TaoTronics Active Noise Cancelling Headphones, ANC Wired Earbuds with 15 hours Playtime, In Ear Stereo Earphones with High Awareness Monitoring Mode

I am quite pleased with these but not entirely! The packaging is great, they look well made, fit my ears very well and the sound is excellent. My only two reservations are that the noise cancelling, while there, is not terrific. But that may be unfair as I am comparing them with Bose over-ear headphones which are excellent but ten times more. I have yet to use on a plane so that will be the real test.The other slight problem is that I use them with a DAB radio. This uses the cord as an antenna. With noise cancelling OFF, they work perfectly but with it ON they do not work at all - i.e. total silence. In some way the cancelling software seems to stop the cords working as an antenna. I realise this will be of little importance to most people but is worth mentioning.Overall, I am pleased with them and, as I say, the sound ins very impressive. Will edit this review once I have used on train, plane etc.EDITI have now used these on a train, tube and plane. While they are not as good as the Bose they are pretty impressive. They do cut out a great deal of the booming sound on a plane. So my only reservation is the one above - not working with a digital radio . But overall I am very pleased with my purchase.

Whilst these are not the perfect pair of headphones, they are pretty good, and they certainly fulfilled the purpose for what I bought them for... Namely, listening to music & movies on airplane flights.I have a perfectly acceptable pair of headphones from Sennheiser which have good clarity but which are just not very loud. When I listened using the Sennheisers on airplanes, the spoken voice would be thoroughly drowned out by the roar of the engines and wind. I needed something which was going to be loud and clear enough to be used on a flight.I bought these a couple of weeks before my up-coming flight, and have now had the opportunity to test them out. I'm pleased to say that the results are just excellent, and I was able to watch a movie and listen to music with absolutely no problems at all.The noise reduction features of the headphones seem to work in a number of ways... They are both noise isolating and noise cancelling at the same time. You need to ensure a reasonably tight fit in your ear canal for the best result. From there, you switch on the ANC (Active Noise Cancellation) button for an extra boost in volume and clarity. The ANC appears to increase the mid-frequencies - rather like a graphic equalizer, but it also 'dulls' the roar of the engines and wind. I tested out the headphones with a number of musical tracks, and I would say it reduced the outside noise by about 20 - 30%. The roar was still present, but it was definitely quieter and more distant.As a slightly more scientific test of the headphones abilities, I repeatedly listened to the same piece of music which starts very quietly, and gradually gets louder over a long time. The piece was Dire Straits - Telegraph Road. On maximum volume with ANC Off, I was able to hear the sound of the music above the roar of the airplane at '11 seconds' in. With ANC Noise Reduction On, I was able to hear sound of the music at just '4 seconds' into the track. That's a major improvement. Watching movies, the sound of the voices was clear, and easily understandable.ANC aside, the headphones are a mid-range when it comes to quality. Mid and base frequencies are accentuated. Higher frequencies are certainly audible, but are 'slightly' drowned out by the lower frequencies. You may be able to adjust for this using the phone's graphic equaliser.The ANC function uses power from a rechargeable battery in the control unit on the headphone cable. However, when the battery is exhausted, the headphones will still work as standard headphones. You can also listen to music while the control unit is charging (which takes 1 - 2 hours - via Micro USB cable). You do have to remember to switch off the ANC when you have finished using the headphones, or the batteries will run flat by the time you next come to use them. I wish they could automatically monitor for silence, and automatically switch themselves off when they are not being used, but they don't !!There is a 'monitor' button on the control unit, which lowers the volume of what you are listening to about 1/3rd and then pipes the sound of your surroundings into your ears. This allows you to hear public announcements without removing the headphones from your ears. It does work, but it is fiddly to find and press that monitor button quickly enough to hear the beginning of the announcement. It is probably better to rip one or both of the headphones out of your ears to get the same job done. If you don't want to pull the headphones out of your ears, then the monitor button is for you.There is a Multi-function In-line Remote Control on the cable of the right ear headphone. This allows you to adjust your playback volume, as well control all the other features. You can control Play & Pause (single press), Advance to Next Track (double press), Answer a Call (single press), and Hangup or Reject a Call (double press). A long press seems to activate Google or Samsung Assistant.The instructions state that the multifunction button should be able to rewind to a previous track, but in many experiments I have never been able to make that work. I tried long presses as well as triple & quadruple presses without success. All the other functions work, but rewinding to a previous track does not !! I wrote to TaoTronics technical support about this, and they quoted me straight from the manual saying it was the central multifunction button which should rewind, but not how to do it. I'm fairly convinced that this (rewind) function was mistakenly left out of the programming, but no-one told the people who wrote the manual. It's not a major omission but it is a bit annoying. BTW, the manual is very basic, and consists of two diagrams, a list of various functions, and a list of precautions (in 6 languages) such as not getting the unit wet.Finally, I should say that the quality of the microphone for telephone calls is good and clear. In summary, I'm pleased with the headphones, and they will certainly be my primary headphones for airplane flights, and motorcycle journeys. The ANC noise cancellation results in a marked and noticeable improvement in clarity and makes the purchase worthwhile.

I bought these headphones to use them almost on a daily mainly for work.Due to the nature of my work, I have to attend to many meetings and hence having a crystal-clear sound (even when in a noisy environment or in an open-space) is very important to me. Indeed, these headphones do exactly as they say. The active noise cancelling is noticeable and very effective. It can filter out surrounding noises towards a significantly improved audio experience. More importantly however, I would like to highlight its compatibility with Skype/ Skype for business. Most (especially bluetooth based) headphones, albeit they provide a good audio quality, the microphone is either very sensitive or not sensitive enough so that the other attendees have very tough time listening to you. This is not the case with these headphones. So far I have participated in numerous meetings and no-one has ever complained on how I sound.