NuForce BT-860 Review

Lately it seems like I have to buy products on my own in order to do a review.  After a disasterous results of Soundmatter portable speakers last week, yesterday I received The NuForce BT-860 headphones from Amazon.com.

On its website, NuForce claim that the BT-860 Bluetooth Headphones feature the latest innovations in Bluetooth V2.1 technology. With impressive dynamic range, the quality of the BT-860’s sound easily rivals that of wired units. The BT-860 is capable of receiving wireless stereo sound from Bluetooth mobile phones, MP3 players, Bluetooth stereo players, and, with the appropriate software, Bluetooth-enabled PCs. The BT-860’s built-in microphone supports concurrent headset and hands-free operation.

Well, let me try it!
Using my 3rd gen iPod Touch (which filled with uncompressed .wav files only), I start comparing the Bluetooth connected BT-860 versus my Grado RS-1 headphones.  This time I have prepared myself to be disappointed with the BT-860 considering one is $79 MSRP and the other one is (if I remember correctly) was about $400 (after discounts) when I bought it.

Fact of the matter is, yes, the BT-860 is nowhere as good as the Grado RS-1 and it is to be expected when the price alone (MSRP vs MSRP) is about 1:6 ratio.  The question is whether the Grado RS-1 is actually (subjectively) sound 6x better than the GT-860?  The surprising answer is no!  Yes the Grade is better, maybe doubly so, but the sound of the GT-860 is very pleasing, still natural, without fake boominess and created zero fatigue in the near-two-hour continuous testing listening to Jazz, Pop, J-Pop, Techno and Speed Metal… oh… and also Hair Metal of the ‘80s.

That was yesterday.
Today?  I spent all morning, about 4 hours straight, listening to my iPod Touch via Bluetooth through the BT-860 headset.  It’s lightness, relatively flat frequency response and highly comfortable design have made this headphone to be very ideal for my day-to-day listening, such as right now while I’m writing this article.  For the $79 MSRP, this headset is a steal.  It’s definitely worth every penny I spent on this unit.

http://www.nuforce.com

Leave a Reply