Phil Jones H-850 headphones and Edifier H850 the same?

[Karl Derrick]

Sorry if this is old news.

A while ago I bought a pair of Phil Jones H-850 headphones. I was and am really happy with them. Excellent sound and the most comfortable headphones I've owned.

Earlier this year I stumbled across Edifier H850 headphones accidentally. They were a great deal cheaper than the Phil Jones, but look identical down to the detachable cable and the packaging, so I bought a pair to compare.

If there are any differences other than the Phil Jones logo screenprinted on the earcups, I can't find them.

So, I lent them both to a sound engineer mate. He took them to his studio and he can't find any differences either. He assures me they are the very same, right down to the individual components.
I guess we know where Phil Jones gets them made

The Edifier H850s are available for just £33 from Amazon. They can be had elsewhere even cheaper.

Thought you guys might like to know.......



Karl

Edited October 31, 2015 by Karl Derrick

[cybertect]

Interesting

It's actually mentioned in the review of the Edifiers on Head-Fi

http://www.head-fi.org/products/edifier-h850/reviews/10633

[quote]The H850 is tuned by Phil Jones of Phil Jones Pure Sound and founder of Acoustic Energy (plus a few other well-known speaker companies too). In fact, Phil Jones has been working with Edifier on several speaker products so far and even offered H850 rebadged and sold as part of Pure Sound’s line-up for bass guitarist. [/quote]

[dannybuoy]

Thanks, I was thinking of getting some of the PJBs, so that's saved me some dough!

[colgraff]

Thanks for the tip. My 18 year old Sennheiser headphones are getting rattle and I need to replace them.

[Karl Derrick]

They really are very good.

Didn't know about the Head-Fi review, but it seems our suspicions are correct then, they are in fact the same product.

Karl

[wateroftyne]

[PJB USA]

There seems to be some doubt about the PJB Headphones, that they are the same as the Edifier H850. Well I designed them both and the PJB headphones are made with far higher Quality Control tolerances and they do not use all the same internal parts as Edifier. If you are not interested in getting the better quality headphone, then by all means get the Edifier. If you want the better headphone with much better after sales service, (thanks to our UK distributor Synergy), then get the PJB. What ever headphone you buy: PJB or Edifier, the money eventually still goes to me!
So if you believe that somebody not qualified making these statements (they me even be one of my competitors, who knows) but I stand by my products and my customers.

Phil Jones
Designer of all PJB products
Chief of Design : Edifier International.

[xgsjx]

I was looking for a decent set of headphones for very little money. I was almost buying a pair of Sennheiser HD201s until I saw this thread.
I know £75 isn't a lot for a decent pair of headphones, but with that being out of my reach (there's other things I need to buy), the Edifiers are very tempting.
I wouldn't expect the build quality or after service of a more expensive pair of headphones, but to have a good sounding set of headphones for not a lot of money is a great thing when the pennies are tight.

[fretmeister]

I'm a bit of a headphone junkie. I've got Grado Senn, AKG etc etc

The ones that REALLY surprised me are the Superlux HD668

Amazon have them for under £40 and they sound as good as my Grado's which were more than 4 times the price. They are not just worth trying if you are on a budget, they are just worth trying irrespective of budget.

[molan]

Those Edifier 'phones have been around a while.

Same external components (to save on tooling I think) but the PJB ones have a lot of internal upgrades.

They may look the same but performance should be quite different if used to monitor a bass at any sort of volume.

I've git a breakdown of key differences somewhere. I'll see if I can find it.

[ambient]

I'm a little surprised that because something 'looks' the same on the outside, then it's assumed to be the same on the inside.

[Karl Derrick]

Now, I'm not 'qualified' to offer a technical opinion, or to comment on the design or components.
But I do use both daily, interchangeably, and I can hear no differences between the two.
I have multiples of both.

Both are excellent and I continue to buy more Edifiers to give away to friends. Great headphones.


Karl

Edited November 3, 2015 by Karl Derrick

[molan]

Here's what I had about the differences:

"The PJB H850 has a completely new design transducer to cope with the extreme punishing low frequencies and dynamics of a bass guitar.

This transducer is unique to the PJB H850 and not available in any other headphone.

To achieve the desired performance, they used a more powerful neodymium magnet, a slightly larger voice coil and to keep the moving mass low, they opted for copper clad aluminum single layer, edge‐wound ribbon conductor.

Also, the rear damping chamber is far more effective than the Edifier headphones.

Another thing is that the PJB headphones have a much flatter frequency response across the whole audio spectrum and consistent in manufacturing to within =/- 2dB.

The Edifier headphones have a very peaky response from 5KHz on up and that is due to the fact that there is far less damping inside them along with a lower cost diaphragm and two layer round wire copper coil.

The Edifier brand is a low cost consumer brand and the products designed for them are built to fit specific low price points."

Sounds like they are pretty different to me. . .

[ambient]

[quote name='molan' timestamp='1446586492' post='2900672']
Here's what I had about the differences:

"The PJB H850 has a completely new design transducer to cope with the extreme punishing low frequencies and dynamics of a bass guitar.

This transducer is unique to the PJB H850 and not available in any other headphone.

To achieve the desired performance, they used a more powerful neodymium magnet, a slightly larger voice coil and to keep the moving mass low, they opted for copper clad aluminum single layer, edge‐wound ribbon conductor.

Also, the rear damping chamber is far more effective than the Edifier headphones.

Another thing is that the PJB headphones have a much flatter frequency response across the whole audio spectrum and consistent in manufacturing to within =/- 2dB.

The Edifier headphones have a very peaky response from 5KHz on up and that is due to the fact that there is far less damping inside them along with a lower cost diaphragm and two layer round wire copper coil.

The Edifier brand is a low cost consumer brand and the products designed for them are built to fit specific low price points."

Sounds like they are pretty different to me. . .
[/quote]

But they [i]look[/i] the same .

[edpirie]

So they're not the same in technical terms, but according for one BC'er who uses both there's no discernible difference in practice. Which is great news if you can't afford the PJB's, but if you can it would be worth trying them because we're all very different the way we hear things and so for some there might be a clear difference to justify the higher price. Fair summary?

[Karl Derrick]

Fair Summary.




Karl

[molan]

[quote name='ambient' timestamp='1446594432' post='2900746']


But they [i]look[/i] the same .
[/quote]

That'll be the manufacturer saving $150K of tooling costs - seriously that's how much it costs just to set up the builds on these!

The difference in price is in the interior components. One set are low cost, cheap to obtain parts, the others are specifically designed to reproduce bass frequencies, at volume, for a significant amount of time

[molan]

[quote name='edpirie' timestamp='1446621187' post='2900801']
So they're not the same in technical terms, but according for one BC'er who uses both there's no discernible difference in practice. Which is great news if you can't afford the PJB's, but if you can it would be worth trying them because we're all very different the way we hear things and so for some there might be a clear difference to justify the higher price. Fair summary?
[/quote]

Definitely agree on the way people hear things. I was talking to an MD from a big London theatre recently.

He bought one set of the PJB's to try out and heard there was a cheaper alternative so have them a go.

The next week he ordered five sets of the PJB's - one as a personal backup and four sets for key musicians in the pit.

Of course, he's using them in a high end professional situation so a) He's likely to have very sensitive ears and it's easier to justify the higher price for better quality kit.

[Dave b]

On 02/11/2015 at 19:22, PJB USA said:

There seems to be some doubt about the PJB Headphones, that they are the same as the Edifier H850. Well I designed them both and the PJB headphones are made with far higher Quality Control tolerances and they do not use all the same internal parts as Edifier. If you are not interested in getting the better quality headphone, then by all means get the Edifier. If you want the better headphone with much better after sales service, (thanks to our UK distributor Synergy), then get the PJB. What ever headphone you buy: PJB or Edifier, the money eventually still goes to me!
So if you believe that somebody not qualified making these statements (they me even be one of my competitors, who knows) but I stand by my products and my customers.

Phil Jones
Designer of all PJB products
Chief of Design : Edifier International.

I have to totally disagree with the quality and after sales back up of this product. I bought them in 2017 and within 12 months the ear muffs were starting to peel.  Now they have disintegrated. I emailed Pjb twice just asking where I could get replacement ear muffs and got no response.

poor quality and no after sales.

[baldwinbass]

11 minutes ago, Dave b said:

I have to totally disagree with the quality and after sales back up of this product. I bought them in 2017 and within 12 months the ear muffs were starting to peel.  Now they have disintegrated. I emailed Pjb twice just asking where I could get replacement ear muffs and got no response.

 Hi Dave,

Same happened to mine but you can get replacement ear cushions in the UK - from PJB distributors, Selectron UK.

Although there was a delay while they waited for new stock, I received excellent service.🙂

[oakforest5961]

My H-850 ear cushions have done the same, post the warranty period. I'm not a heavy user of them either. The headphones sound good, and that's what really counts, but I won't be buying new cushions from the distributors because I reckon that they will just split and peel too.

I had the same problem with my Sony MDR-7506 headphones, which are also not budget headphones.

[mcnach]

On 05/10/2020 at 22:14, Dave b said:

I have to totally disagree with the quality and after sales back up of this product. I bought them in 2017 and within 12 months the ear muffs were starting to peel.  Now they have disintegrated. I emailed Pjb twice just asking where I could get replacement ear muffs and got no response.

poor quality and no after sales.

 

My experience wasn't great either. Mine stopped working on one side within a few month sof owning them (PJB). I thought it was probably the cable, despite not having had any particular cable incidents. I ordered a new one. It arrived and... still no sound on one side, it wasn't the cable.

I contacted PJB about it, and they did respond, but the reply amounted to "ah, that sucks" and nothing about how to get them repaired, whether under warranty or not.

That led me to look for alternatives. I have to say the PJB headphones were nice, but I didn't love them. The Audiotechnica ATH-M50X I ended up with felt better, sounded better (to me), and they're still in great condition several years later. Their price at the time was similar to the PJB ones, maybe £15-20 more. 

[LukeFRC]

I got the Edifer version of the PJB headphones. Arrived broken so exist held together by electrical tape now. If they are the same they are good buy at the Edifier price and not so much at thePJB price. 
With the refund I bought a cheaper secondhand set of AKG K249DF which are a lot better (though not really in the same league) 

[dave_bass5]

10 minutes ago, mcnach said:

That led me to look for alternatives. I have to say the PJB headphones were nice, but I didn't love them. The Audiotechnica ATH-M50X I ended up with felt better, sounded better (to me), and they're still in great condition several years later. Their price at the time was similar to the PJB ones, maybe £15-20 more. 

I looked at getting the PJP but also ended up with the m50x. Cant be happier with them, although i did send the first pair back as i didn't feel i needed them. Then i missed them. 

[xshawk]

I bought a pair of Phil Jones Bass H-850 headphones... but the arm above the Left side says Edifier....

Did I get the PJB H850's or did I get the Edifier H850's... How can I tell?