Reviews for Parrot Zik Wireless Headphones by Starck

In the first few days of owning these well-designed headphones, I'm on cloud nine. I'm a user experience (UX) designer, and these are AWESOME - the sound quality is truly excellent, and the sound and call controls are easily grasped and work as designed.

The headphones have paired easily with all my mac products (including an older 3GS iPhone I use in Canada, despite it not being officially supported). My 2006 MBP, my iMac, my iPad, my 4S and my 3GS all work beautifully with these headphones (as soon as someone provides a more interesting UX than Apple, see how quickly I go there instead). The only "issue" I've discovered is that to change the device I want to use the headphones with, I have to turn off the bluetooth for the last device I used, and turn ON the bluetooth for the device I want to use. But I don't particularly consider this an issue - how else are the headphones to "know" which device you want it to use with, other than the last one you used, if you have several all in range?

I've had Bose ear buds, Dr Dre headphones and other brands of listening devices (Apple ear buds I've never liked at all). Many expensive and many of good quality to begin with. But each suffered wear and tear issues (despite me taking care of them) after daily use for less than 2 years. I'm hoping these last longest.

Not a big fan of long reviews, so I will get right to the point:

PROS:
- Unbelievable sound and control of sound (amazing)
- Super high-quality materials used
- 'Feel' like an expensive piece of equipment should
- Work extremely well with the iPhone, almost flawless in all uses

CONS:
- Only work so-so with a Macbook Pro or other laptop with bluetooth
- 6 hours of battery life is really short once you start working
- No external battery charger available (although they sell extra batteries)
- Do not work as a 'headset' on a laptop with Skype
- After a while, the headset feels 'heavy' on the top part of the head, almost have to take them off to give your scalp a rest

The sound quality and the controls the iPhone App gives you make these headphone sound amazing. However, I am seriously considering taking them back. The battery life is just way too short and not being able to fully use them with my MBP is a killer. I have about 10 days before I can't return them.

These headphones have two important differences from most that may affect your satisfaction:

(1) Audiophiles are used to the paradigm of pure unvarnished reproduction of sound. The ideal amplifier is "a straight wire with gain;" the perfect transducer produces sound waves exactly as input electrically (no harmonics, no variation with frequency or level). Audiophiles typically find fault with any sort of "addition" or processing of signals, even compression and tone controls. These headphones in contrast have digital signal processing at their core. Digital signal compression over Bluetooth, active noise cancellation, equalizer and "concert hall" effects are built in (the latter three can be switched off). As many reviewers have noted, listening with the headphones' DSP off is disappointing. They are not designed to - and do not - reproduce accurately without the DSP (that is, as passive headphones).

Noise cancellation does a good job on droning air handlers and motors, but also colors music subtly. In an otherwise quiet environment you might prefer to switch it off. I find the equalizer and concert hall effects intriguing and use them on some recordings, but purists are bound to find the effects introduce artifacts. These headphones are well designed for listening in non-ideal listening environments (office, commuting, airplane, busy household) but not for critical audiophile listening.

(2) The headphones have a sophisticated digital controller: the Parrot Zik app on your iPhone. Do not think of the app as an optional add-on, but rather a key component in listening with these headphones. But also do not confuse the role of the app as the music source. You might get the impression from some reviews that the headphones only work well if using iPhone as the audio source, but that is incorrect. Using the standard audio cable with 3.5mm plugs, you can listen through any source with an audio jack. The three components for listening are audio source, headphone, and controller (iPhone app). Listening to a source other than the iPhone via the cable, the app still controls the noise cancellation, concert hall effects, and equalizer (so long as still Bluetooth paired with the iPhone).

Quibbles:
- the headband is heavy enough to slide back and forth as you move
- every change on the controller (iPhone app) generates sharp audio "click"
- the cans are not fully around the ear, but largish on the ear

There are a few negatives below, but these headphones are staying with me! I think they're excellent.

I have used the headphones for a few days while doing outside chores. I'm more than satisfied with the simple touch controls on the headphone and to tweak settings in the iPhone app.

All is not perfect however. When inclining forward to work on something, the headphones start to shift forward on my head. This is not a problem at the desk and won't be in an airplane seat. I made a simple fix which is a short section of black cord extending around the back of the headphones. It is unobtrusive and works well. I hope Parrot will at a removable strap in their future package. That's more important to me than a fancy hard case. (It comes with a cheap drawstring pouch.)

Another problem I have had is music occasionally shutting off, then back on while I'm moving around and working outdoors. Tech support tells me there's a firmware update in beta aimed to fix this problem by decreasing the sensitivity of the touch panel.

The battery gives enough life for my purposes, though might not be enough for heavy users.

Bluetooth works great and in my one test my voice quality was reported to be very good.

The automatic pause when the headphones are removed: brilliant! That feature makes it quick to attend to VIPs in the family!!!

Fantastic sound with configurable equalizer and spacial sound environments.
Freedom from wires/cords is truly liberating allowing for a full range of motion 40+ feet from your device/phone. Convenient touch controls on the right ear phone.

The only major disappointment is the short battery life which will not last a normal day's use.