Avantree Aria Pro aptX-HD Bluetooth 5.0 Wireless Headphones with Active Noise Cancelling & Boom Mic - Over Ear Headset for Music, Calls, Gaming & Work (Low Latency, SSD Option, Wired/Wireless) - Perfect for Office, Travel, Commuting & Home Entertainment

I have been using these for about 3 weeks, mostly in combination with the Avantree Oasis Bluetooth receiver/transmitter to listen to my TV while being able to move around, do dishes and such while keeping the apartment quiet for the neighbors (nice folks, but I like loud music and watching the occasional action/scifi/horror flick).The APTX LL codec works wonderfully, and there is a big, noticeable difference over when the SBC codec is used (for example, when a neighbor's Bluetooth device accidentally connects to my transmitter). The sound quality is nice (not crummy like cheap headphones that are tinny or crank the bass settings to make up for poor hardware performance at low frequencies); you might not be blown away by it, but I have not once thought ill of it, so pretty good. No real punch to it, but certainly not bad (haven't tried messing with equalizer settings, perhaps that can kick things up a notch).They are comfortable, and I like the backup headphone jack if you wanted to use it (I'm not particularly fond of Bluetooth headphones, but I'm slowly coming around). You can't connect to Bluetooth while charging, but you can use the noise cancelation while charging, nice for reading.This is my first set of noise canceling headphones, and I like the feature. It does suck up battery life, and while it does seem pretty effective against background droning noise (fans, running faucets, etc), I don't have any frame of reference as to a really nice set of noise canceling 'phones. I haven't tried using the microphone, and don't really have any impetus to.If you have issues connecting like I did a couple times early on, place the headphones and transmitter in a large pot, turn on both, and cover with another, smaller pot (or rice cooker pot like I did in the pic), making an impromptu Faraday cage, and wait a couple moments. It should connect, and you won't have to do it in your car like the instructions suggest.From there, I make sure I always turn the headphones on first before the TV, and I haven't had any issues since.I bought cautiously as there are not a lot of reviews on these headphones. I'm sure you have some questions like I did before getting them.#1 Is the noise cancelling any good?Yes it is. It is not the best. Sony at this time has the best, but I have tested Sony's system and while it is better, I don't miss the more advanced noise cancelling. I can fall perfectly into my own world with these Aria Pros. Compared to the Anker Q20 I believe these are better, but you are splitting hairs at this point. The Avantree gives a very honest explanation of their noise cancellation. It will not cancel higher pitch / non-repetitive noises. In a way those noises are easier to hear when droning noises are taken away. I still would rather have noise cancellation than not have it.These don't have ambient mode, but so far I'm not missing it.#2 Is the audio quality good?Yes it is good. Not amazing, not par, but good. If you are editing movies for the big screen with doby atmos tuned speakers, you aren't going to be using something like the Aria. But if you are editing youtube videos, making work calls, watching movies, then these are going to work great. I have tried on several headphones sets from 2019, and I can say these beat out most although again I had to switch back and forth about 20 times to tell the difference. Headphones like the Anker and Sony and Bose and JBL, all have differen't sound signatures, but to say one is better than the other is painfully difficult.The one exception to this I can say is in comparing audio quality with noise cancelling on. Sony really shines hear, Bose too, but besides that all other headphones seem to take a quality penalty when noise cancelling is on. It's not a lot but it's there if you close your eyes and listen close. Without anything to compare it too, you won't notice honestly.So to wrap it up, If you only listen to wav audio files at 44khz+ get something else. If you watch YouTube, listen to itunes, spotify, google music, etc. The quality is very good and you likely won't be able to discern anything better.#3 Is the boom mic worth it?This was difficult. I had to test it with my audio recording app. What I can conclude is the built in mic in the ear cups seems to be of the same quality as the mic built into the boom mic. The built in mic did a better job than most built in mics on other headphones. It's actually good enough for most work calls. The boom mic simply gets the mic right in front of your face. This is good and bad. The bad is the mic being very sensitive is easy to peak on. Projecting talk into the boom mic will clip a lot. The good is you can talk in a near whisper and the other person will hear you as if you were talking at a normal level.You can always move the mic away from your mouth to get the levels down, but there is no sensitivity control in the headset. I really am 50:50 on if I will ever use the boom mic or not. Avantree if you are reading this, please come out with a boom mic "pro" with a higher quality mic than the one in this current boom mic. Include a gain adjustment dial. I love the idea of a boom mic, but I expect to get "great" audio when using an add on boom mic. Not the same "good" audio as the built in mic.#4 Will they last?I would say they are better built than most headphones I have tried on. Any difference between these and the Sony's is marginal as far as build goes. There are some better builds out there, but for that you sacrifice size and folding ability. I think they hit the sweet spot with these.For the price I don't think you will find a better feature balance out there.Everything was surprisingly good except the boom mic which was just ok.There are a lot of great features on here like multi-link bluetooth you won't find on most headphones so I can say confidently this is the best ANC over ear headphones to park your hard earned money into.Noise cancellation does not work. The sound is clear but I am looking for something that handles my Teams meeting in a crowd. The attached mic is convenient but cumbersome as it does not flip up. It's definitely decent but don't think it will cancel noise.When connected via blue tooth to my phone, I can hear the caller very well when I'm in a loud environment.However callers have complained they can hear my background noise.Not great for the price. You can certainly find better if your budget is £90.The good:- Comfort. Extremely light weight and the padding around the ear cups is good. This is the primary reason you should consider these headphones. Can wear this for hours without fatigue-Boom mic is loud and clear.- Great minimalistic packaging which looks premium.-Multiconnect-The design: looks reasonably sleek when worn.- Overall premium look and feel.The Bad:- I am no audiophile but what I experienced was extremely average sound quality. Its a warm slightly mid bass heavy sound signature which lacks detail and punch. Yes the sound is flatter than most budget options out there. Dont get me wrong they sound good if you're upgrading from bundled earphones that came with your phone, and you do have sufficient bass mids and treble. If you've owned a good pair of earphones before then these are just average sounding. Lacking in low end bass that punches and the highs dont sparkle even in the mids a lot of detail is missing especially in the lower mids. I have no issue with these sounding flat. The real issue is the sound is not rich or full sounding. On listening to these back to back vs the souncore q20 the q20 sounds fuller. That being said mids are generally good and so is instrument separation. But sound stage is very narrow. If like me sound quality is your top priority and you want a good pair to primarily listen to music, skip these. They're good for voice calls and watching podcasts or listening to anything voice related. Even with music vocals are where these headphones shine. Not an enjoyable sound signature overall due to lack of detail and low end punch. When ANC is switched on you do get some more low end bass but its not rich sounding. Also drastic change in sound quality with ANC on vs off similar to other cheaper headphones. Also the max volume these can reach are just adequate I could do with a bit more.-Sound leakage on these is terrible. Probably a compromise you make for comfort. I guess the clamping force on these is a bit less than others and while that makes it comfortable it also causes sound leakage. At full volume the song is quite loud and obvious to others in the room. Definitely worse than the others i tested like the soundcore q20 or the tribit tune.- THIS DOES NOT HAVE NFC. I contacted customer support and they said theyve removed it. Guess thats their idea of a 2020 update. The listing still says it has nfc under "connections" which is a misrepresentation.- Poor quality control. My headphones creak at the pivot points. Also straight out of the box mine came with a deep scratch on one speaker. See picture. Customer support offered me a £10 refund for this. But I would prefer to return the item.-The ANC is like other budget headphones. They work but nothing special to charge this price. Even a £40 ANC headphone can do the same level of noise cancellation. And the hybrid ANC on the soundcore is a bit better but not by much. Overall all budget ANC systems only block out some low frequencies and you will still hear some sounds.-This could be my tv but the voice was very choppy and unusable on my lg oled. Worked fine with my firestick thoughOverall for this price unless you really need the codecs which im not sure will make a difference given that the drivers aren't very capable, or unless you really need the boom mic, these are a pair thats hard to recommend.Not a great buy for my purpose especially at this price point. I couldn't live with the sound quality and got a soundcore q20 and a tribit xfree tune before deciding to return these and the q20 arrived at the time of writing this and sound much better to me, a bit bass heavy but it has the low end punch and mids and highs are good and detailed. Also the q20s are of better build quality and dont creak also the speakers came with protection plastic on the outside like phones have on their screen when new. They're a little less comfortable due to a stronger clamping force. The ANC on the q20 is a notch better than this pair but it does take its toll on sound quality. However, they're less than half the price. Will report back on the tribit when they arrive. Both the q20 and the tribit together cost me less than this pair. If music is your primary use then look elsewhere you can find something better sounding for far less. Also I don't think other headphones which have Bluetooth 5.0 have latency issues. The souncore didn't and it doesn't have all these fancy codes.Update:The tribit arrived and I tried them as well. Sound quality wise they're certainly better than these but the soundcore q20 sounded better to my ears overall and thats the pair I have decided to keep. The sound quality and noise cancellation on the soundcore are really good. The soundcore also has multiconnect and connects to multiple devices at once. The sound is very rich and has more detail probably due to drivers that are capable of a wider frequency range. The sound isolation (not ANC) on the soundcore is also really good and better than the tribit or the Aria pro resulting in very little sound leakage. Thankfully my hunt for a good pair comes to an end for now and that too for 40 bucks. In the end there is a reason these Avantree headphones do not have as many reviews as some other budget brands and are not spoken about as much among influencers. These are just an average pair at an above average price point. If you buy these and do not compare you may be happy with them but rest assured you can find equally good or better headphones for less.So I bought these for home working due to COVID. The headphones and boom mic are fine and in a quiet environment would be more than adequate for the job. The problem is I don't always have a quiet environment to work in as I share the office with my wife who also does conference calls. I had hoped the boom mic on this would do the trick, as others I had tried didn't have it. The problem is the mic picks up everything so if we are both on calls it picks up ALL the conversation and also any other external noise making for very poor voice quality on your call.If you need a setup that blocks ambient noise from the mic these are not for you.If ambient noise isn't a problem with ANC etc these are great for the price.I've had to look elsewhere for one to do the job and I'm afraid it isn't cheap but it absolutely does the job, check out the Jabra Evolve 2 85 if you only want your voice on your calls.For some time now I've been struggling to find a suitable pair of headphones that are wireless but have a good quality microphone for my work. I'm constantly on the phone with my work so this is really much appreciated and needed and definitely makes my life easier. Four basic media consumption if I had to say I would definitely prefer it to be louder but as a headset designed for conferencing and calling I could not fault this headset. I'm looking forward to seeing the next generation of this headset hopefully they launch another one sometime within the next year. I was very easily recommend this to anyone who is looking for a pair of headphones either for gaming or calling or conferencing as it's a very decent Bluetooth headset with a very decent microphoneBought these because of some amazing reviews from audiophiles etc. Well I wouldn't believe them. I have had nothing but issues with these headphones. Avantree support said it was maybe a faulty set as I was experiencing static noise all the time and had connection issues etc. They sent me another pair (the latest version with usb-c connection) and advised I buy the Avantree leaf bluetooth receiver as this would solve the connection issues, which to be fair it kind of did but the sound quality was even worse, so bad. The range didn't improve either, it's around 5 metres.If you need cheap wireless headphones for communications and don't mind them being a little buggy then these will do fine. If you want a quality headset for gaming and listening to music too, look elsewhere. You get what you pay for with wireless headphones I think. Although my cheaper Taotronics headphones are better for music....just crap for comms.Anyway I cannot recommend these headphones unfortunately although they have some good points, the sound quality and buggy connection issues I've had outweigh the good points.So far best Headphone with mic for office useBelow are likes and dislikes about this productLikes- Light weight- Pairs two devices, paring speed is quick- Battery is good (Charge every two days after office plus personal use)- Flexible, detachable, Effective Boom mic (the only reason which I bought and i am not disappointed).- Mic quality is good.- Buttons are efficient and decently designed. But could do betterDislike- Music quality is average (can't expect for office use but still can't stop complaining)- Mute button feedback is annoying