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You might have seen them advertised and wondered WTF, are these things REAL? I am talking about neckphones, devices that instead of the ears are worn about the neck to allow you to hear sound sources. Do they work and WHY would people even choose them over headphones in the first place? In short, are they a waste of money?

Well people, your darling Ditzy Blonde of the Lodestone had decided to explore these odd things and purchased two types of neckphones to try out and review. The two I chose were the Sony SRS-NS7 and the Panasonic Soundslayer SC-GN01. Both of these seemed to be the best under my circumstances to try with my gaming systems. So got them, did a bunch of tests and I am here to report my findings for any who might be contemplating something like this.


First off, I want to get this out of the way and beat the sound snobs by saying; Yes people, headphones ARE better than neckphones. There, happy? Of COURSE a good pair of headphones are going to beat these things, especially if they cost a good chunk of change. Good headphones have a LOT of advantages over neckphones and will simply produce better sound quality.

Ok, with that out of the way, let me go over neckphones in general and why people bother with them. Ok gamers, I will bet that MANY of you use headphones, right? Especially if you play on a computer. You use these things and have them on your head for hours and hours at a time. And what happens after upteen hours of those things around your ears? They HURT, they get HOT, they become ANNOYING to wear! Yeah, even the comfortable ones get annoying after a while of wearing them. After all, your ears are enclosed and are not used to such a thing for so long.

Also, some people really don't like things over or in their ears. It makes them very uncomfortable and they have little tolerance of it. Even ear buds annoy them.

Neckphones are the solution to this. Instead of the ears, they hang around your neck and project the sound up to your ears. There are various kinds of these things, most designed for either music, chatting, or both. Most use bluetooth, but a few do have wires. The cheap ones only have a couple of weak speakers, the better ones have more stronger speakers in them. Since the speakers are not covering your ears, they don't bother you at all; plus most of them are quite light so after a bit, you don't feel them around your neck either. Honestly, it's kind of like the sound is just coming to you from somewhere right around you.

So how do they sound? Well lets get to that.

First the Sony SRS-NS7. These are the newest neck speakers from Sony. They have produced a couple of other models in the past but those were more for music/ phone calls. The NS7 is designed for surround sound and movie watching and boy are they something.

They cost $200 and connect with bluetooth. It comes with a specialized dongle transmitter to plug into your tv through an optical port, but it can also be used in other optical ports too such as on a motherboard or sound receiver. The NS7 can also sync with any other BT capable device such as phones, tablets, etc. It is multi channel, so can have 2 BT connections at once, IE; tv and phone, so you can take calls on it, plus has memory for up to 8 devices. (but only connected to 2 things at a time, you gotta disconnect something if you want something else) It has four speakers, two on top, two on bottom. and the battery lasts about 12 hours. The build quality is excellent and the thing has some heft to it. It charges with USB C and takes about 2 hours to charge to 100%

If you have a Sony OLED Bravia tv, it will transmit Dolby ATMOS sound. Otherwise it is standard stereo or surround channels depending on your source. I have it plugged into my LG OLED through optical, with the sound source coming from the HDMI cable of my video card.

So how is it? Honestly, quite good. Like I said, it's not as good as my Razer Blackshark pro gaming headphones, but it is pretty close. The sounds are strong and have some bite to them, they don't feel tinny or weak. Even the bass is not bad, though I don't like a lot of it. If you do, you may find it a little weak. The surround effect with them is also good. When in effect it gives a nice feeling of sounds coming from all around you. But the interesting thing is that because it is so close to your ears, the sounds feel like they are coming FROM the proper places, IE: front, back, sides. Gee, JUST like headphones, right? :-)

Yes, but with the added effect that the sounds are just well.......there. See, because you don't have the pressure of things on or in your ears, and the fact that you tend to forget you are wearing the neck speakers; the sound just feels like it's coming from.....no source, just from around you. I will admit, it's a pretty cool effect and feels a bit like when you are in a room with satellite speakers, which produce sounds from different spaces around you. But you get this same effect from just a thing on your neck.

With spatial sound the NS7 works well too. The sounds sound proper and positional with a good bite to them and nice boomy effects. I will admit though that if I had to choose, I rather use the Blackshark's with Hive, it's just better all around spatial due to the nature of the headphones and the specialized profile the Blackshark has. But the NS7 is STILL good in a pinch.

Question I am SURE people want to know, 'can others hear you when you have them on?' And the answer to that is, it really depends......

It depends on how high you have the damn things obviously and I will tell you, the NS7 can get loud, VERY loud at the highest volume and even pretty loud on lesser settings. On high volumes, yes people CAN hear the things pretty well. On a more normal volume setting it's just more of a soft sound if people happen to be close to you, but further away, like around 10 feet, they can't. If being used with a computer, the settings controlling the computer volume and the NS7 volume are separate. Moving the computer sound slider will not raise the NS7 settings, so you can adjust each thing's settings as you want.

Sony did not skimp on quality and there are some pretty strong speakers in this thing, so I don't think you are going to be disappointed with what you hear.

The microphone in the NS7 is......FANTASTIC! Seriously, I don't know what they used in it, but my GOD is it good. When using it to make phone calls, people have told me my voice is crystal clear with no distortion whatsoever. This thing would be great for work meetings and such. With the computer, it works really good in Discord AFTER you adjust the settings properly. (this is NOT surprising since you kind of have to do this in the Discord settings for any microphone you use.) My voice was clear and easily heard with none of the weirdness headphone mics can cause. And with the Voiceattack command software, it heard me SO well, it never made a mistake like the Blackshark's mic sometimes does. Honestly, I never want to use anything else with VA other than the NS7

Ok, reality time! There is a BIG letdown with this thing regarding the microphone but it is NOT the NS7's fault. The truth of the matter is with the computer, you cannot, repeat, CANNOT use the NS7 for both sounds and voice at the SAME time........ and it really, REALLY sucks!!!!!!!

The reason it won't work is a limitation with how Bluetooth devices work with sound. The current Bluetooth protocols will NOT allow simultaneous voice and sound., it's got to be one or the other. So if you use the NS7 for communication the sound shuts off and won't work again until the communication source is shut off. What this means people is NO active voice chat while playing games unless you don't want to hear the game's sound! It also means I can't use Voiceattack and also hear the game form one source.

I know, I know, it really, REALLY sucks and it seriously made me cry cause the microphone is so, SO good! If it did not have this limitation, the NS7 would be perfect for game playing! But it does, so if you want to use the NS7's microphone with the computer, you gotta have a separate sound source for the game sounds. (I use my soundbar)

Also, regarding computers. If you have a normal desk setup with a monitor and the whole desk spiel, do NOT get this thing, it will NOT work for you! The NS7 is designed to work with TV'S! Sure, you can try to connect to your computer's Bluetooth to use it that way but don't DO this, seriously, DON'T!!! It sounds AWFUL with computer Bluetooth compared to the TV output and you get NONE of the sweet surround stuff.
Note, you if happen to use a 4K TV as a monitor with your desk setup, then it will work well for you; but if not, avoid this thing for computer use.

As for the optical port on your computer, (if you have one). It does work....ok, but honestly, NOT as good as through the tv.


Also, consoles. Yes, the NS7 works GREAT with Xbox's and PS systems. Since the puck is plugged into the tv, you DON'T need special wires plugged into the Xbox controller to hear the sound, it will come from the NS7. Same for the PS systems, no PS Bluetooth syncing, just have the puck in the TV do all the work. Of course, just like the computer, no simultaneous voice chat and sound.

So there you have it, the NS7, great for movies and immersive gaming, NOT so much if you need to use the microphone while playing. Also, no go if you don't use a TV with your computer. But if you DO have the proper setup and don't care about chatting, the NS7 could be a good alternative if you are sick of the feel of headphones. Plus the thing is really good for general phone use and walking outdoors.

So for computer users with desk monitor setups and want to chat in games AND hear them at the same time; is there a neckphone solution for you? Yes there is and it's called the Panasonic SC-GN01......


Continued: part 2.