Pioneer SE-A1000

Short-Term Use (8.00)

Comfort is, of course, a very subjective category. As a general rule, you should try on a pair of headphones before you buy them. This isn’t always an option, unfortunately, which is why our reviews have a comfort section: to give you a basis for what you could reasonably expect from a pair of headphones. For this section, we wore the headphones for an hour.

After our hour with the A1000s, we really didn’t have any complaints. The cloth-covered padding on the ear cups didn’t feel scratchy, but that’s mainly because the ear cups have a rather loose fit. We tend to prefer soft, synthetic leather coverings to cloth (both for comfort and for a cup-to-head seal). This loose fit, however, might annoy those looking to move their heads around while listening to music. Since these headphones are so big, they will slide over your head a bit if you start nodding at a moderately quick tempo. Overall, however, we think these headphones are fairly comfortable.

Extended Use (8.00)

Even after a six-hour listening session, we didn’t have any complaints about the Pioneer SE-A1000s.

Cable Connectivity (26.54)

The cable on the A100s is long. It’s an even 6 meters long, or a bit more than 19 feet, 8 inches for all you non-metric readers. In the home theater market, this length is absolutely ideal. Your amp could be just about anywhere in the room and you could hook into it without issue. Not only that, but the cord is so heavy duty that you really don’t have to worry about it getting walked on.

The cord ends in a 3.5mm (1/8 inch) plug, which has threading on it in case you want to screw the headphones into a port. There’s also a 1/4 inch adapter generously included.

Customizability (2.00)

Other than the 1/8-to-1/4-inch adapter, which we already covered in the connectivity section, there isn’t much you can do to customize these headphones. The cups do tilt at the band, and the soft interior band can extend quite a bit. Really, customizing how these headphones fit on your noodle is just about your only option.

Portability (0.11)

The Pioneer SE-A1000 headphones aren’t the least portable headphones we’ve reviewed, but they’re certainly annoying to lug around. First of all, they do come with a carrying case. It’s felt, and looks like it should hold smooth stones, or several sets of Dungeons & Dragons dice. Regardless, this pouch doesn’t really help you carry your headphones around.

The included velcro band is great for managing the cord, but it doesn’t stop you from needing to cram about 16 feet of fairly thick cord.

Of course, even if you deal with the cord, the headphones themselves are fairly big. They also tend to slide around our heads when we walk. These headphones are just slightly more portable than the Sennheiser HD 555s; if the A1000s didn’t come with the cord wrap, the cord would be virtually unmanageable.

Maintenance (2.00)

Maintaining these headphones might be a bit hard, since they don’t really disassemble well. The entire band, both hard parts and soft, and the cups seem far too hard to disassemble without breaking.

The cloth-covered padding does come off easily, revealing a piece of felt cloth glued to the inside of the cup. Should you decide to peel that back, you’ll find a piece of foam glued beneath the cloth. Fortunately, the glue and sheets of soft material stop after their second iteration, giving you a peek at the sound element behind some plastic latticework. The result looks very messy, and we really wouldn’t advise the reckless application of glue near the sound element, so we would advise the curious to leave the cloth and foam alone.

Other Features (5.00)

Battery

These headphones do not require a battery, which deserves some points.