About:

Hi and welcome to my new review. Today I shall review a product overlooked by many. I am reviewing whats become my new favourite gadget. The Philips SBC9630 earphones. What makes them really really special is their price. An amazing Rs. 50/- in India, that’s 1.25$ – Can you ever offer quality at that price ? Well, philips has done the impossible with this little baby.

Gautham needs EarBuds:

I still remember that fateful day, when I man handled my good old Transcend T-Sonic 610 2GB MP3 Player’s bundled earphones, stuffed them in tight jeans and went to sleep still wearing the jeans (maybe I was too tired – don’t ask why anyone would sleep in tight jeans :-p) I guess the story is obvious now – the earbuds broke; only one ear was functional. I went hunting for replacement earbuds, and after a month of fruitless searching, in a Music World outlet somewhere near where I study, I found these pair of earbuds in a tiny box kept at the bottom. I tried them on. They sounded BETTER than my old earbuds. Then I asked for the price. Rs. 45/-, the boy at the counter replied. I was shocked. Even Rs. 120/- earbuds were all sucked in quality; and most of the stuff was flashy Chinese goods. These were perfect for me. I was severely short on cash;(I still am ) and I was worried sick that I would not be able to ever get a good replacement set of buds again. These buds rocked, the heavy, groovy, thrashy and classic metal music music I listen to sounded great. All those pop songs I am forced to keep in my T-Sonic due to my friends’ instance also sounded beautiful.

Specifications:

• Frequency Response: 20Hz to 20KHz
• Sensitivity: 96dB at 1Hz
• Impedance: 32 Ohm +/- 10%
• Jack: 3.5 mm standard
• Type: Stereo Earphone
• Maximum Retail Price: Rs. 50/-
• Product Code: SBC9630

Features:

• Stereo Phonic output
• Label on earphones to indicate Right(R) and Left(L)
• Sponge to spread bass

Review:

So far, as you see, the feature set and specifications are pretty standard. Some are the *minimum* requirements for a good earbud. It meets them all. But lets cut the technical crap and move to my experience with them – I have bought 4 pairs so far till date, and the last time I bought it was a few hours before posting this review, and I am enjoying Iron Maiden’s Phantom Of The Opera as I type .

Build:

This earbud set is quite sturdy. Despite spending more and more time in my tight jeans and sweaty suit pants, its been hardly affected. Only thing to worry about is that the bass spread sponges may come off and get lost. The chord is strong, and long enough for any normal guy.

Looks:

Trust me; Philips did not want to make a looker out of this, but that doesn’t mean its ugly either. I think its plain and nice, and feels like a good classic example of a normal in-ear earphone set. I can’t get a picture for you because this product is nowhere to be seen on the internet, including various image search services. My PC’s camera sucks, but I shall try to upload a pic later.

Volume:

This is on the lower side when it comes to volume. My authentic 1990s Sony Walkman Original EarPhone set sounds nice and loud compared to this. But since there exists something called volume control, I am going to not cut any points from this can-o-wonder for the decibel level.

Sound:

Ah… The important part. This earphone sounds like rock. It has a high bass and a high treble. Mids are quite normal. I am going to review all types of music here, instead of describing various sound bands like one of those nerds who have no clue what real world is all about. So lets enter my playlist and media library shall we ?

Pop Music and Vocals:

It has no issues with pop and vocals. Its quite clear in reproducing them. Bruce Dickenson’s Nasal vocals, whenever he uses that voice, is rather hard for most cheap earbuds to play, but this has no issue at all with Bruce. Every other singer sounds awesome. I like the way James Hetfield’s growl sounds in Turn The Page.

Clean Guitar and Acoustic Guitar

Being a guitarist myself(although a beginner), I know how a guitar sounds when I play it, and I must say acoustic and clean guitar are flawless on this earohone set. I love Hotel California on this. I am listening to that now. The solo is about to start. Wow its so darn cool.

Electronica and Artificial music

I am not much into electronica, but I must say synthesizers sound great on this. I have a good amount of electronica and/or digital music, and they all sound great, mainly due to their clear and simplistic nature. Windows XP Intro music, composed by microsoft, also sounds pretty good. So this category is cleared too.

Rhythem Guitar in Heavy Metal

My favourite music, but this thing has variable mileage in this section. I don’t blame it, since Metal is very demanding on both the equipment and the musician in order to sound good. Well, iron maiden is flawless here. So is black sabbath and led zeppelin. Deep Purple’s dual leads of Guitar and Hammond Organ sounds a bit unclear. Metallica’s guitar sounds great. Superb. I am listening to Turn The Page now, and I must again say its perfect. The sound may appear a bit modified, but that’s due to the higher treble, which is good in rock. Bass is perfect, but its the crunchy mids where issues crop in. System Of A Down’s songs often have issues here, since Daron Malakian uses that somewhat high on mids “deep” sounding rhythem guitar, and that gives this set of earbuds the trouble, since the volume is a bit there. But you still can manage, and the music is not half bad even then. And yes, SOAD’s Sugar is one of the exceptions to this Daron Malakian guitar issue: it sounds superb as always.

Lead Guitar in Heavy Metal

100% no issue. I am listening to the Jimi Hendrix hit Purple Haze right now. You guessed it right – For each section, I listen to the right song to help me review better. Thats my writing style. Well, Jimi’s distorted leads sound crystal clear. So do solos from Metallica’s Kirk Hammett and Dream Theater’s John Petrucci. Since lead means treble, this set of cans has no issue at all with them.

Symphony and Classical music

Again, 100% perfect. Led Zeppelin’s Black Mountain Side sounds very good. I started playing the Mars Symphony now, from “The Planets”. It sounds as mysterious and enchanting as ever. On switching to James Bond theme, I still find the music crystal clear. James Bond’s On Her Majesty is also cool. As I said before, this has absolutely no issues with clear music. So symphony music and classical music must not give any problems.

Complex Experimental Progressive Stuff

Moving on to a genre most of you will ignore, but I still am an adamant fan: Progressive and Experimental. I am going to talk about mainly metal related stuff here. The sound is still pretty good, though not god like due to the demands placed by such complex kind of music. Iron Maiden’s Transylvania sounds great. So does Metallica’s Where The Wild Things Are, where I was most impressed. I am listening to it now, and everything sounds as perfect as ever, the leads, the rhythm guitar, the drums and the hypnotic vocals and solo. Dream Theater’s Metropolis is as exiting as ever. Led Zeppelin’s When The Levee Breaks is a song which gives audio encoders the run for their money, since its one of the most difficult songs to clearly encode, due to its high frequency spread. It also gave the earphones a really good test. The starting drum beats, with their echoing thuds sounded ok, but the echo was not clear enough. Then the wailing squeaky lead guitar sounded normal. The rhythm guitar/bass melody, which plays in the background, sounded perfect. The slide guitar melody part is superb. Robert Plant’s vocals don’t face any issue at all. All in all, though I told perfect here, there were always some issues with progressive music, mainly because of the the continuous sounds and the complex distribution of frequencies. Infact, I noticed that only the most expensive earphones could produce an accurate output, without any alteration, of progressive music.

Conclusion

All in all, the SBC9630 is a good performer. It can easily do if you are looking for a basic entry level earphone, and for all non music related perposes, its 100% good. Even when it comes to music, the SBC9630 puts up a good brave show, tackling even the most hard to play songs which I have a great liking for. Infact, I use it as my primary earphones and I am still kept satisfied. At its price, or even double/triple that number, nothing at all comes close to it. I recommend it to all of you, and even if you already have a pair of earbuds, buying this one is no harm, since its just Rs. 50/-, or 1.25$. This is hardly a price to pay. It serves as a good backup earphone set, and if you are trying to build a PC where money is scarce, this will be very helpful.

I urge any and everyone who is intrested to try out this little wonder from philips. Its under advertised, and doesn’t even appear on Philips Official Website. But that does not make the SBC9630 any bad. Try your best to grab it from your nearest electronics/computer/music store. Be warned that for Rs. 60/-, with the same model number exists a headphone set from philips. This one sucks, so avoid it at any cost.

Rating: 8/10 – Comming From Me, that’s too GOOD