Let me jerk by saying that myself a supporter of Tivoli Audio and have all the time liked the syndicate’s tabletop radios and moveable PAL radios. They proposal an brilliant blend of scheme and concert, which makes it relaxed to overlook their comparatively extraordinary price tags.

Tivoli’s First Noise-Canceling Headphones Fall Short: Uninspired Design and Disappointing Performance

Unfortunately, the company’s initial raid into the earphone market — the noise-canceling earphone market no less — is a unlike condition overall. In its place of upcoming up with a matchless, good product, Tivoli’s put a little together that’s both uninspired and absolutely entry-level, with a uneven $159.99 price tag that doesn’t equal its enactment.

Tivoli’s Radio Silenz Headphones: Attractive Design But Lacks Performance and Value

The purpose I say uninspired is that the Radio Silenz earphones look like to be an off-the-shelf Chinese plan that’s gussied up with Tivoli’s sign wood trim on the earfuls (the planks derives in walnut, crimson, and black dust colors). The earphones actually look attractive nice, are unimportant, folding up for passage, and are equitably relaxed for on-ear earphones.

The only problematic is that separately from the lined up noise-canceling motherboard, which doesn’t do considerable when triggered, the Radio Silenz is very related to the $25 ME Electronics HT-21. What’s disturbing is that the Tivoli earphones come with the particular same thin, low-priced plastic carrying bag that’s involved with the HT-21s.

Tivoli Radio Silenz vs. ME Electronics HT-21: A Pricey Disappointment in Sound Quality

Exact, two earphones can look the similar on the outdoor (share the similar frame) but sound unalike overall. In information, the Radio Silenz and HT-21 do behave unalike. The Radio Silenz suggestions more deep, but in the manner disadvantages some feature. The HT-21 seems a bit skinny by evaluation but offers a touch additional clearness. They equally lack any sort of improvement related with earphones that cost $150.

That assumed, we did provide the HT-21s a decent analysis mainly because publishing supervisor Justin Yu liked their plan and thought they broadcasted quite fully clad for the money. But let me repeat: the HT-21s are $25 earphones and these are $159.99 earphones.

Tivoli Radio Silenz: Disappointing Sound and Ineffective Noise-Canceling for the Price

Once more, you can’t imagine too much modification from entry-level $25-$35 on-ear earphones, but your potentials rise radically when you become into the $150 price sort. I projected tighter bass and additional detail from these peoples, mainly because I have a lot of admiration for the sound that Tivoli radios transport. In its place, there’s something a tiny soppy and bloated discussion about these earphones that puts them exactly in the sub-$50 site. They don’t sound evil, but they don’t sound horribly decent either.

The noise-canceling feature is moreover unacceptable. To be vibrant, this is an lively noise-canceling earphone, so the noise-canceling motherboard is united into the above-mentioned in single file dongle (it’s power-driven by a AAA battery and provides you approximately 50 hours of usage).

A key on the dongle, which similarly has a sound control, lets you to setback the noise canceling and silent your song so you can listen to what’s going on outdoor your earphones and talk to someone, possibly a aircraft helper. That’s a good feature and I also prized that you don’t have to involve the noise-canceling to hang on to music.

I exasperated the noise-cancelling in a few altered environments and bring into being that it did an OK work dampening the sound of the air-conditioning buff in my workplace (it’s a flashy fan that’s alike to the experience noise you’d knowledge on an aircraft). But the tricky is you can overhear a visible hiss when hang on to silent music or during openings in playback. This is balance for the sequence for NC earphones, but it appeared much additional visible on this model.

Conclusion

Aspect, if Tivoli has been placed these available for $79 or uniform $99, I would have been greatly additional ready to give it the profit of the doubt and be fewer critical. The wood slim does enhance a nice touch to the project of the earphones. But the $159.99 rate tag strikes me as mocking.

Assured, sufficiently of other companies have pinched and refined off-the-shelf designs of several consumer electronics produces. But then again the Radio Silenz and HT-21 earphones are just too thoroughly detached at birth. As it viewpoints, you’d be superior off with the compact and super comfortable Bose OE2 or OE2i or Sennheiser’s more reasonably priced HD 238, which is actually switched by the HD 239.

Individuals models don’t offer inactive noise-cancellation, but they do submissively cover out a decent amount of sound and you won’t have to covenant with hearing that noticeable hiss during softer tracks or openings in playback.