally there is a price/quality correlation, especially if you’re going for reputable brands like Sony, Philips, Sharp, Bose, Hitachi etc
Sony Fontopia MDR-EX71
Sony MDR-EX71 earphones
I’m a big fan of Sony Products, I own a Sony Cybershot Digital Camera, a PSP (obviously), in the past I did own a PS2 – however I’m not a massive console fan any more. Sony have a long standing reputation for good quality products, and we couldn’t agree more.
Design
The Sony MDR-EX71 earphones have a remarkable resemblance to my SonyEricsson W850i hands free kit, the duh moment came when I realised that both of them are manufactured by the same company. The come pre-packed with 3 different buds, large/small/and medium. For most people the mediums should do fine, for me personally I’ve always had to wear large size earbuds and earplugs because I have big ears 
The buds are made of stretchy rubber, which have grippy surface so that don’t come off the ears too easily, being stretchy means it will adapt to fit your ears comfortably, and you can swap the earbuds for different sizes as they stretch i and out of the earphone groove.
When you first put those on you’ll realise that it has a cool noisy cancelling effects and blocks out some background noise, this is a good thing as it means the output sound can be quter and you can still hear perfectly fine, and you can enjoy your music and game sounds even more
The Chord
The chord is thick and has a similar feel and quality to my other philips SHS3200 earhook earphones, which I use for jogging. The beauty lies in the thicknes of the cable, if it’s thick – it’s unlikely to kink and tie. I didn’t see any mention of “anti-twist” anywhere on the packaging, I’m not sure why but I’m proud to say this earphone passes our kink test.
The length of the chord is short, half a metre as stated on the packaging, this is because the product is designed to be used with a remote, such as the PSP remote or a Sony Walkman remote, secondly the left and right side of the chord are different lengths this is because the right earphone is designed to go around the back on the neck from behind, to avid cable clutter, which I think is brilliant!
MDR-EX71 Sound Quality
The sound quality of this earphones are just amazing! I’ve used them to play games, listen to music, and also to listen to some relaxing binaurial beats from my MP3 player, I’ve had a lot of fun playing around with the sound settings on the PSP and varying the style of the music output.
The bass quality is good, it’s got enough power to it, at the same time the sound is clear and comes through well so there is no loss of sound quality, as is the case with the lower quality earphones. The higher pitch trble sounds are clear as well. We’ve downloaded a music sampler from emule to test the headphones at varying pitches, and we were thoroughly impressed.
We tested the MP3 player facility usings some high quality ripped tracked from our CD collection, I’m not a buyer of CDs at all, every song I have is downloaded from websites, and they’re not always the best quality.
A couple years ago I bought a jacket from designer called cast iron, and with it they included a CD with some pretty amazing drumb n bass tracks it had some very unique sounding tracks on there, and I thoroughly enjoyed listhening to them with the the Sony MDR-EX71 earphones.
MDR-EX71 Specification
- Amazing Sound Quality
- Closed earphone design gives superior bass output
- Small 9mm driver and super soft silicon earbuds provide superior fit
- State of the art high power neodymium magnet gives prowerful bass and clear treble sound.
- Short leads allows earplug to fit comfortably into any remote control unit.
To summerise I think the MDR-EX71 sony earphones are amazing sound quality and are decent and affordable, ity’ll make a perfect companion to your PSP.
