Edifier K830 Communicator Headphones Review

Reviewed by Louise Totton

I imagine a typical evening scene in my house is pretty similar to the scene in lots of peoples’ houses these days – I’ll have one of my children glued to the latest instalment of My Little Pony on the TV, the other watching YouTube videos of other kids opening Kinder Eggs (why?), and me with a bit of a headache with the two conflicting noises making me want to tear my ears off. This is made all the worse by the fact that one of the girls has a hearing problem, so whatever she watches tends to be on especially loud. I, on the other hand like to spend my evenings with my colouring book or crocheting and a bit of music, so I have been using my phone to listen to my music and block out all of the background noise. The problem is that I have either been using the hard plastic earphones that came with my phone, which I don’t find fit my ears properly so they drop out and are uncomfortable, or I’ve pinched the kids’ headphones which are a little small, and at the age of 35, I look rather daft with bright pink ears.

So the Edifier K830 Communicator headphones that were sent to me to review couldn’t have been timed better. They are available in either white and grey or black and red – I was sent the white and grey pair.

First things first – they look great. The headphones are a lovely glossy white plastic and are padded with light grey leather across the headband and on the ear caps. The box contains the headphones along with a detachable microphone, which is attached with a standard 3.5mm stereo jack. They are fully adjustable – the band is adjustable for length and the ear caps pivot so also fully adjust. These are wired headphones rather than Bluetooth, and the wire has a volume control for the listening level as well as a mute button for the mic.

I was really impressed with these headphones. Because the padding is so good, and they are so adjustable, not only are they incredibly comfortable but it is really easy to get a perfect fit so pretty much all of the background noise is muffled out. When I was using them, there was no background noise coming through and all I could hear was the music I was listening to. They have a maximum sound level of 98dB, and they sound just as clear at this level as they do at lower levels – there is no detectable distortion or interference; the music was crystal clear and a real pleasure to listen to the cable is a good length at 2m, which means that it doesn’t get in the way at all, and I can move my head freely, and feed the cable around my back so it doesn’t interfere with my colouring or my wool. I like having wired headphones as they never need charging – I do tend to forget to charge the kids’ Bluetooth headphones so find it really handy that these will never run out of battery – they will always just plug in and work.

The 2m cable has two jacks at the end – one for the headphones and one for the mic. As I said, the mic is removable, so we leave it off most of the time but have reattached it for when the kids have been using Skype to talk to family members abroad. These are called communicator headphones with good reason. Firstly, the volume control on the cable is great because it means we can adjust the volume to suit the needs of the user and don’t have to mess around with the settings on the laptop. This means my hard of hearing daughter can just turn the volume level up for herself, then I can reduce it for the rest of the family. The mute button is for the microphone, so we can mute them for a moment or two with the flick of a switch if we need to. Again, no need to go into any menus on the laptop or make any adjustments there. The mic arm is infinitely adjustable so all of us can use it and it takes seconds to switch between users.

These really are brilliant headphones. Not only do they look fantastic, they offer a fantastic level of comfort, superb sound and an equally clear mic (according to the people we have been Skyping). They have an RRP of £34.99, which is not exactly cheap, but these aren’t cheap headphones in terms of quality either. We think they are great and have all thoroughly enjoyed using them. They are adult sized, so do fall of the kids’ heads a bit but to be fair, they aren’t aimed at kids.

I would absolutely recommend them to anyone – I think they’re super!

Rating: 5/5

RRP: £34.99

Available to buy from Amazon here.

For more information visit www.edifier.com.