![]() The reason I say unoriginal is that the Radio Silenz headphones appear to be an off-the-shelf Chinese design that's gussied up with Tivoli's signature wood trim on the earcups (the wood comes in walnut, cherry, and black ash colors). The headphones actually look pretty nice, are lightweight, fold up for transport, and are fairly comfortable for on-ear headphones. The only problem is that aside from the inline noise-canceling circuitry, which doesn't do much when activated, the Radio Silenz is very similar to the $25 MEElectronics HT-21. 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). ![]()
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