Parrot Zik Bluetooth Headphones

Product Details
Manufacturer:Parrot
Website: parrot
Typical Selling price: £349.99
In A Nutshell conclusion now at top of page, more detail below Billed as ‘The World’s Most Advanced Wireless Headphones’. They are.
Beautiful to look at and feel and with clever user-centric control features, Parrot Zik also sound utterly delicious. With the very high quality sound cancellation technology comes a side effect of astonishing fidelity as you hear the recording and are not affected by the sound in your surroundings. The ability to pair and stay gripped to smartphones is fully up to Parrot’s brand-legend status and the quality of phone calls is as high as that of the music from the phone itself. I paired with iPod Touch (to play with the Parrot Audio Suite app) and then with my BlackBerry Curve to make calls as well as listen to music.
The peak experience is to use Zik cordlessly while travelling, with an iPhone and the Parrot Audio Suite app, which works very well and is absurdly easy to download and use. A desirable, handsome, effective and above all durable product that is incredible value considering the wireless technology and that the sound of these £350 Zik headphones compares very favourably with headphones costing up to around £500. (I just came back from the National Audio Show where I auditioned £16,000 worth of cans in an hour or so, from £100 to £1,600 in price.)
Unreservedly recommended and amazing value. If you want to fly Trans-Atlantic with Parrot’s Zik headphones, just make sure you buy an extra battery and charge it up before you go.
Overall 9.2
Sound Quality 9
Build Quality 10
Comfort (not P. Handling) 8
Isolation/Noise Cancellation 10
Value For Money 9

What They Are
Parrot Zik are designer Bluetooth headphones for use with telephones, thus are correctly termed a headset. Made by the leaders in technical and practical applications of Bluetooth technology, Parrot, Zik are aimed at being an all-conquering brand statement of high quality, impeccable taste and unimpeachable designer antecedents. They are designed by Philippe Starck, who has items in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and is most famous for his Alessi kettles and Salif juicer.(looks like the spaceship from MIB II) But the form and appeal of these are high.
The headphones are wireless and yet can be used with the supplied 3.5mm jack cord, wired. Zik are also supplied with a USB cord for charging the Lithium-Ion technology battery as well as any future firmware upgrades to keep the Bluetooth up to date. Zik come sumptuously well-packed and have a cloth storage bag.
They feature a very high (98% if I recall correctly) degree of noise cancellation, using four microphones to do so and also feature the same Near Field Connection (NFC) technology as Oyster cards to be able to connect by a tap to a Zik earpiece with NFC equipped smartphones. They also have an auto-off switching system that uses contacts on Zik’s ear cuffs to detect if they are on your head or around your neck and thus silence them if you lift the away from your ears momentarily – very clever.

Full Specifications

Neodymium drivers
Sound Pressure Level: 110 dB per volt to 1kHz
Impedance: 32 Ohms
Powerful DSP algorithms
Built-in NFC technology
Frequency Response: 10Hz to 20kHz
Capacitive Touch Panel
Bluetooth 2.1 Hands free
Alloy head rails
Battery life: With all features activated; 6 hours: With ANC only; 18 hours: On standby mode; 24 hours

Dimensions: Width: 150mm, Height: 198mm, Depth: 80 mm
Weight: 325g
Micro USB cable: 1m
Line-in cable: 1.3m

KIT CONTENTS
1 Micro USB cable for charging and updating
1 line in cable 3.5mm
1 Li-lon battery 800mAh
1 Quick-start guide
1 Protective pouch

Editor Review : Parrot Zik cordless Bluetooth headset
How Are They Made?
These are simply beautiful and even the cables bear evidence of Philippe Starck’s design input. Zik’s wires are tactile, more densely woven-cased than any cable I ever felt before. Their plugs fit with a neater, tighter, clickier interference-fit than normal wires and even the cable’s connection to the plugs on the end bears a design echo of the spot of orange colour found on the junctions of the headband. They feel solid and reassuring, even if that means they can be a bit weighty to wear. (Not an issue for me, I am built like a bull.) The materials are all cool metal and proper leather, with a satin finish to the outer parts that feels tactile and pleasant to stroke to adjust volume or flick tracks by the unique capacitive control surface on one ear.
Every single part of these oozes quality and utter attention to detail. You feel proud to be wearing them and their use on the Tube would be a win! Especially if you whip out your iPod or iPhone and mess about with the Parrot Audio Suite application. This free app has a seven band EQ, a room-wetness effecter and an on/off control for the active noise cancellation.

How Well Do They Work?
The truly odd thing was what this level of noise cancellation does for the fidelity of these amazing headphones. I listened to some tunes late at night but had the TV on deliberately in the background. It wasn’t much and disappeared even without any music running, as soon as I clamped these comfy leather skull-cuddlers to my noggin. So my 60dB to 70dB SPL room background was imperceptible with a 15dB-odd attenuation provided by the headphones alone. But, when I started up a bit of the Propellorheads’ DecksandDrumsandRockandRoll I learned a slice more about that app and the NC function. With the Noise Cancellation switched off, Zik was a damn fine set of headphones. With the NC switched in, with a flick of my iPod Touch’s screen (these are identical to iPhone’s but without the actual phone bit in) the sound went from merely excellent to amazingly cleaner, tighter and richer. It takes even the big wobbly size-of-the-room-you-are-in acoustical ‘feel’ and simply removes it, to allow whatever the nutters recorded onto your track to pour into your head pretty much as they heard it when recording it in the studio and monitoring on a monstrous great pair of built-in studio monitor speakers! They are superb.

What they do not do, as my chum Big Mick would say, is to ‘crush’. He uses DJ headphones during Metallica gigs that you can hear squawking away if left plugged in on the end of the desk, during the set when Metallica are playing! They have to go LOUD and not die, is all. But Parrot Zik are about Bentley and Maybach, not Nurburgring-fettled Nuttermobiles. So if all you want is pain, then these won’t be for you.
But if you like quality and the fabulous adjustability of a pukka equaliser: +/-12dB at 60Hz, 150Hz, 400Hz, 1kHz, 2.4kHz, 6kHz and 15kHz and a room phase and reverb ‘feel’ algorithm, as well as fidelity-cranking NC tech and even NFC, then these are a no-brainer. You can buy them knowing they are the best, look the mutt’s nuts and sound literally fabulous.
That clever iPhone and iTouch app

Capacitive touch controlOOH!