Arctic P402 Headphones Review

1. Introduction2. Packaging & Bundle3. The Arctic P402 Headphones4. Comfort and Performance5. Closing Thoughts6. View All Pages

A simple metal bracket allows each ear cup's position to be adjusted by around 20mm to suit the user's individual comfort preferences.

A pair of cylindrical, plastic tubes spans from one side of the Arctic P402 Headphones to the other in a semi-circular shape. The material's flexible nature allows for a wide degree of adjustment, hence providing comfort for most head shapes and sizes.

Due to the headband material's elastic nature, once the force holding the ear cups apart is removed, a very tight fit is provided as the sides of the P402 set of headphones move towards one another. This is a good way of achieving a very secure fit. Arctic has done well to ensure that only an appropriate amount of force is exhibited.

With an ability to tilt by almost 180 degrees, the Arctic P402's ear cups can be altered to suit an individual's particular wearing style. The comfortable, impact-absorbing ear pads ensure that users' ears are less susceptible to irritation and sweating via the leather material's reduced friction.

The Arctic P402 Headphones offer music playback of acceptable quality with a variety of output effects. Bass levels aren't as spectacular as Arctic's advertising makes them seem, but they are still good enough to enjoy a modern hip-hop or R&B song.

Low-pitched sounds were handled well by the P402 headphones, but that success wasn't carried over into the higher-pitch performance. High-pitch tones can cause the output to sound ‘tinny' – a term generally associated with cheaper headphones that over-compensate on dynamic sound adjustments in an attempt to improve audio quality.

The Arctic P402 Headphones' in-line microphone offered impressive voice-recognition and audio quality when used with our HTC Legend mobile phone. Our call recipients were able to understand every word with excellent clarity. The same impressive performance was touted when making calls over Skype.

Thanks to Arctic's 2-in-1 3.5mm input, both the audio output via the headphones and input via the microphone can be used at the same time, when using a device that supports the simultaneous connection. This will please those wanting to use their music playback headphones as a phone call device.

The biggest issue with the single connector design is its inability to operate as a dual-function input with even modern motherboards' on-board audio devices, such as the Realtek ALC892 CODEC used with an Asus P8Z77-V board. Arctic suggests using its A751 adapter to split the single, dual-purpose connector into separate audio output and microphone input 3.5mm jacks.

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