Kidz Gear volume limiting headphones review
While Baby M may be a couple of years from listening to music at unsafe levels on her own, I’m focusing quite a bit on hearing protection. Perhaps I’m somewhat obsessed with it as I’ve got a near-constant ringing in my ears that never goes away, maybe I’d just like her to not have this. Kidz Gear volume limiting headphone does something my first set of Walkman headphones didn’t do – limit the volume to prevent your kid from blowing out their ears.
If you’ve got a kid, you’ll know the first thing they do upon putting on headphones is attempt to immerse themselves in a world of sound. My little brother managed to get a pair of some pretty awesome headphones recently and I could hear every note he was listening to from the next seat as he’d cranked his MP3 player to 11.
Kidz Gear volume limiting headphones feature two ways to reduce volume. The first is via a knob built into the headset wire. This seems to range from un-reduced to reduced significantly. However you may already spot a flaw in this, and that’s that the kid has this within their reach and can crank it to 11 again unless it’s taped.
Further bolstering the volume limiting capabilities is a short little wire which I read somewhere reduces the volume a further 20ish dB. I can’t seem to locate that information at the moment, you can plug it in and see that the volume goes from the upper end of tolerable to reasonable on most things.
You’ll spot the next flaw in this that the kid can simply unplug that wire. To this I say there’s always tape.
Thoughts on the headphones
One of the little details I love on headphones is missing with these – that being something to keep the wires from being so slack. This means the headset wires when in motion are flopping all over the place and can get caught.
Other than that one negative, these seem to do the job, are well constructed, and a reasonable price. The muffs are comfortable, padded, feel right.
Additional components
If you purchase two of these from the manufacturer’s website they throw in an audio splitter so you can share the audio between a couple of listeners. If you don’t pick it up from the website, you can get it later for $5.99.
There’s also a bag you can purchase to tote your Kidz Gear headphones around in. It’s not something I’m interested in particularly, but if you want it it’s available for $5.99 as well.
Sizing
The headphones are designed for a two year old as the smallest, but they can be expanded large enough to fit my ginormous-noggin, so unless your kid has a huge head there’s not really much worry that these won’t fit.
They’re also made of some quality feeling plastic, so should be no accidental hair-pulling.
What’s in the box
Headphones, volume limiting wire, paper
Get ’em
The Kidz Gear volume limiting headphones are available in a variety of colors from Amazon for $19.99. Significantly less expensive that going to a hearing specialist for testing.
