Philips PH805 Wireless ANC Headphones - Review

Philips PH805 is a wireless pair of circumaural headphones with active noise cancelling onboard.

Wireless, active noise-cancelling (ANC) headphones are a must for anyone travelling or commuting, ever since Apple decided the 3.5 mm jack wasn't cool no more. And as always, everyone else followed in their footsteps, making your old wired earbuds about as useful as a fax machine. 

Will these Philips cans be your ideal travelling companion? - Let's find out!

PH805 = TAPH805BK/00 = 8000 Series

Right out of the gate, let's first clear some confusion regarding the model name of these headphones, because Philips has a lot of different names they use for them. Their full model name is TAPH805BK/00 which is a mouthful, so they're more commonly known as PH805 for short. Ergo, if you find a TAPH805 and wonder if it's the same as the PH805, it is.

You'd be fooled by the box, though, as it will say neither TAPH805 nor PH805 on the front. Instead it has Series 8000 printed on it. So clearly, the PH805 is part of their "8000" series, for some reason. Not sure how that math adds up. Neither of the three names is particularly recognisable anyway, so their marketing could use some work.

The Philips PH805, out of the box. I left the strips of protective plastic film on since it looks so fancy.

Pricing

Philips has made quite an impact in the headphone world, with headphones like the Fidelio X2HR and SHP9500, which were praised by critics and selling like hotcakes at a very competitive price point. 

These ANC-equipped wireless headphones were released in early 2020, retailing at around 200 bucks, placing them in the midrange or lower premium segment of headphones.

I managed to get them a lot cheaper on Black Friday of 2021, together with some other wireless headphones, including over-ears and in-ears. Hopefully, I'll have some more reviews of those up pretty soon as well!

Check Current Price and Availability in Your Region

Presentation

The PH805 comes in a square box of quite a modest size with everything fitting snugly without minimal wasted space. The outer box is a slipcase with a plain, blue box inside. Everything looks tidy and its contents are also very easy to repackage if you ever choose to do so.

What's Included

Philips is quite generous with the accessories they include in the package.

The headphones come in a nice hard-shell case that looks and feels like vinyl. It has a smooth finish, so it's not very grippy, even though the dimples in the texture that make the case look a bit like a golf ball help ever so slightly.

Other than that, you get two cables; a Micro-USB cable for charging, and a 2.5-to-3.5 mm audio cable for use with traditional, wired audio devices. More on that feature further down in this review. There is no charging adapter included, however, so Philips assumes you have one already, or a computer with a USB port to charge the cans with.

Something you do get, however, is an aeroplane adapter; again, for wired listening with devices with dual stereo plugs which aren't that common.

How They Look On

The PH805's sleek and understated looks make them quite discrete to wear, and someone with bad eyesight could perhaps mistake them for a pair of Sony XM4's.

I have a fairly large head and had to wear them with the headband fully extended, so they aren't the largest pair of cans out there.

Build

The cans look pretty sleek and modern. The earcups swivel 90 degrees in one direction, enabling them to lie flat with the pads down. In the other direction, the earcups only allow a slight bit of swivel, to adapt to the shape of your head.

Build-wise they're all plastic and the build quality doesn't feel very reliable. They come with one earcup folded in the case, and folding and unfolding them can be a bit scary since the hinges seem to be quite fragile and you almost fear they could break as you wiggle them around. 

The build quality feels like what you'd expect from budget cans and doesn't feel like they live up to the premium price point of $200 they normally go for.

The PH805 curled up in its case. Looking very cosy indeed.

Comfort

Non-Removable Earpads

The earpads on these headphones I didn't find to be the comfiest, unfortunately. They are pretty stiff and a bit too small for people with slightly larger ears. When I wear them, they rest on the outskirts of the ears, which isn't that comfortable. This of course also means they don't seal very well, at least not around my ears, which affects the passive noise isolation, and in turn, the ANC, since it heavily depends on it.

The pad material, which is probably some sort of faux leather, also looks really greasy after wearing them for just a brief moment. What's even worse is that you can't remove and replace the pads either, since they appear to be glued on.

Earpad Size and Depth - The pads have pretty small earholes measuring around 55 mm tall and 35 mm wide. If you have really flat ears you might be able to squeeze them in beneath the pad, but I wouldn't count on it.

Headband with Snug Fit

The headband has three segments, and only the top part has soft foam on it. The sides are just hard plastic. The clamp is quite tight. For me, that wasn't an issue, though, since the sides didn't touch my head.

The length adjustment was adequate for my head, but the clamping force was a bit too aggressive. I get it; they want a snug fit in order to get a good seal around the ears for the noise cancelling to be effective, but this clamp was a bit much for my somewhat large head. 

Couple that with pads that are a tad stiff and small, and you get a headphone that becomes quite uncomfortable to wear over time. Especially since I wear glasses; the headphones' high clamp shoved the temples of the goggles into the sides of my head pretty badly, making it feel like having my head in a vice.

Only the middle section of the headband is padded.

Sound

Wireless Hiss

Something I noticed right away, testing these headphones at home was a slight, but constant hiss when used wirelessly over Bluetooth. You'd probably only hear it in quiet environments and even then it's nothing distracting since you mainly hear it when nothing is playing. It certainly won't bother you when using them on the go. But still, most premium wireless headphones are completely noise-free these days, and it's something you'd think was a thing of the past.

Bass-Centric Sound

The sound quality itself is decent, I suppose. Like a lot of these consumer-oriented ANC cans, the sound profile the PH805 comes with has a noticeable boost in the bass. That is when the ANC is on, with it off they sound quite tinny and weak, and it's quite clear they're designed for ANC use. Either way, the clarity isn't that great, and at its $200 price point, it's pretty darn grainy. 

It's quite evident these headphones weren't designed for critical listening in a studio. They're made for everyday media consumption on the go. And for a noisy bus ride, the PH805 sounds just fine for some casual listening. I personally don't mind a bit of extra low end for travelling, since the noise often eats up a lot of the lower frequencies, so for that, this could be the type of sound you want. 

Personally, though, I wouldn't use these as my only pair of headphones for listening at home, etc. Because in more silent and revealing environments, they fall a bit short, sounding too bassy and muddy for my taste. For that reason, I wouldn't consider them a good all-rounder to someone who doesn't have any other headphones (or speakers) at home. Other, more traditional, wired headphones at the same price point (~$200) and even lower, will offer a lot more clarity and neutrality.

No Native EQ or Settings

While you could probably get a clearer sound with some EQ-ing, Philips won't help you with that, since they don't offer any native sound settings for these cans.

Even though Philips has an app for some of its wireless cans, these aren't supported by it. So there is no way to equalise them without using third-party apps.

Features

Physical Controls

With the PH805's lack of app support, you're stuck with the physical controls on the headphones themselves. 

Everything is controlled from the right earcup, which is equipped with a power switch as well as an invisible touch panel.  

Tapping the touch panel switches between ANC modes, cycling through normal mode, ANC and ambient sound, announced by the built-in British female voice. Swiping the touch panel up and down adjusts the volume accordingly. The power switch can also be pushed briefly to play/pause and rocked up and down to navigate between tracks. Holding the button in for a while shuts the headphones off.

Whether or not you're accustomed to these kinds of onboard controls, you may have more or less of a hassle learning and adjusting to them. 

Every time I put the headphones on or adjust them on my head, I there's always the chance of doing something dumb, like skipping tracks or changing ANC modes, unintentionally. The ANC mode switch is especially fickle since a light tap on the right ear cup is all you need to change it. Since I rarely use anything other than the ANC ON mode, having it switched so easily isn't ideal.

I personally much prefer controlling everything on the phone where I have a better idea of what I'm doing.  With a graphical UI, everything is a lot more intuitive, I feel, but some prefer the freedom of controlling everything on the headphones themselves. But each to their own.

Apart from powering the cans on and off, the power slider also lets you skip tracks and play/pause when pushing it.

Active Noise Cancelling (ANC)

One of the best ways to test ANC headphones is on the bus since this gives a good indication of how well they cancel out rumble and engine sound in the lower register, wind noise within the higher frequencies, as well as people talking, something that's usually most prevalent in the midrange.

Just slapping them on my head made me quite underwhelmed at first, but after pushing the earcups closer I got a good seal that probably cancelled out 60-70 % of the ambient noise. Activating the ANC took out most of the additional noise. It's not perfect (no ANC headphones are), but it was good enough to offer a very nice listening experience without any distracting ambient noise. 

I've seen some user reviews where the ANC has worked well for some, and not so great for others. I suspect this variance is all in how good of a seal you can achieve. Because again, a lot of the silencing comes from the passive seal that the headphones make over your ears. And depending on how tight of a seal you can get depends on your head and how well they fit your ears. Based on this, your mileage may vary when it comes to the perceived ANC performance of the headphones.

The ambient mode on the PH805 is a bit different from other ANC headphones I've used. Usually, the ambient mode will let sound in, while still playing the music at the same volume. On the PH805, the ambient mode not only lets in outside sound but also drops the volume of the music you're playing to damn near silence. Some might like that, but if you ask me; if you want to hear your surroundings and not be distracted by the music, why not just take the headphones off entirely? To me, the ambient mode seems a bit pointless the way it's set up here. Having the sound drop in volume to help hear the outside world feels a bit like cheating, in a way.

Connectivity

Wired Listening Mode

You can use these either powered on or off with the included cable which terminates in a 2.5-mm connector at the headphone end and a 3.5-mm plug for your audio source. With the headphones powered off, they sound pretty thin and anaemic, though, so you're better off leaving them ON unless you're really short on battery power. 

The cable included is really thin and flimsy and about a metre long. For some reason with these Bluetooth headphones, the cable connects to the right earcup, which I find very confusing since pretty much all single-ended wired cans typically have the wire coming out of the left earcup.

Wireless Range

To test the wireless range of the PH085, I had the phone transmit music while I moved around. The connection was solid even when I was listening at the other end of the apartment, with two walls between.

Old-School Micro-USB Charging

On the left earcup, where the cable input would normally be on a traditional wired headphone, is instead a micro-USB input. While it would be cool to be able to connect the headphones and listen to them over USB, this is not possible with the PH805. Its USB port is only for charging. Connecting the PH805 to a PC only leads to error messages saying that the device cannot be recognised. 

The fact they still use micro-USB rather than USB-C is a tad disappointing as well, especially since this product came out as late as 2021, but you get what you pay for I suppose.

The PH805 has its 3.5-mm jack for wired listening on the right earcup. The micro-USB port on the left cup is only for charging.

Verdict

If you can find these relatively cheap (and you have smaller ears), they might be worth a purchase. At $50, they're certainly a bargain! If you're a sound nerd or "audiophile", you might want to look into an equaliser app if you plan on using them at home, since the sound profile of the PH805 is, well, bassy.

• Great Active Noise Cancelling
• Excellent wireless range
• Good if you like bass
• Nice case included

• Sounds thin without ANC
• No app support
• Fiddly controls
• Small, stiff earpads

"Better Than Average"

According to versus.com, the PH805 beats the competition on several points, at least on a technical level. However, when it comes to audio, a lot of it is subjective and based on sonic preference. Specs like lowest and highest frequency always have to be taken with a grain of salt, without full frequency measurements at hand.

Get These Instead

If you can stretch your budget to around $100, there are far better options, though. And I would steer you towards the Anker Soundcore Q-Series instead, like the Life Q30, Life Q35, and Space Q45. 

I have both the Soundcore Life Q30 and the Q35 and found them superior to the Philips PH805 in pretty much all aspects. They have a more premium build quality and seem more durable, they also sound better and are completely free of wireless hiss. On top of that, they're more comfortable to wear, they use USB-C charging rather than the old Micro-USB, and they also have a great mobile app with equalisation onboard. What more can you ask for, really?

Why they decided to go from Life Q35 to Space Q45 all of a sudden is beyond me, but from what I've heard from other reviewers, they seem to uphold the tradition of great-sounding ANC headphones coming at a price that pretty much kills the competition.

Full reviews of the Soundcore Life Q30 and the Q35 are to come!