Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I bought these as an upgrade from my HN-900 that died recently. I needed a solid pair that was wireless because I'm tired of losing the cable dongles for the IPhone. My wife is a huge fan of her Bose Quiet Comforts so I briefly considered QC-35s but I simply don't like the looks. These looked like they could fit the bill. Appearance: fantastic. I know a lot of people consider wood grain a strange choice but I think these pull it off. I ride NYC subway every day and half the people I see with ANC headphones are wearing Bose which aesthetically are a bit boring to my eyes. These headphones stood out quite a bit. All other plastics are of high quality and the headband is amongst the best I've ever seen. Perforated mesh is incredibly comfortable and breathable. The faux leather on the cups also has a very pleasant feel to it as well as ample padding. Button clicks feel very solid and you get used to the control scheme in under a day. The placement of controls is very well thought out. LED lights for battery indication are also a nice touch that reminds me of old macbook batteries. Functionality: probably the best I've seen on any bluetooth headset/headphones. The first time you take the headphones off and they auto-pause the music feels like magic. Everyone I've shown it to was impressed. Ambient sound mode is very helpful. Paired easily with both my Macbook and my iPhone and switched seamlessly between the two. Voice prompts are very clear and brief enough not to be annoying. The only downside is the iPhone app for these which frankly doesn't do much. Not that you'd need it as all the functionality you need is already built into the headphones themselves. Audio quality is pretty good. I listen mostly to Jazz and death metal and both of those sounded well enough on this set. Bass is pronounced but not overwhelming. Despite using vacuum amps for my office headphones I'm not an audiophile and can't really make an informed comment on mids/highs/lows etc. They sounded great to my ears. Battery life is incredible. In a week of my testing these I couldn't get the battery to dip below 3 out of 5 LED dots. I'm nearly convinced that the 24 hour battery life with ANC is a conservative estimate that the company puts out to be on the safe side. Active Noise Cancellation. This is the only downside of these, the reason for my 4 star rating, and the ultimate reason I ended up returning them and getting a different set. I ride NYC subway every day and my ultimate test is the ability to watch Netflix movies on my phone without subtitles. These headphones came pretty close but ultimately failed this test unless I was willing to crank the volume on the movie to a painful level. This is pretty much the harshest environment I can think of for the noise cancelling headphones, much worse than jet engine noise during takeoff. If you don't encounter such levels of noise these might be fine for you. They did smooth out the roar of the highest decibel train arrivals and departures as well as clanky garbage trucks from painful to somewhat bearable. The ANC also worked well enough to shut down the outside world for walking around the city while listening to music. Also because ANC level is "light" they didn't exhibit ear popping that I experience with my wife's QC 15s and my current Sony set which I ended up getting, which I suppose is a plus. However, one other minor downside is that without music with ANC these produce quite noticeable hiss with random spikes. Therefore, if you want to just put them on to use noise cancellation to shut off the outside world for meditation or such they might not accomplish this goal. Conclusion: great set of wireless headphones that will probably satisfy most people, but perhaps look elsewhere if your ANC demands are high.