When Parrot moved from creating drones to headphones, the company didn’t lose any of its technological design prowess. That is extremely evident in the new Parrot Zik 2.0, a noise-cancelling pair of wireless cans that combine a sleek, minimalist design with advanced features, and a loaded-to-the-gills app that makes them one of the most advanced pair of headphones we’ve come across.
You won’t see the uber-tech coming at first glance, as the Parrot Zik 2.0 display only a single button on board. However, looking more closely, you’ll see telltale signs of what’s under the hood, including two sensor pads built into the left earcup which can perceive when you’re wearing the cans, and when you aren’t.
Touch sensitive controls on the right earcup also allow you to perform actions like play/pause, or song skip with the swipe of a finger. The design is comfortable, and streamlined. But the more complex features are all built into the Parrot app.
From the app you can perform a barrel of functions. You can turn active noise cancellation on or off, mess with DSP presets like Concert Hall, and even turn those presence sensors we mentioned on or off. The headphones can even read out who’s calling you when you’re phone is in your pocket. But the app goes deeper.
You can turn noise cancellation up or down based on the exterior sensors, and also mess with the system’s EQ, though we wish the feature was less abstract, and more inline with most equalizers we’ve seen, such as a graphic EQ. There are even more complex features at play as well, including strange quirks we don’t like, such as a default setting on the echoed Concert Hall DSP sound.
In other words, there’s no getting away from the library of features in the app — Parrot’s app and headphones are linked at the hip, and for those who don’t want a lot of complex options to meddle with, that’s not a good thing.
As for performance, the Parrot Zik 2.0 have great noise cancellation, and sound quality that is impressive, though not as impressive as Sennheiser’s Momentum Wireless. Bottom line, if you love techy gear, and you’re up for a very hands-on, in-depth interface for your headphones, the Parrot Zik 2.0 just might be the headphones for you.
But those looking for worry-free cans to simply switch on and play need not apply.
