Edward Kiledjian

Most of us listen to music while on the go through headphones and some type of portable music player (smartphone, music player, etc). In order to keep component costs low and extent battery life, most of these devices have very small built-in underpowered amplifiers. These small mediocre amps are acceptable when using the cheap $1 manufacturer provided headphones but the minute you step up to something a little more sophisticated, you

• start losing clarify
• degraded audio definition and detail
• higher noise
• poor channel separation

Just a couple of years ago, headphone amps where the exclusive domain of professionals and demanding audiophiles. They were big and expensive. Times have changed and customers can now find them in all shapes, sizes and price-points.

The first time you listen to your music collection through good headphones powered by a decent headphone amp, you will likely be blown away. If your source is high quality, you will likely hear notes and instruments you had never noticed before. Subtle nuances become clear and most people start to enjoy their collection that much more.

Types

Headphone amplifiers comes in 3 categories: Portable, desktop and full size. Since this is a business blog and most of you will use their amp while on the move, I will stick to the portable type.

Portable amplifiers are designed to be small and have been optimized for use will mobile audio sources (such as iphones, ipads, laptops, android devices, etc). The smallest ones look like an ipod shuffle while larger ones are the size of a large breath mint canister.

Technical

Without becoming an audio expert, there are a some important technical characteristics you should consider.

Total Harmonic Distortion is overall sound distortion and you should look for a rating of 1% or less at full power (the lower the number the better of course).

Signal to Noise Ratio – this measures the amount of noise output from the amplifier compared to the original source. Measures in decibels, look for a large ratio. The larger the better.

Impedance will provide the output impedance of the headphone the amp will support. Make sure that the impedance of the headphone you use is supported by the amp you are considering to buy.

Price

Like all electronics, you can spend a little or a lot. There is no use spending $300 on an amp if you are using $100 headphones. For most "regular use" headphones, you should be able to find a great amp for between $20-100.

Over the next couple of weeks, I will review some of the ones I have tested.

Having spent a good chunk of my time in airplanes, I am always looking for the next great invention that will make my travelling life a little easier or more pleasant. Noise reducing headphones and In Ear Monitors fit into the second category by reducing the annoyance of that crying child in the next row or the constant annoying low hum of the airplanes engines.

I have a tried a tone of different earphones that I will be reviewing in future write-ups but this one is dedicated to the Bose QuietComfort 15 earphones. People either love or hate them.

Price and Noise Cancellation

At close to $300, these are fairly expensive and audiophiles expect “better audio” from a device costing this much and they are right but it all comes down to your priorities. Assuming you are more interesting in the noise cancellation feature than the absolute quality of the audio reproduction then this is the device for you. I’ll talk about the audio quality a little later in the article.

Of all the noise cancellation headphones I have tested (Audio Technica, Sennheiser, Sony, etc) the bose QuietComfort 15 provide the best active noise cancellation performance of any device. Let’s be clear, there is no magic device that blocks out all external sound but even with the music off, the QuietComfort 15 provide an unparalleled level of quiet. Start a song and the rest of the remaining noise just drifts away.

My covering your ears, it passively blocks out some of the external sounds. Then little microphones in the device picks up the remaining sound and produce an exact opposite sound wave which effectively cancels most of it out.

For noise cancellation, this get’s a solid 9/10.

Build

When I first used the QuietComfort 15, I was surprised at how cheap the product felt. It seemed to be made of cheap light plastic and was very light, compared to other headphones competing in the same price range. The fake leather headband and ear pads are comfortable but again feel cheap.

The devices uses easily replaceable AAA  batteries which was a welcome change from their previous Quietcomfort 3 model (which used proprietary rechargeable batteries). Bose claims that a AAA battery will provide about 30 hours of listening enjoyment and they have an indicator light on the side when it’s time to replace it. If the battery dies, you can no longer use the headphones (there is no passive listening). This one is a bummer.  You should be able to use the headphones without a battery (losing the noise cancellation of course).

When purchasing expensive devices like this, you want replaceable parts and I am happy to report that the cable is replaceable if it were to break.

The device is designed to sit on an angle on your head which means it will not move when you rest your seat on the airline seat. It is these small elements that show how much care went into the design of the product. Being light makes it feel slightly cheap but it also means you can wear the product for extended periods of time without feeling tired. The ear cups provide a solid seal around your ears without being uncomfortable.

For build, this get’s a solid 7/10.

Sound Quality

And now back to sound quality. These are not neutral earphones and if you are looking for a true audiophile listening experience, you will be disappointed. The lows (bass) are strong and marked. The mids often sound metallic and the highs are easily blow out. The Bose Quietcomfort 15 seem to be designed to play music at medium levels because anything above 70-80% volume causes a marked blowout of sound quality.

It comes down to the style of music you listen to. Styles like pop, classical and jazz will sound acceptable but anything that has an artificial EQ (not neutral) like hip hop, R&B, trance, dance will sound horrible unless you manually adjust your device’s equalizer.

When watching movies with their original Dolby soundtrack intact, you will be pleasantly surprised. I found these to be excellent for movie playback. To really benefit from this, use high quality video source like those found on the iTunes store. Cheap homemade DVD rips usually have badly encoded audio which won’t allow the devices true potential to come through.

Headphone amp

I tested the Bose QC15 with these portable amps: 

• FiiO E11
• JDS Labs CMoyBB
• HeadRoom Total AirHead 

I found that the Bose QuietComfort 15 does not need a headphone amplifier and using any of the above didn’t really improve sound quality or make a material change in audio reproduction.

Verdict

If bought for the right reason (primarily noise cancellation and not audio reproduction quality), this device is exceptional. Amazing noise cancellation, very comfortable to wear and standard battery use.

But is it worth the $300 price tag? For me, personally, the answer is no. For almost half the price, I can get an Audio Technica ATH-ANC7B which has good noise cancellation and better audio reproduction (a review of this device will be written shortly). But I know a lot of people who bought these and loved them. After reading my review, if you still think they may work for you, buy it from a retail location that accepts returns and take them for a spin at home. In store tests using their test booth is next to useless.

My last review of Zagg was for their InvisibleShield screen protector here. I loved the product but hated the hyper inflated cost of shipping on the replacements. Today I will be reviewing their ZAGGsmarbud earphones.

I have been testing these for the last 6 months and wanted to share my opinion. For the record, I purchased these myself for this opinion is completely unbiased.

Packaging

The earphones come in a triangular easy to open box. Within this pyramid, you find the earphones, a small zippered carry pouch and 5 eartips.

Audio Quality

I have 2 types of headphones:

• High quality (expensive) audiophile earphones that I listen to through a high quality headphone amplifier and where my music in is the Apple lossesless audio codec (ALAC) format.
• Everyday earphones that I carry with me all the time and use when at work, at the gym, shopping or doing chores around the house.

The ZAGGsmartbuds are of the second category. For about $50, they are much better than the gargabe headphones Apple (or other manufacturers) provides but they arent $500 audiophile earphones either. Over the last 6 months, I tested these with all kinds of songs from soca to rock to heavy metal and they handled it all excessively well.

Comparing them to  my high end Etymotic or Ultimate Ear earphones, I noticed that some of the more subtle nuances were lost or washed out with the ZAGGsmartbuds. Same issue with some very high notes. This is to be expected from $50 earphones but overall I found their sound reproduction very pleasing and satisfying enough to use as my everyday earphones.

Ear Tips

I have standard ears and most standard manufacturer provided ear tips work well for me. The Zagg provided tips where no exception. They were comfortable and blocks external sounds well. Halfway through my testing, I installed Comply Foam tips and this made the experience so much better. I liked the Zagg tips but the Comply tips were that much more comfortable and they blocked out even more external sound. A worthwhile investment.

Volume Slider and control button

The ZAGGsmartbuds have a volume control slider and this worked as advertised. Moving the slider did not introduce and static or audio artifacts. This is an analog controller so exact control is out of the question. I found that turning my devices volume to 80% then using this slider control yielded the best results.

The control button works fairly well with my iphone to hang-up on a call, start/stop my music, change to the next song, change to the previous song or initiate SIRI. I wish they adopted a 3 button model instead but this isn’t half bad. I could easily perform the above functions when running or working out at the gym. The nest/previous song functionality even works with apps like Pandora, Slacker Radio and Stitcher Radio. This button functionality (or a part of it) worked on many other Android and Windows Phone 7.5 devices I tested it with.

Call Quality

Since this was my everyday earphones so I sometimes used these to make calls. I usually hear the caller fairly well in moderated noisy environments but callers regularly asked me to repeat or said I sounded muffled.  If you will be making a lot of calls then this may not be the product for you. For casual calling use, it isn’t terrible.

Tangle free cord

The promise of a tangle free cord was very intriguing. There is nothing worse than spending 10 minutes trying to untangle your earphone cable and here the ZAGGsmartbuds performed as advertised. The cost did get into a mess but untangling it usually took 30 seconds or less. Zagg says this is because the cord “features a tough polyurethane coating”.

Hangin Tight

At first I thought this was a gimmick I would never used and took a while for me to figure out but once I  started using this feature properly, I wanted this on all my earphones. By following the enclosed instructions and using it with their hangin tight feature, the buds are always accessible on your sides and never fall to the ground.

Conclusion

Overall I like this product and it performed well enough to become my everyday earphones. I can through it in my back, pocket and gym bag and not worry about it breaking. It has proven to be extremely durable. Sound quality was good for a product of this category but I wish the microphone performed a little better.

Shop around because you can find this product for around $30 at various large online resellers (so don’t buy it directly from Zagg).