Labs

Philips' basic but comfortable SHE2550 earphones produce clear, powerful sound. As their name promises, they put out loud, solid bass tones, which made a real impression when playing our drum and bass test tracks. Despite their use of open drivers, which create full, natural-sounding audio, the earphones don't let in much background noise. They leaked badly, though.

Most pop and rock music sounded great, although we had to adjust the bass settings of our audio source to make the best of some tracks. Higher notes were reproduced accurately. Although the bass instruments overpowered some orchestral pieces, softer classical music pieces sounded surprisingly good.

They didn't sound as precise as some high-end headphones in the group, but we enjoyed listening to music with them, and the heavy bass didn't detract from our enjoyment. They have excellent audio quality for the price, and win a Budget Buy award.