Motorola has been one of the major promoters of Bluetooth technology, and has started using the term ‘Stereo Bluetooth’ to refer to products that support the new
A2DP profile. These are its high end A2DP DJ headphones.
The DJ-style headphones moniker refers to their styling, not their functionality. The drivers of DJ headphones swivel upwards, keeping the headphones stable so you can listen to what the audience hears with one ear and preview with another, all while frantically mixing. The closest resemblance to DJ functionality these headphones have is the ability to swivel the drivers 90 degrees at the joints, flattening them for more manageable transport in the included hard case.
Generally, the bigger and more expensive headphones get, the more comfortable and better sounding they are. The DJ headphones were not as comfortable as we were expecting, because the earpads are made of soft leather, which is nowhere near as forgiving as velvet and other soft materials you see on headphones for the same price. The flipside of this design is that they reduce a lot of ambient noise.
Motorola seems to have targeted these headphones at commuters, as further noise reduction is achieved with the use of a very tight headband. This headband is lined with a scratchy, synthetic piece of material that makes resting them on the back of your neck when you’re not using them a bit of a chore.
A side effect of their design is that your ears get hot very quickly. The length of a movie is about the limit that you can wear them without wanting to take them off, any more than that and they become uncomfortable to the point of distraction. On that basis they have just limboed under the bar of wearability.
A strip of metal through the headband makes them feel more solid, but other than this the design is predominantly plastic. Nonetheless they feel very sturdy and should withstand a lot of abuse.
Considering the headphones are marketed towards the wannabe DJ crowd, we were pleasantly surprised with the balanced, rich and understated bass response. It brings out the detail in the rest of the music, and helps downplay the uncomfortable fit that results from the tight headband and leather-ey earpads.
The sound quality is the best we have heard out of A2DP Bluetooth headphones so far, and in a nice additional touch, they come equipped with a 2.5mm jack for direct analogue audio input. This let us directly compare the audio quality through the wired and wireless delivery methods.
Vocals and fragile strings crunch out a little, but this is less noticeable when there are other, louder sounds in the mix. Electronic music and synthesizers sounded the best when transmitted wirelessly. The bass loses some of its balanced, rich qualities when being transmitted through A2DP, while kick drums and certain bass guitar notes seem to stick out to compensate for the loss of bass definition.
The layout of the controls are the most intuitive that we have used so far. There are two buttons on each driver, which control phone calls and music playback. There’s a jog dial around each driver to control volume and track selection on the left and right hand sides respectively.
Like almost all other Motorola products, the DJ Headphones charge through a mini USB socket, located at the base of the left driver. A full charge should last for about 17 hours of listening time and 230 hours of standby, depending on how you use them. Next to the charging socket is a 2.5mm audio jack that lets you connect non-A2DP-Bluetooth enabled devices, which functions even if the batteries are dead.
There aren’t a lot of choices in the A2DP-enabled circumaural headphone market at the moment. Although there will be (and probably already are) more comfortable offerings out there, for the time being these deliver some of the best quality sound with expandability to match. If you can handle the low comfort levels, the Motorola DJ headphones provide a good quality sound with the added bonus of interfacing with your current crop of audio gear the old fashioned way.