Quite an earful

Lightweight, good looking, comfortable and with great sound — this is a headphone that’s better suited for gamers than music listeners

Looks
This may be a low-priced budget model, but the Zebronics Audiophile 5000 doesn't look like one. A glossy black headband with good quality leatherette-wrapped foam on its underside, this piece looks svelte. It's lightweight, ergonomically designed and comfortable, but the headband extensions are a little plasticky. The earcups have an aluminum plate embedded on its outer side, displaying the logo in a cursive font. The aluminum surface accenting is strewn at important points of the body, giving a nice aesthetic appeal. The leatherette and foam on the earcups seem to be of good quality, but might suffer wear and tear.

Specifications
The impedance is 32 ohms, which is normal for usage with regular mp3 players and amps/cards. The transducer is 40 mm in diameter, while sensitivity is 105 dBSPL at 1 kHz — a healthy rating — so the headphone should not have any problem in going loud. Frequency response is rated at 20 Hz - 20 kHz. Cable length is long enough, at 2.5 m, with two 1/8 inch (3.5mm) jacks for connection to soundcards. The mic has a frequency response rated as 30-16,000 Hz.

Performance
We plugged the piece into our HTPC soundcard, and first put on just pure test tones. Our first test was to see how low the sound can go. The company claims that it can go as low as 20 Hz but we found that sounds up to 35 Hz are audible, after which they taper.

Our continuous sine sweep also exposed a couple of spiked chinks at the higher mids and high frequencies. Then on we had fun with our scores of Radiohead, Tribal Tech, 50 Cent mp3s. For music this headphone is not really so apt, as the frequency balance is spiky at the highs.

This headphone is really meant for gaming and watching movies. The mic works very well. We recorded a bit of voice and analysed it. The output is satisfyingly clear for headset standards. There is low bass but the timing could have been better. As for overall loudness, we have no complaints. The Audiophile has a healthy max, a level that is enough to engage the player deeply without getting affected by outside noise.

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