Noise cancelling headphones put to the test by a customer

(Illustration image: The picture does not show Mikko, or even Mikko’s headphones. It could, though.)

I got Valco’s noise cancelling headphones to use during the winter. I tested them in all kinds of situations, mostly at work and in work-related situations. I promised to write down some thoughts and experiences about them. But first, a bit about my background. 

I work in management at a commercial company, and the job is hectic. Sometimes in Tampere, sometimes in Helsinki or, say, Jyväskylä. On the worst days, there are around ten context switches. There are typically ten to fifteen initiatives and projects at the same time that I have to weigh in on. Sometimes the work gets done on a train, sometimes in meeting rooms. Sometimes there’s a chance to work in a room next to a bunch of loud people making a racket. Sometimes there’s music blasting nearby and people talking away. So, to sum it up, pretty distracting and constantly changing environments to try to work in. 

My work requires a lot of thinking, and I often need peace and quiet to focus on one thing long enough to actually get a specific part done. For that, I used to sometimes work remotely, but now with small children, uninterrupted work from home is no longer really possible. For occasional tasks that require concentration, I’ve sometimes even gone to reading rooms in libraries or similar places, but in practice that’s not really possible as a regular way of working. 

I got to test Valco’s noise cancelling headphones from their trial batch in winter 2018. I already had experience with Sennheiser’s first noise cancelling headphones, so I do have a decent understanding of good noise cancelling headphones, even if I’m not exactly an audiophile.

The first impression was somehow striking. The over-ear earcups already block out a large part of the surrounding noise. When you switch the noise cancelling on, the rest of the world practically disappears. I was already pretty impressed by the headphones just because of how well they dampened the outside world, but then I put on some properly domestic Sibelius, some other classical stuff now and then, and Waterscapes nature sounds as an experiment to help with concentration while I was updating processes during the winter.

There’s really nothing to complain about in the soundscape. It felt like being in a concert hall. So this doesn’t turn into pure praise, I have to admit that I wasn’t previously used to headphones that cover the whole ear. That took a little getting used to. On the other hand, the tradeoff was pretty easy: I got to work in peace even near that one troop of open-plan office monkeys. 

As I said above, my work is quite mobile and location-independent. So throughout the winter and spring, I’ve hauled these headphones around everywhere, and they are admittedly a bit large. The size itself isn’t a problem, though, when they come with a genuinely premium-level case.

The trial by fire for the headphones was probably a Lync meeting where the Valco headphones were connected to my phone via bluetooth while I had to walk from Helsinki railway station to Katajanokka, talking at the same time, with the deafening racket of high school seniors’ truck parade right next to me. The end result was that I could hear the meeting discussion perfectly, and the mics in the headphones picked up my speech for the meeting, but the parade noise was filtered out so that, apparently, the other people in the meeting couldn’t hear it. So yes, the headphones work as a handsfree too. You probably figured that out already. 

On the train, I’ve ended up wearing the headphones almost all the time. Lync calls don’t work quite as well there, because you can’t really talk without fellow passengers hearing what you’re saying. It’s also very easy to forget that, because when the noise cancelling function is on, the train rumble and the chatter of the ladies sitting next to you just disappear, and it’s easy to forget you’re even on a train. For that reason, I’ve ended up listening to more music on trains instead. Judging by their size, these headphones seem to have a fair bit more capacity on the bass side compared to Apple’s white earbuds. Which isn’t exactly shocking. 

To mention a few practical things about the headphones as well, the package includes premium-level noise cancelling headphones that you can connect to an audio source and microphone (!) with a traditional cable, or alternatively use via bluetooth. On the surface of one earcup there are touch controls for volume and changing tracks. Those take a little getting used to. I still get the directions mixed up now and then.

There’s nothing to complain about in terms of battery life either, because the battery has never run out on me mid-use. Every now and then I plug the headphones in to charge with a USB cable, so I haven’t had to worry about it separately. A key reason I’ve ended up carrying the headphones everywhere is also that proper protective case I already mentioned. I had one like that back in the day with my first travel Sennheisers too. Those always had to be folded up in some complicated way, so usability suffered. The Valcos you can just toss into the case as they are once you turn the earcups and zip it shut. 

All in all, I can warmly recommend these headphones. As background, it should be mentioned that although I was asked to write about my user experience, I’m writing impartially, so I wasn’t asked to write praise.

I’m planning to get a bigger batch of these headphones for us at work, because I let others test them too, and without exception the feedback was positive. Then the others can also get some peace to work. 

- Mikko J.