I had this 970RK for 2-3 years and never have the problems as many complained in the 1-star group - noisy, poor sound quality, short battery life, etc. Each is just opposit to me in a positive way.
I have been using it in a single family house (vs. apartment building) and I always connect it to the LINE OUT of a TV, not the earphone jack, so that I can just mute the TV while listening to the headphone.
It works so well for me that I am going to buy a 2nd set of the same thing so that I can always have a one fully charged waiting there when the another I am using runs out of battery (That is why I am here today).
Hope this helps to tell why the reviewers are so wide spliting here - they may use it in different ways or locations. Sony MDRRF970RK 900 MHz Analog RF Wireless Headphone
I was a bit skeptical of the quality of this wireless headphone after reading some of the lukewarm reviews here. I also went to Crutchfield to download the owners manual (too bad Amazon doesn't offer this feature - it's very helpful).
This was to be a gift for my soon-to-be 92 year old aunt. She has problems hearing certain frequency ranges and is missing out on much of the dialog on television.
She has an older Sony TV set (circa 1998) without a headphone jack, so a Sennheiser (my 1st choice) headphone was out of contention. I needed something to plug into the line out RCA connectors on the back of her set. This Sony unit seemed to fit the bill. I decided to have it sent to my home first to ensure it would work and to look for any idiosyncrasies. To my delight, I found none. Not a single problem...well, getting the headset out of the plastic packaging was a bit tough !
I followed the instructions for the setup (I have a Sony, but a newer model) - easily done, by the way. I allowed the headset to charge overnight. So far, so good. I removed the headset from the cradle and placed it on my head...Voila...sound! And not just any scratchy audio, but rich and crisp. The audio compression circuitry was working as advertised and the headphone audio adjust allowed me to turn up the volume to an uncomfortable level. Perfect for a 92 year old lady hard of hearing.
So, I gave it the range test...kinda. I gingerly stepped out of the house and walked around...perhaps 50 to 75 feet away. Not a hiccup or a dropout. I had a good feeling about this.
So, I packed it up to be sent off to California...and my dear old aunt. I used my yellow Hi-Liter to mark areas of interest and attention in the instructions (my auntie is a bit of a Luddite).
Several days passed and I called her to see if it had arrived. The USPS had not let me down. She had already unpacked it and hooked it all up following my explicit instructions (a yellow Hi-Liter makes all the difference). She was quite upset that it did not work...no green light to indicate audio was being received by the transmitter from her Sony TV.
We went round and round over the phone - double checking everything, yet the audio was still AWOL. I found her Sony TV model on a manual download site on the Internet and obtained a PDF copy of the manual. No surprises there. I might note that I had discovered that many older Sony models required the user to TURN OFF the built-in speakers of the TV set before audio would be enabled to the line out jacks. Hers was not of that vintage.
The next morning I called her, armed with printed information so we might attack the problem once again. She, quite sheepishly, admitted to me she had found the problem. Her television was turned off and she had not thought to turn it back on - and I had not thought to ask her if it was on. Oh, my! Operator error.
In any case, the headset works wonderfully. She is amazed at the sound quality. I could almost hear her ear-to-ear smile in the phone.
So, dear readers. I can only say all is well, that ends well. And if it pleases my dear old auntie, how can you go wrong?
As with nearly all products,you will sometimes get a lemon...something that slips through quality control, or a component that becomes defective after a period of time. However, in this case, I can give this headset a 10+ without a second thought.
My wife was so taken with this that she has requested I order a unit for her to use. Oh my...what HAVE I done?
Happy listening !Sony MDRRF970RK 900 MHz Analog RF Wireless Headphone
I was hoping these would work better than the Sennheiser's have used before. Nice looking, rechargeable, inductive charge, auto-off with the headband, comfortable. But.. the noise level is simply intolerable. There is a level of noise at all times which is very intrusive. With music its not really bad, but with dialog(as in a movie) it is truely horrible. With any quiet passage, the noise increases sharply. Some reviewers(of the 960rk) have suggested that increasing the input signal will improve this. Maybe slightly, but the dynamic range of the headphone circuit is very poor, so clipping and distortion come very quickly. Supposedly there is a noise reduction circuit(compared to the 925), but I can't imagine what it does. The range of 150 ft is a joke-maybe on Mars. Even disregarding the noise issue, they really can't be reliably used more than 4 feet from the based. The engineers involved with this one should be spanked. Doesn't Sony test these things before production? It could also be that the 900 MHz band just isn't a good one for this application. The Sennheisers(RS110) have some interference problems also, but the noise is noticeably less and the sound quality much better. - Sony Wireless Headphones - Cordless Headphones - Sony - Wireless Headphone'
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