Monoprice MHP-839 Review

Introduction

Comfort, Design & Features

Low comfort, fairly durable

Without resorting to childhood verbal abuse rhymes, aesthetics is clearly not the strong suit of these plastic cans. But since Monoprice's branding is centered around affordability, these clunky, ugly plastic headphones fit the image perfectly: If there was a generic brand set of cans, these would come packaged in the white box with black lettering. Chances are good that if you're buying these cans, you're not looking for fashion anyways, so this may not be as big of a problem for some.

Depending on the size of your head, these cans will either be passably comfortable, or a hellish headphone wearing experience. While it's no secret that the MHP-839s weren't designed with comfort as the main concern, they could have at least pretended to care. Over time, the fit doesn't change much, but if there's even a minor annoyance with it, you'll be very easily annoyed with little things like heat buildup or your pinna getting pinched.

Probably one of the best things that can be said about the MHP-839s is that they offer a level of durability not found on headphones in their price range. For most sets of cans, the weakest part of the design is the cable, leading to breakage. To combat this, having a female 1/8^th inch jack in one of the ear cups allows the user to simply swap out the broken part for pennies compared to replacing the whole unit. It's very uncommon for headphones under $100 to have removable cables, but the MHP-839s do, and that's huge.

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Audio Quality

Could be better, but they're only $30

This is the kind of frequency response that won't be impressing many people, and prevents the MHP-839 from being considered over more expensive headphones. There's a huge dropoff in volume for the highest octave of a standard 88 key piano, also making the last two octaves of a pipe organ and the attack of most types of cymbals a half to 1/4^th as loud as they should be.

Another frustrating issue with these headphones is their tendency to shift channel preference at the volume threshold of human hearing. It may not be enough to dissuade someone looking for a bargain, but it's still bad enough to be aware of. Your music will absolutely be audibly affected in a couple ranges. There's also a little bit of distortion, but nothing that will be terribly audible.

Conclusion

Not great, but they're passable for the price.

Monoprice certainly has its work cut out for it if it wants to make a splash in the bargain electronics industry. While the company was wildly successful making cheap cables to sell wholesale, Monoprice seem to be stumble a bit with the MHP-839. Even though the box claims that they're "Pro" headphones, they are anything but.

Specifically, these headphones, while durable for their price point, don't have good sound quality. Sure, it's probably a bit mean to beat up on a pair of headphones built by a company who made their name on massively undercutting others in price, but the fact remains that the product is probably not something that people researching which headphones to buy are going to elect to go after.

Should you decide to pick them up, you'll have a very affordable set of headphones that you can bang around, toss in your bag, and not worry about breaking so much. They're durable in that they can have their weakest points replaced without fuss, but the band is not only uncomfortable, but also a concern. They'll do in a pinch, but don't expect great sound quality.

Science Introduction

It seems a bit excessive to run a set of bargain headphones through the wringer, but we did. Here's what we found.

Frequency Response

Not bad, but not that great either.

Most of the frequency response is actually okay, but there's a decently significant dip from 1-7.5kHz that will definitely be audible to most people. Specifically, the last two octaves of a piano, highest notes of a guitar, most notes on a flute or piccolo, and highest notes on a violin will all sound strangely muted in comparison to the rest of your music. Additionally, turning up the volume to compensate will make other sounds inappropriately loud.

Tracking

Not perfect, but passable.

Normally, errors up to 2dB are acceptable and only barely audible (if at all), but the MHP-839s swing their volume from side to side by 4dB, which can get a bit distracting if you're used to hearing your music on computer speakers or a home hi-fi system. This is definitely not a good thing for games, either.

Other Tests

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Meet the tester

Chris Thomas

Staff Writer, Imaging

@cthomas8888

A seasoned writer and professional photographer, Chris reviews cameras, headphones, smartphones, laptops, and lenses. Educated in Political Science and Linguistics, Chris can often be found building a robot army, snowboarding, or getting ink.

See all of Chris Thomas's reviews