Parrot's Zik blyetooth headphones. - Page 2

:-)

Funny timing. I'm at the Hong Kong airport and just heard these. They're not terrible. Boomy bass. Not especially clean. They certainly aren't great.

yea thats pretty much what im just overall getting from these cans. obviously if they were gods gift to audiophiles there would be some ongoing 100+ page thread about these guys. however the technology and overall design did peak my interest, however the price and sound quality easily have me looking the other way.  

Got a pair and really like them. No, not audiophile quality, but fairly well balanced (okay, a bit too much bass, but it's good for movies). The look and technology is pretty amazing. I liked the adjustable crossfeed app thingy.  Noice canceling is good, but not great. Given it's features and fairly decent sound for a bluetooth headset, I'd say it's pretty darned good for the money ... compared to what's out there. I like 'em.

I didn't get to try the software; that would have been interesting. The airport shop just let me plug my own source into a cable that disappeared into the display so I guess it wasn't blue tooth either. (I assume that the cable to the headphone was hard-wired sound).

 

The video of the guy dancing around and then tapping on the cup to answer a call without skipping a beat was fun.

Edited by cooperpwc - 9/20/12 at 9:39am

I got a set to evaluate, see if we might want to sell them as an HT accessory.  I'm writing up a full review for the blog, but the short story is, SQ is decent, noise canceling is decent, touch control is cool, comfort is ok but can get hot, phone calls are adequate, the app is cool, but aside from using a little EQ to tame the bass, I don't find the perspective controls useful, though kind of fun to play with.  

 

On the sound: I was initially disappointed with the sound quality.  Nice deeply extended bass, if somewhat exaggerated, but the mids and highs were edgy, blurry, and just plain distorted.  Then I found the problem was highly dependent on source quality.  Perhaps because bluetooth uses a form of compression, compressed files are beat up a bit more probably because they get hit twice, once in their initial compression, again through bluetooth.  FLAC and Apple Lossless files sounded pristine, and the highs cleared up, distortion gone, impact is where it should be.  Plugging in a cord and shutting down bluetooth also made an improvement when playing .mp3 or .AAC files.  You have to still use the on-board active electronics with the cord, though, but that's nice because noise cancellation still works.  I doubt they were intended to be used as passive phones, as powering them off and using the cord is really bad. 

 

Battery life is not as stated, I got about 4 hours initially, but that's with a lot of playing around with the DSP.  Supposedly the battery life is better with all the active processing off, and using only the amp and touch control.  You should use their charger as the battery takes a bit of current to charge, and some little USB adapters won't do it. 

 

Pairing was less than stellar, and if I walked out of range from the iPhone and dropped the connection, returning to the iPhone didn't re-pair them, it took manual action.  The initial pairing was low-quality bluetooth, like phone quality, then they renegotiated and paired up in full quality stereo, and have been since. 

 

Overall I really did like them.  They're fun to use, sound actually pretty good when you feed them good sources, and when I think of the sound quality I'm getting and they're bluetooth, it's just plain amazing.  They're kind of addictive!  I'd be using them almost every day...if I could get them off my son's head!

 

Not sure about us selling them to clients, though.  Might be a bit too high of a support issue, not because of failures, but because of hand-holding during customer initiation.  I have a call in to Parrot for a heart-to-heart about some of the issues.  I'll post the results if any.

Just posted the full review on my blog...nothing really new, just longer and better written.

I just picked one of these up yesterday. Firmware upgrade and pairing are simple :htc evo, 4.0 ics with power amp and a 32gb micro sd card. The Parrot android app is simple and small as well; it does say "beta". The only funny thing about the app is the help section is in French. You will not need the help section anyway but I've not found a way to change it. Battery life seems pretty good, I expect about 9 hours without active noise cancellation enabled. The eq settings are like most devices presets; too much, the music players eq could also be used and the Parrot app has a headphone "user" setting that's adjustable. I've been running them flat. Sound quality seems really nice considering that no wire is required. If i had paid what i did for a wired headphone of this quality I'd be neutral about the value. They remind me slightly of the Phillips Metro with extended bass, better comfort and some increased detail.

I suspect more and better bt headsets in the future. The swipe feature is no worse than a wired controller in regard to lag in changing tracks. I've always noticed some slight lag but this might be just phones player; a built in fade. The swipe / touch controls are noiseless and really effective not to mention convenient and FUN. Did i mention they were beautiful? They are!

These are very new to me, less than a day. These will spend a lot of time on my mobile ears, I'm certain.

 

" I don't do ups, I do downs. Gravity is a Law and I obey the Law. Give me a cheeseburger and I wolf it down. Play some music and I boogie down."

John Pinette

 

 

Yea I figured as much my self, I got kinda tired of seeing that dang add for them EVERY WHERE I WENT, stupid google tracking my interests. Non the less they look sexy and I suppose it's a shame to hear the bass is a little to much, mainly though I dig the pauseing when I take them off. Technological wise... it'd be nice to see that tech implimented into other standard head phones not just Blue tooth.

 

Still though they look great and sound ok,   but with cool features... might be something interesting to have just to say you owned it. I ofc don't have the money to invest in them so :3 I'll enjoy them on other ppls brain cases! 

This was a complete surprise to me, i actually like the active noise cancellation and everyone that's heard it in action is impressed. To try this, first play no music with the headphones turned on. The active noise circuit must be on on. Start something noisy, vacuum cleaner, table saw, put the phones over your ears, in a couple seconds they become active; a tone sounds and outside noise levels drop significantly. Everyone that's heard this has been floored.

 

At work one coworker sneaks up on me and pauses the music by tapping the right pad. Not as scary as another motorcyclist that pulls up on the right and thumbs your kill switch.

I often forget my player at my desk and walk off. I've been as far as fifty feet away before the signal breaks up....line of sight is important apparently.

I tried these out the other day. The touchy feely system that it has on the earcups to change songs or play and pause was incredibly hard to use.

I guess there's always a wide range of opinions. We (several of us) love the touch control, and find it easy to use.  In fact, after several weeks of evaluation my only real gripe is that they have trouble automatically re-pairing.  If you turn them off or move out of range, they seldom automatically re-pair when you turn them on or move back into range.  It's a trip through bluetooth settings to get them going.  Otherwise, they're a real pleasure to use, love the overall sound, and the noise cancellation is more than adequate for most applications. 

 

I'm amending my original "review" with the above.

It's odd, I thought the touch pad works flawlessly. For me pairing and reconnecting is also perfect. I might ask, firmware and device.
I've ordered a usb to bt adapter to use with a desktop. A couple of days I'll have results.
Edited by ri_toast - 12/12/12 at 9:06am

I've seen an ad for these on Youtube today, and though these look pretty impressive, I'm not sure I could afford these. Ah well, maybe if I get a job and earn enough money to spend on stuff, I'll get one.

Well I recently got one of these and I have to agree, the noise cancelation is pretty good. Though one thing that bugs me is that the vocals sound very fuzzy compared to my ATH-W3Ks, but its a 1k price difference plus the bluetooth so, what can I say... Otherwise It's Wonderful

I'm considering these headphones as a nice wireless set to use with playing my keyboard (e-piano). Does anyone know if there is considerable delay between action on the bluetooth sender and the receiver?

 

Also I've only seen 2 reviews that mentions it getting a bit steamy when you put them on for long periods. Though it's not desirable, how is this in comparison with other over ear headphones?

 

Edit: I'm also new to Bluetooth. Can you pair the headphones to more than one device? e.g. one to the piano one to the phone and get phone notifications as you play.

Edited by FF76 - 12/20/12 at 8:40am