Plantronics 906/R US BackBeat Headphones
Monday, April 19, 2010 13:57Posted in category headphones
- Wireless headphones for your stereo Bluetooth mobile phone feature
- Bluetooth adaptor to stream music from your iPod, MP3 or other audio device.
- Separate your voice from the noise using dual-mic AudioIQ technology
- Hear your outside world with a quick press of the OpenMic button
- Enjoy the full dynamic range of your music using bass-boost feature
Product Description
The BackBeat series of stereo headphones with mic provide a superior on-the-go listening experience, delivering outstanding sound quality and clear, convenient communications. Hear your outside world with a quick tap of the OpenMic button or enhance your music using bass-boost feature.BackBeat 906 Bluetooth wireless headphone incorporates Plantronics dual-mic AudioIQ voice technology for exceptional call clarity. BackBeat 906 includes a Bluetooth adaptor to stream m… More >>
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Jie F. Huang says:
April 19th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
Bought this one few days ago… returned it on anther day.
the sound is great, has the bass, it’s clear, really clear. but i just didn’t like the design, it didn’t fit my ears well, just looked like i would fall it, the button is set right on the ear-plugs, hmm, I didn’t feel good with that, made me feel just like — not sure if I have pushed the button, yes, i had to push it harder into my ear hole, didn’t like that feeling. And, the bluetooth adapter hung over the iPhone, crap, made the iPhone just like an ugly monster, the designer should consider finding a better way of attaching an additional device to iPhone, which could really make them match each other, make two together just like one.
The control, it didn’t pause the iTunes, just let the phone voice cut in, when phone was finished, I pushed the button, it was playing another song, the iTunes were still working hard while I was talking over the Phone, using this device, I thought the battery would just be gone faster.
it’s a long way to go for my choosing a better earphone for my iPhone: )
Hope the review helps buyers:) help designers design a better one. Keep waiting.
Rating: 3 / 5
Jonathan says:
April 19th, 2010 at 5:43 pm
UPDATE 4/7/2010: Now FOUR PAIRS HAVE DIED! Between now and my last update on 2/4/10 – I’ve been through two more pairs! The first one lasted about 10 days and the second one lasted 42 days!! I was just about to post a review to let you guys know I’ve had a pair that lasted over a month! But then today it died. It made it 42 days. Now I’m really screwed because Amazon won’t take ‘em back because it’s gone over 30 days. And Plantronics will send me a replacement I guess… but I’m really at the point that I don’t want a replacement. What is the point in getting a replacement that will only last a few days.
This truly is THE WORST PRODUCT OF ALL TIME. I’ve never ever in my life had four copies of a product and seen them all die in less than 45 days.
UPDATE #2 4/7/2010: So here’s the deal with Plantronics. They’ll take ‘em back and send you a replacement… but ONLY IF you go to the trouble of finding a box to put them in, pay for packing and all that, as well as for shipping and send them back to them FIRST! Once they have them they’ll send you a replacement. But what the hell would anyone want a replacement for on a product that DIES CONSISTENTLY FOUR TIMES IN A ROW!? Looks like I’m out $100 bucks because the damn things lasted more than 30 days. UNBELIEVABLE.
UPDATE 2/4/10: Well, THE SECOND PAIR HAS NOW DIED!!! They lasted EXACTLY 3 WEEKS! They’re great when they work but apparently they don’t work more than 3 weeks. Same thing happened to the second pair as the first. They were working fine this morning. Then suddenly they just died and I went to hit the on switch and NOTHING. Plugged them into the charger and NOTHING! The red light doesn’t come on when charging, so they’re not receiving a charge.
Too bad because it’s such a great product! Too bad they can’t make them work. I now would rate them a ZERO if I could. Two pairs in a row have both died in under a month. What are the chances of that happening if the product is not simply totally flawed!?
UPDATE 1/11/10: I’ll leave my original review in place below, because it’s all true. But I’m changing my rating from 5 stars to one. THEY HAVE STOPPED WORKING ALL TOGETHER!!! So none of what I said below really matters does it – if they don’t work? And they certainly can’t rate more than a one-star if they only last 7 days!
Last night I was using them while on a phone call. They were working fine (after about 7 days of use). When I hung up the phone, the iPod was supposed to start playing again but it didn’t. So I pressed the button that’s supposed to start it and nothing happened. I decided to press the on/off button as it seemed they had gone off. This did nothing. So, I took them off my ear and saw that the blue light had gone out. Ah, I figured… they must have lost their charge. Strange though because I did charge them overnight and in the last 10 days of use they lasted all day with my normal use.
Well, today I finally remembered to bring them in from the car and plug them into the charger. GUESS WHAT? NOTHING HAPPENED! The red light that’s supposed to come on when they charge didn’t come on. Could it be the charger plug had gone bad? No… as it happens I have another device that uses the same kind of plug so I plugged it in and it worked fine.
THESE THINGS HAVE TOTALLY DIED IN EXACTLY ONE WEEK. I read several other reviews that said this happened to them. But I don’t know why… I figured they just had one-time unlucky experiences. However, now it’s happened to me — so maybe it’s not as infrequent as I wanted to believe.
———ORIGINAL REVIEW———-
These are so comfortable I almost forgot I had them on and nearly got into the shower with them! Truly the most comfortable stereo bluetooth headset I’ve ever used.
One note before I go into the details. There are two versions of this headset. One is a little more expensive than the other because it contains a dongle that allows you to connect devices that aren’t bluetooth equipped. I didn’t need that because all my devices have bluetooth now. I discovered this just after placing the order and almost cancelled the order to re-order the the cheaper version. But I’m glad I didn’t. Because this version comes with a plug-in charger cord that has TWO adapters on the end where you can plug in the headset for charging as well as the dongle. However, the adapter also fits perfectly onto the additional iPhone battery packs which I had just bought the day before. So now I can charge the headset & the battery pack at the same time! i.e. both of them charged by a connection that’s plugged into the wall (faster charging) instead of the computer usb port (slower charging).
Before these I used the Motorola S9 and before that the Motorola HT820. And I’ve been using bluetooth headsets since I think 1999! So I know that all bluetooth headsets have a few minimum requirements they need to meet and very few meet them. In fact, this is the only one I know of that meets all requirements to be a great bluetooth headset!
Minimum Requirements Bluetooth Headsets Must Meet:
1. Good sound – sound includes the audio during phone calls and the audio while listening to music and podcasts. These are pretty close in audio quality to the HT820s. The HT820s had awesome audio… but the tradeoff was that the ear pieces are HUGE and make you look like a freak when you wear them!
So I’m very happy with the audio on music and podcasts. You wouldn’t expect such quality from such tiny ear buds. But it’s definitely there.
But what pushed me over the edge to buy these was the promise that they had excellent noise cancellation and people could hear you even if you were outside on a windy day. The S9s had TERRIBLE phone quality. The slightest breeze would make it impossible for people to hear you.
A few days ago I called a friend from my laundry room using the S9. I was standing right next to the running washing machine and she said she couldn’t hear me at all. It was so bad in fact, she had to get off the call. She told me to call her back when I was in a quieter environment. Well, with the S9s there was never an environment quite quiet enough!
I’m so excited because I just gave her a test call with the Backbeats — standing next to the same running washing machine and guess what? She could hear me fine! She said she could barely even hear the washing machine in the background. Keep in mind that this is the same washing machine that was so loud to her with the S9s that she couldn’t even stay on the call. She couldn’t hear me against the roar of the washing machine. But with the Backbeats she heard me fine and could barely hear the washer!
The other problem with the S9s was that they only let you hear audio out of the left hear when on a phone call. I’m very happy to say that these let you hear the audio in both ears. And if you haven’t experienced it yet, you’ll LOVE stereo phone calls! It just makes it a lot easier to hear the person — especially when you’re in noisy outdoor environments.
2. Stylish – I have to say I think as far as style goes the S9s still have everybody beat. With those, people could barely even tell you had anything in your ears. The S9s had a slightly smaller visual “footprint” when someone is facing you. With the Backbeats, people can definitely see you have something in your ear, but it’s really not that bad. Especially since nowadays people are used to seeing people with headsets. And they’re way better than the HT820s! No comparison there! Those were truly unacceptable visually. These are totally acceptable.
3. Comfort – Seriously I am certain that I will, some day soon, get into the shower with these on because it’s so easy to forget you have them on. But this immense comfort solves another problem as well. The problem of finding your phone and getting all situated to answer it. With these, you can just leave them in your ears! I think when I’m in my office I’ll do just that. Then when the phone rings all I have to do is hit the answer button.
Speaking of buttons, another reviewer (Kaio… appearing as the first review right now) mentioned this too. The buttons on the Backbeat compared to the buttons on the S9.
First… the buttons on the S9 took a really long time… a couple of days… to get used to. You had to practice a lot to learn where the buttons were and get to the point where you could hit just the one you needed without looking.
With these I only had to practice once! The Answer Phone button is on the left side and it’s right on the outside tip of the ear bud. So you really can’t miss it. The Play/Pause button is the same – on the other side. Can’t miss ‘em. Just touch the outer most point on either side and you have it.
The volume button is on the outer most bottom side of the right ear bud. Again with one or two practices you’ll have it.
The S9 buttons were always very difficult to feel your way around too because they were so flush with the ear buds. It looked nice, but was very difficult to use.
With all that said I can give these the highest recommendation that could ever be given for any product! They are in a word… PERFECT! They have all the things you want, style, comfort, ease of use and good sound… and none of the drawbacks – like only hearing phone calls out of one ear. Perfectly designed! Perfect product! (And I’ve never said that before — I’m very picky)!
Rating: 1 / 5
sdrive says:
April 19th, 2010 at 6:11 pm
Based on approx 1 month usage, I can safely say this model is nearly worthless as a hands-free speaker mic. The issue is it will frequently and hoplessly lock up while transitioning from talking to hangup mode. Sure, there’s a reset procedure… but it’s a bit hard to plug the headset into an AC charger while holding the power button down, WHILE DRIVING!! Never mind the fact there’s no AC outlet in my car… Why does there always have to be some stupid fatal flaw with every headset? Other than that, these headphones are freakin awesome! Call quality receive and transmit is excellent although you’ll want to keep road/wind noise to a minimum- the noise cancellation can only do so much… And for music…Really nice BALANCED stereo- imaged sound with bass boost, and they still allow ample ambient sound to get through if someone walks up to you and starts talking. Battery life is fine for talk-only usage (see 1st paragraph though), and I get at least 6 hours of music usage. Track forward/prev/pause/play/volume all work great. Even enough volume for use when mowing the lawn, although you may prefer a different headset that seals out noise better than these. I gave these 3 stars just for the music side performance, but for talking? forget it.
Rating: 3 / 5
DHA says:
April 19th, 2010 at 8:10 pm
The overall sound quality of the Altec Lansing Back Beat is good, as long as one doesn’t walk around with them. As soon as I take my wireless stereo headphones on a walk, they cut in and out. Not constantly, but often enough that I find them completely useless, and have fallen back to wired stereo ear buds.
The Back Beat is horrible when used for phone calls. Extremely poor call quality. I received the Back Beat as a Christmas present. I was unable to return them as it was past the allowed 30 days since purchase.
Rating: 1 / 5
Bruce P. Jarvis says:
April 19th, 2010 at 10:34 pm
Purchased this unit for a Christmas present. Worked well out of the box. Comfortable and good sound quality. The next day it was completely unresponsive. It would not turn on. I tried the reset operation multiple times with no result. I returned the unit for replacement (very smooth and fast procedure). The second unit also worked the first day and not the second. I returned it for credit.
Rating: 1 / 5