Wireless, over-ear headphones with active noise cancellation (ANC) continue to be the gold standard for working from home, blocking out as much ambient noise as possible so you can focus is a big win for anyone trying to get work done. Although in-ear buds have made progress on this front, nothing can beat over-ear headphones. They have a huge advantage in cups that cover your ears, providing a layer of passive noise cancellation that in-ear buds just can’t match. Add ANC to the mix and things can get real quiet. The disadvantage to traditional, over-ear headphones is that they can be heavy and uncomfortable. I just finished evaluating a set of Z7-Pro wireless headphones with ANC from Treblab. Here’s how they performed.
Really Comfortable Headphones
The Treblab Z7-Pro wireless headphones are priced at $159.97, which puts them around the middle of the pack when it comes to consumer headphone pricing. They appear to be well-made, with construction primarily being black (or dark gray) plastic. There’s a flash of silver metal on the headband. The company logo is printed discretely near the ear cup anchors and embossed on the top of the headband.
Ear cups and the inner headband are padded with memory foam, covered in what appears to be faux black leather. The left ear cup has a USB-C charge port, while the right has power, ANC, and Bluetooth buttons, along with a 3.5mm headphone jack. The company includes a zippered hardshell travel case along with 3.5mm audio and USB-C charge cables.
These look like pretty much any generic wireless headphones, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Companies that try to stand out risk going overboard, but these are conservatively styled.
The Z7-Pro headphones may not look like anything special, but they were much more comfortable than most over-ear headphones I’ve tried. They are quite light at 8.6 ounces. In addition, the headband expands a little more than usual. The memory foam used in the ear cups is quite nice, and the cups till and swivel. The net result is over-ear headphones that are very comfortable to wear, even for several hours at a time.
ANC That Works
The Z7-Pro ear cups do a very effective job of passive noise isolation. There’s a good chance you won’t even need ANC. However, if you do, the company’s version (which utilizes six auto-adjusting microphones) works quite well.
Wearing the headphones with ANC on and no audio playing completely blocked the sound of the speaker streaming music two feet from me. I could still hear my mechanical keyboard, but barely. Turn off ANC, and I could hear the music in the background, but it was quite muffled. Treblab also includes an Ambient Sound mode that uses the mics to pass-through sound that would otherwise be passively blocked and with this feature active. I could hear that background music clearly.
In short, this is hybrid ANC that works well, and it’s also very easy to operate thanks to a dedicated physical button that cycles through the three modes with a voice prompt announcing each.
High Energy Sound With Plenty of Bass
While these aren’t audiophile-quality cans, they sound pretty good. I was quite happy listening to music using them. The bass is solid—as you would expect from 40 mm drivers—but it doesn’t dominate. There is also plenty of high-end response. They are equipped with Bluetooth 5.0 and Qualcomm AptX HD to make the most of music streamed from a phone or tablet.
I should note that I also used these headphones while watching streaming video on my iPhone and there were no issues with sound synchronization.
Extended Battery Life
If you’re used to the battery life of wireless earbuds, over-ear wireless headphones are a real treat. There is just so much more space to stuff a battery. Instead of five or six hours on a charge for wireless buds, these deliver between 35 hours and 45 hours of playback on a charge (depending on whether ANC is active, and listening volume). I kept them going for 36 straight hours on a charge with ANC on most of that time but the volume low.
There is a feature to pause music playback when the headphones are removed, but I found that was a bit hit or miss.
If you own a device that actually has a headphone jack (or resort to an audio jack dongle), you can use the headphones the old-fashioned way, with a wired connection, and not worry about battery life.
When it comes time to charge, these use USB-C and support quick-charging. 20 minutes gets you five hours of use, while a full charge takes about three and a half hours. There is a pinpoint LED that switches from red to green to indicate charge status.
Responsive Touch Controls
The outer surface of the headphone ear cups is touch-enabled. I find touch control on headphones can be glitchy and frustrating (some are very informing about positioning), but with the Treblab Z7-Pro headphones the feature was intuitive and worked well. I was soon ignoring my phone and using swipe controls on the headphones to skip tracks and adjust the volume.
IPX4 Water-Resistant
Over-ear headphones aren’t always the greatest for exercise, but these are comfortable and light enough that they could be worn for many activities. The pass-through audio mode would be useful as a safety feature for increased awareness. And they are IPX4 water-resistant, so they can take sweat and some rain.
Great Price, But Our GeekDad Deal Makes Them Even Better
I didn’t realize this when I was testing the headphones, but they are an even better value than I thought. That’s because they are still available at a reduced price as one of GeekDad’s Daily Deals. At the time of writing, they are available through GeekDad for under $128—a 19% discount.
Recommendation
Even if you miss out on the Daily Deal price, at $159.97 you get a lot of headphones for the buck with the Treblab Z7-Pro.
They sound good, they have excellent battery life, they are very comfortable, they have effective ANC, and more. The value is excellent, especially if you’re looking for a pair of wireless headphones with ANC to block out noise while working from home, commuting, or returning to a cubicle.
Disclosure: Treblab provided headphones for evaluation purposes but had no input into this review. As an Amazon Associate, I earn affiliate fees from qualifying purchases.
