Philips SHP9500 Headphones Review

The Philips SHP9500 have a utilitarian design that looks good without being too flashy. They come in a matte black color scheme highlighted by the metal frame and Philips branding on the ear cups and headband. They're well-padded and look more premium than other headphones above their price range. The ear cup padding is soft. However, it's not the best and looks a little cheaper than the rest of the build quality. For headphones with a slightly sleeker look, see the Philips SHP9600.

These over-ears are very comfortable. They have large ear cups that easily fit around most sizes of ears, and their fit isn't too tight or heavy on the head. The headband and ear cups are well-padded, making them great for long listening sessions. However, the padding is made from a slightly rough fabric, which can irritate the skin.

These headphones are breathable thanks to their open-back design, which allows heat to disperse from the cups. You won't feel your ears get very warm if you're using them, even during long listening sessions.

These headphones aren't designed to be portable. They're quite large and don't fold into a more compact format. The ear cups also don't lay flat to save space, so they're bulky if you want to put them into a backpack. However, this won't be much of a problem since they're intended for use at your desk.

The Philips SHP9500 are decently well-built. They're mostly made of plastic with a thin metal headband to help reinforce their frame. However, the fabric padding seems to tear easily and will show wear faster than leather padding. The swiveling ear cups also feel like a weak point since they can break under moderate stress. If you want something that looks and feels a bit more premium and durable, check out the similarly-performing Philips Fidelio X2HR or the Philips Fidelio X3.

These headphones have a fairly stable fit. They'll stay in place if you're listening to audio at your desk. However, they're still big and bulky, so if you move your head a lot, the headphones can easily slip off your head. Luckily, the audio cable is detachable, so it'll disconnect from the headphones if you accidentally hook them on something.

• Philips SHP9500 headphones
• 1/8" to 1/4" adapter

These headphones have a clear mid-range and bright top-end, and like many open-back headphones, they're not very bassy. Genres like EDM and hip-hop lack the full depth in the sub-bass region, though kick drums mostly retain their boom and punch. Vocals and lead instruments sound natural and clear, which is great for folk and jazz. A slight dip in the low-treble warms up vocals a bit, which can balance out the bass roll-off a bit. The peaks in the rest of the low-treble and mid-treble cause sibilants like hi-hats to sound slightly harsh and piercing, depending on their pitch.

The Philips SHP9500's frequency response consistency is very good. They're prone to slight inconsistencies in treble delivery due to positioning and fit. However, once you take the time to ensure a good fit, you'll get consistent audio delivery each time you use them.

Their bass profile's target compliance is passable. They lack a lot of low bass, which is normal from open-back headphones, so mixes are light on thump and rumble. However, their high bass matches our curve well, adding warmth and boom to kick drums without overwhelming vocals and instruments.

These cans have an outstanding mid-range target compliance. The range is very even, ensuring that vocals and instruments sound natural and clear in mixes. In songs like Pruitt Igoe by Philip Glass, the cascading strings and piano halfway into the track are smooth and accurate.

These over-ears have very good treble target compliance. A dip continues from the upper mid-range, which warms up vocals a bit. Because these don't have a lot of competing low-end, the dip doesn't make a big impact on intelligibility. The low-treble through mid-treble is over-emphasized, adding both harshness and sharpness to sibilant sounds (S and T). Besides a couple of small dips that cut a bit out a bit of shrillness, the rest of the range is rather bright, with an extra dose of brilliance on the top end.

The peaks and dips performance is good, which indicates the headphones control their sound profile well. The low bass is slightly uneven, so certain frequencies lack rumble compared to higher frequencies in this range, which deliver a little extra thump. The mid-range is very even for a balanced voicing. A small dip where the high-mids transition to the low-treble hurts the intelligibility of vocals a touch. The rest of the low treble is a bit over-emphasized, adding extra brightness that's somewhat harsh to vocals. The headphones' uneven mid-treble makes sibilants like cymbals alternatingly piercing or slightly dulled.

The imaging performance is excellent. Philips' audiophile lineup tends to have solid ergonomics and quality control. However, keep in mind that imaging varies across units. Our unit's L/R drivers are also well-matched in group delay, ensuring tight bass and transparent treble reproduction. The drivers are also well-matched in phase, amplitude, and frequency response, which ensures that objects like instruments are properly placed in the stereo image. While there's a peak in the phase response's high-treble, this is very hard to hear with real-life content, especially as we lose sensitivity to this range over time.

The Philips SHP9500's passive soundstage performance is great. Their open-back design makes their soundstage feel open, spacious, and wide. Audio seems to come from speakers placed in the room around you rather than from inside your head.

The weighted harmonic distortion performance is great. Even at higher volumes, these cans can reproduce clean and pure audio.

These are the settings used to test these headphones. Our results are only valid when used in this configuration.

The Philips SHP9500 aren't designed to block out background noise. Their open-back design allows the environment's ambient sound to mix with your audio, helping to create a more immersive audio experience. They slightly block very high frequencies. If you're looking for audiophile headphones that block background noise, check out closed-back headphones, like the Sony MDR-7506 instead.

As expected of open-back headphones, these have terrible noise isolation in common scenarios. You're best off using them in quiet spaces because environmental sounds like people chatting and the general racket associated with transportation will all reach your ears virtually unaffected.

These headphones have an open-back design meant to leak audio so sound can interact with your environment and create a more immersive sound. As a result, people around you can hear your audio, even at moderate volume.

These headphones come with a long, detachable 1/8" TRS cable and a 1/8" to 1/4" adapter so you can connect them to standard-sized headphone outputs. Thanks to their low impedance and somewhat high sensitivity, you can also use them without an amp, and because these are analog headphones, their latency is imperceptible.

You can connect the Philips SHP9500 to your PC via analog, but you can only receive audio since they don't have a mic.

You can plug their analog cable into your PlayStation console's AUX port for audio support. However, they're audiophile headphones and don't have a mic.

You can plug these headphones into your Xbox controller's AUX port and receive audio. Since they don't have a mic, you can't chat with others.