I provide honest ratings and reviews on tech, toys, and consumer home goods that I've purchased and used. Reviews are based on hands-on testing and personal observations. All opinions and comments are my own.
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Takeaway: Great sound, average comfort due to weight, a few usage and design quirks. The headphones come in a rigid clamshell carrying case and includes the following accessories: A gold-plated audio cable with right-angled jack, ¼" jack adapter, dual-pin airplane jack adapter, carabiner clip, and microUSB charging cable. The travel case doesn't have an inner pocket for the accessories though and neither cable has any type of cable wrap which seems to be a slight oversight considering all the flashy packaging this came in.
The headphones themselves are quite sturdy, being made mostly of machined metal with thick, steel headband core and a flame-like pattern printed on the exterior of the ear cups and hangers. They are a bit on the heavy side at 12 oz or about 50% heavier than similar sized plastic headphones. The ear cups and headband are lined with plush foam wrapped in synthetic leather. While they don't have the authentic leather smell, they're soft to the touch and look high end. The ear cups fold in nicely for compact storage but don't articulate (rotate or tilt) for a custom fit. I found the tension on the band to be on a strong side, coupled with the weight of the headphones, it feels a bit too bulky. These headphones feature Bluetooth or NFC pairing and the internal battery is charged via a microUSB port on the bottom of the left ear cup. A full charge purportedly lasts up to 25 hours of playback but that would depend on your playback volume. On the right ear cup are the music playback and volume controls which are raised rubber buttons. The center button with the logo is the power button, which also doubles as the play/pause key.
The sound quality from these headphones is really nice. The ranges are balanced with plenty of definition in the bass and even sub-bass frequencies. The midranges are full and well-rounded and the trebles sound crisp and clear. Even at the highest volume I didn't detect any distortion in the sound which is impressive since these can get very loud. The sound stage representation was wide and deep with nice accuracy, and the passive noise isolation was also pretty good while listening at a moderate volume level. When using the playback controls, each button press results in a loud annoying click. At this price range, I would have expected silent capacitive touch controls. The minor annoyance was the piercing tone that sounds when you hit the max or min volume. Connecting to the headphones via Bluetooth/NFC was quick and easy and the connection stayed strong for the duration of my listening sessions. Even the hand-free calling worked well with decent clarity of the microphone.
For me, these aren't headphones that I would want to wear for long periods of time because they cause physical fatigue from all the weight and band tension, which is a shame because they sound quite good. For me, these are my go to travel headphones because they're durable enough to take a beating and the airplane adapter makes using them for in-flight movies convenient.
Takeaway: Noise canceling adds extra isolation, but average sound; good comfort and lightweight. You'll receive the headphones, a vinyl carrying case, microUSB charging cable, male-to-male audio cable and an instruction manual. The headphones are made using a plastic housing, hangers, and buttons. The underside of the headband is lined with a soft leatherette as are the ear cups. The ear cups are adjustable in height and ratchet up and down easily on a flexible metal band; they also swivel about 110 degrees.
There are two "On" modes: Bluetooth and Noise canceling + Bluetooth. Note that the active noise canceling cannot be used with the line-in cable and only works in Bluetooth mode. You can even pair via NFC on the right earpiece. The headphones are pretty comfortable to wear and the large 3.5" earcups were able to fully encapsulate my ears. The sound from the headphones using the plain Bluetooth with no noise cancelling is warm and round with fairly resonant bass and supported midrange. The treble ranges sparkle putting a decent emphasis to vocals but tend to distort and get staticky even at moderate volumes. The balance across the ranges however can sound a bit muddy with a muffled quality, especially with classic rock tracks. With more electronic music, the sound is clearer and cleaner. With the noise canceling turned on, while it does seem like external sounds are cut down some, it changes the quality of the music a lot. You'll hear more resonance and reverb as if the sound stage is larger, however, it can also make the trebles sound canned and dry.
The controls on the earpiece are easy to access but result in loud clicking when you press them. Short pressing the plus and minus keys skip tracks forward and back, while holding them down increase and decreases the volume. This makes it a bit tricky to get to fine tune the volume level. Also, be careful of clicking the play/pause button twice because it'll activate the redial of the last number you called.
The unit paired easily with my phone and the NFC worked fine as well. The passive sound isolation on the earphones isn't great and even with the active noise cancelling on isn't amazing. At a bit higher volumes, you'll be able to fully immerse yourself in the music, though the flaws in the audio quality are also more pronounced as well. Overall, for a budget pair of noise canceling headphones, the sound is good but not stunning. They actually perform better soundwise as regular Bluetooth headphones and are relatively comfortable to wear.
