| | Good: - Mono to Stereo capabilities
- Extendable microphone boom
| Bad: - Poor microphone quality
- Lacking stereo audio quality
- In-ear discomfort on long usage
| Rating : 5.8 / 10 | Tune out the world, tune in full-spectrum stereo music and conveniently switch to calls on your music-enabled phone. Innovative stereo ear buds seal out noise and seal in sound for better listening, while AudioIQ technology digitally enhanced sound improves call quality on both sides of the call. The sliding boom gets you closer to the microphone, so you are heard better than ever. Convenient one-touch buttons let you control calls and music from your headset. At only 15 grams, it’s lightweight, comfortable and discreet. On the train, on the road, on the move— the Plantronics Voyager 855 Bluetooth headset the perfect convertible for traveling life’s highway.
Highlights - Easy pairing with Plantronics QuickPair technology
- AudioIQ technology digitally enhances sound quality on both sides of a call
- Seamlessly switch between calls and music listening
- Sliding boom lets you be heard clearly
- Sliding boom conveniently answers and ends calls
- Seal out the noise, seal in the sound with innovative ear buds
- Full-spectrum stereo sound with rich, balanced bass
- Easily convert mono headset to stereo listening with detachable cable
- Dedicated call and music controls at your fingertips
- Up to 7 hours talk time from a single charge
- Ready, willing and able with 160 hours standby time from a single charge
- Compact and discreet comfort at only 15 grams
The Plantronics Voyager 855 is one of the first Bluetooth headsets that support both hands-free and audio streaming from your phone, or Bluetooth enabled device with an A2DP profile available.
Boasting to having advanced AudioIQ to enhance call quality and full-spectrum stereo sound, how does it compare to other headsets with mono to stereo capabilities?
This is the second pair of headsets that I know of which provide mono to stereo audio on the fly, and being from Plantronics, I had high expectations. Unfortunately, they were not met.
Before you can use the headsets, you obviously need to pair it. Very simple procedure; get into pairing mode and pair. To answer and end calls, you can press the control (power) button or extent and retract the boom. I prefer the latter as not only does using the boom improve my microphone audibility, but I don’t like the idea of pushing the control button causing the ear buds to go deeper into my ear; and it isn’t a nice soft key which you can tap either. The worst part is if you want to reject a call, you need to push the control button in for two seconds. Given that you will need to push it into your ear to do so, you might just want to answer the call anyway.
On a call, I could hear the other party clearly thanks to the headset being in-ear design (although there was a slight background hiss), the microphone didn’t come on par. Noise-cancelling worked to muffle out most of the background noise, but the fidelity of the microphone wasn’t very good. Extending the microphone helps make it easier for the other person to hear me, but there were still a little bit of cut outs in the conversion from my side.
If the overall clarity of the earphones and microphone were a little better, this would have easily been one of the better headsets out there. The in-ear design is secure, and extended microphone boom is very useful if you’re not loud enough for the other party.
Although I say the ear-buds are great, being secure, having them in the ear for a long duration of time can feel a little discomforting, especially if not in a call as you notice it much more.
When you plug in your ears, you get an inner rumbling sound; try it with your fingers, but when you start to talk and walk around, your voice and footsteps echo in your head and it isn’t fun after a while, which can make it more painful to wear.
The function of the headset is to also provide stereo sound. You are provided a second ear bud for your other ear, linked via wire and at the end a hook to attach onto the headset. You can also wear the main unit any ear as it allows for the hook to be attached either orientation.
This was where my expectations failed.
Although you get stereo sound, it was really just a more power and clearer fidelity of the inbuilt speakers of a phone, and we all know that the problem is; lack of depth and bass.
The stereo would actually accentuate the normal and higher pitches more, very nice depending on how you like it, but because the bass was still extremely weak and with no depth in sound, the audio was annoying with only loud high tones.
Thinking it could be just my PDA and its lack of ability to pull out a good equaliser, I tried it on my iPod; same deal. I tried it with my computer; same deal.
Unless I did something wrong, I can’t recommend this pair for streaming music.
On the plus side however, while you’re listening to music, when a call comes in, the music will pause, and you have the option to take it or ignore it via methods above. When the call ends, the music will automatically resume again.
At the end of the day, I can’t give a high recommendation of this headset. For the overall call quality and feel, and the audio quality, it isn’t worth it. I would look elsewhere.
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