What's disconcerting is that the Tivoli headphones come with the exact same thin, cheap plastic carrying pouch that's included with the HT-21s. True, two headphones can look the same on the outside (share the same housing) but sound different altogether. In fact, the Radio Silenz and HT-21 do sound different. The Radio Silenz offers more bass, but in the process sacrifices some detail. The HT-21 seems a bit thin by comparison but offers a touch more clarity. They both lack any sort of refinement associated with headphones that cost $150. That said, we did give the HT-21s a good review largely because editor Justin Yu liked their design and thought they sounded quite decent for the money. But let me reiterate: the HT-21s are $25 headphones and these are $159.99 headphones.Īgain, you can't expect too much refinement from entry-level $25-$35 on-ear headphones, but your expectations rise dramatically when you get into the $150 price range. I expected tighter bass and more detail from these guys, particularly because I have a lot of respect for the sound that Tivoli radios deliver. Instead, there's something a little mushy and bloated sounding about these headphones that puts them squarely in the sub-$50 camp. They don't sound bad, but they don't sound terribly good either. The wood trim on the earcups is available in 3 difference colors (walnut color shown). The noise-canceling feature is also disappointing. To be clear, this is an active noise-canceling headphone, so the noise-canceling circuitry is incorporated into the aforementioned inline dongle (it's powered by a AAA battery and gives you about 50 hours of use). A button on the dongle, which also has a volume control, allows you to defeat the noise canceling and quiet your music so you can hear what's going on outside your headphones and talk to someone, perhaps a flight attendant. That's a nice feature and I also appreciated that you don't have to engage the noise-canceling to listen to music. I tried the noise-cancelling in a few different environments and found that it did an OK job muffling the sound of the air-conditioning fan in my office (it's a loud fan that's similar to the background noise you'd experience on an aircraft). But the problem is you can hear a discernible hiss when listening to quieter music or during gaps in playback.
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