Phillips CityScape downtown review (Pics)

silentanarchy · May 8, 2015

Phillips Downtown

Review

The Look and Feel

The DownTown have a love it or hate it type of look, I personally love it however I wish I would have gone with the black

and brown ones. The headband is made of a brushed aluminum band which has a silk wrapping and a thin foam

layer for padding, Also there is a very thin hard foam under the metal band which I presume hides the cable.

Next we have the ear cups which have a very interesting design for adjusting to your heads contours. It's also effective but that's for the comfort section. The outermost part of the earcup

has a plastic disc with the words Phillips on it, under that is aluminum from the headband. next we have the interesting pivot design I was talking about a moment ago,

which is connected with a slightly curved plastic disc with a cream colored ring around that says the words musicseal, I'm not sure what that is made of but it may seal in the sound more.

now moving on to the inside, The ear cups are made of a cheap faux leather, but even though it's cheap it feel soft. In the center of the ear cup is more of that silk which

feels super smooth against your ear. The rest I can just show you.

The Build Quality

I can't think of too much to say, which is odd for me. The build quality is more than I would have expected for a $150 pair of headphones. The only two complaints I have is the use of a cheap feeling cable, and the way the silk is held on the headband. Other than those two small things these are built to last. I should also add that the cable is anti tangle so that is a Plus. I can't scratch the aluminum, the leather has not separated from the silk so far, and the swivel is robust. I did rip the silk of the headband because I thought the L and R markings were button's so I pulled on them, but I was able to put the silk back on over it. Just a tip don't pull on the silk where the L and R markings are.

Comfort

Comfort is the second, or sometimes first important factor when Buying headphones. I will start by saying these are the first pair of supra-aural headphones (On Ear). So take what I say about this with a grain of salt. I think these are acceptably comfortable. I can wear them for 2 to 3 hours until i feel discomfort. which is about as good as my AKG K550's but nowhere near my Sennheiser HD 448 which I can wear for 10+ hours. The comfort is helped by the light weight, but other than that there's not much going for it. The earcup cushions are about a 1/4" thick, and the headband cushion is about 1/8" thick. overall they are moderately comfortable.

Sound Quality

Okay so as in the usual fashion I waited till the end for the sound quality. In short the frequency response is in the shape of a V, or your classic fashion headphone signature.

Frequency response

The highs

are there, They however leave me feeling like i'm missing some of the instruments drag (how long a cymbal rings after it's hit). The main reason is the bass masks the high frequency a little. and the high frequency bleeds into the mids. which gives a distant sound, but not the kind of distance soundstage gives you. it just sounds like a software reverb for alley way.

The mids

as I said are masked by the highs which are masked by the lows, So vocals sound a little washed out and static (loss in dynamic range). there is an over emphasis on the instruments, which sounds like it may make these good at classical, but you would be wrong. There are still plenty of mid range frequencies in classical, which are just overwhelmed, by thundering bass drums and the brass section.

The lows

despite the name of the section it's not to sad here, the bass is very nice it has punch with plenty of volume, and I was shocked by the bass performance of these small cans. unfortunately the bass just couldn't get along with mids and highs and just suppresses them.

the rest

The soundstage is the but small, still it's better than no soundstage. These have decent clarity with minimal distortion at loud volumes, and they have excellent isolation for supra-aural headphones. but with all this said I'm not a fan of V shaped Signatures, and these fit under everything I hear with V shaped signatures. So if you are a fan of V shaped sounds then these might sound great to you, just not for me.

The Conclusion

Overall these are arguably stylish supra-aural headphones with good isolation and some sound stage, and suffer from the normal fashion headphone sound. but I can still feel comfortable recommending these to a fashion headphone user. who may be abusive to his/her headphones.

Thanks for reading and feel free to leave a comment on problems you have or information you want to know.

also tell me if there is anything I can improve on.

If you liked this review then you may want to read my other ones.