The most assiduous readers among you will surely remember one of our most talked about reviews of about a decade ago, that of the Bose Quiet Comfort 20, a high-level product that in 2013 offered the general public a taste of almost science fiction technology, i.e. the active suppression of external noise. Today, nine years and a lot of technological evolution later, we tell you about a similar product made by Creative for a much wider use. If the Quiet Comfort by Bose were essentially designed for use on the move, the Creative Zen Hybrid are aimed at those who need a set that can be connected to any device via Bluetooth or 3.5mm cable.
Right out of the box, which also includes a soft velvet travel case, the Zen Hybrids impress with their excellent build quality. The core of the loop is in metal and the plastics and assemblies of the pavilions are in quality ABS, also as regards the surface, which is very pleasant to the touch. The synthetic leatherette of the internal cushions and the loop are also excellent for a design that Creative calls supraural (it rests on the pavilions) but in reality adaptable as circumaural as for the vast majority of headphones on the market. The ability to rotate the pavilions by 90 ° and tilt them internally allows them to be further compacted to carry them with you, taking up as little space as possible. Overall, the feeling is that of holding a premium level product that is well designed and finished in every detail.
And it could not be otherwise given that due to its wireless nature it was necessary to integrate all the controls in the right pavilion and separate the weight of the batteries on both. On the left there is the USB-C jack for the wired connection with a LED indicating the charge level, while on the right there are the volume, the ignition / track control, the jack for the 3.5 analog cable and the ANC button for the suppression of external noise and the activation of the ambient audio. In addition to the microphone, which is also drowned in the right pavilion, there are two microphones on the external surface of the shells for detecting and filtering external noise to drive the active suppression of external sources, which we will discuss more fully in the next paragraphs.
The power button and the volume button also integrate a whole series of multimedia functions. Power on and off require a long press while short clicks allow you to pause or skip tracks. Same thing for when you are on a call with the ability to answer, pause or switch to a secondary call or hang up. If you have Siri or Google as a personal assistant, native compatibility is also guaranteed with all Bluetooth devices compatible with these technological solutions.
The technical specifications are pretty standard for such a product: 40mm neodymium magnets, frequency response from 20–20,000 Hz on Bluetooth 5.0 AAC and SBC codecs. Charging takes about three hours depending on the type of USB port and the signal range is about ten meters. With a reinforced concrete wall between us and our smartphone we reached seven meters, while in the open field we reached thirteen without problems with disconnection or packet loss.
We tested the Zen Hybrids essentially in three conditions of use: the first on a PC connected with the 3.5mm cable, the second on a smartphone and the third on Xbox One X in Bluetooth mode. The first is the most basic and easy to implement since a simple 3.5 input is enough to use the headphones in direct mode, excluding however the non-wired use, including telephone calls. To confirm how accurate the Codec in use is, we can say that we have not noticed any major qualitative differences whatsoever between use on a wired and wireless PC. In the first case, only the most trained palates will notice a greater cleanliness of the sound combined with the possibility of pushing without distortions at higher volumes. On the other hand, a very similar quality balanced by the possibility of moving freely.
Overall the sound is really high level, well defined and extremely balanced between mids, highs and lows. Especially the latter are truly engaging: soft and defined, never excessive, a real pleasure to listen to both in the playful and musical fields. On PC we have in fact gone from viewing movies on Youtube to a game of Escape From Tarkov and God of War. The headphones are stereo and therefore there are no particular spatial claims but it must be said that the audio quality is really good for this price range. We had the same identical results on Xbox One X where we played Red Dead Redemption 2 and Gears of War 3 testing the ability of magnets to make explosions and complicated situations.
We carried out all the tests both in active ANC mode and in off mode to understand how much the suppression of external noise conditions the sound fruition. We can say that in a quiet home context, without major external conditioning, the usefulness of filtering is relative since a use of the headphones at normal volumes is more than enough to cover without major problems what happens outside. But if you don’t live alone and your family is quite noisy, activation helps keep engagement high without distraction.
When you leave the house, everything changes and in this case a trip by bus, train, plane or car is the natural hunting ground for this technology that significantly reduces noise pollution. However, we are not faced with an almost complete, almost alienating suppression system, as were the Bose Quiet Comfort or Sony’s WH1000 series for example. In the case of the Zen Hybrids, the frequencies and volumes are cut by about 50-60-70% depending on the situation so the isolation is not total but in any case effective for use in environments characterized by constant background noise as can be a trip or even just walking down the street. In this case it is necessary to pay particular attention to how one moves since in crossings the perception decreases considerably and the recent diffusion of electric vehicles does not help in this sense to have a better awareness of what is happening around us. Among the options of the ANC mode there is the possibility to activate the ambient mode which opens the lower or higher frequencies to hear the approach of vehicles.
As for the accessory features, there are several considerations to make before moving on to the final evaluation. On the battery life front, the performance was excellent. We have reached forty hours of use between high and low volumes without the suppression of the sound: Creative declares 37 and 27 respectively so we are perfectly in line with the forecasts for frequent use that sees a complete recharge every week or so. The quality of the microphone is excellent. We have made calls via Skype, Discord and also telephone calls and the capture, thanks to the filtering of external noise carried out by the same system that takes care of the audio suppression, is really of a high level.
Of course, some disturbance always enters in mobility, but we are light years ahead of normal standard earphones. When you are indoors without any particular noise pollution, the capture is on a par with the best directional microphones. The possibility of answering the smartphone directly by manually connecting to the phone and automatically returning to the original source is also very useful for those who are used to receiving calls.
We also tried the Creative SXFI app installed on the mobile phone which detected the Zen Hybrid as a supported device: this allows you to map the ear cups to create a customized audio profile based on the shape of our ear and the shape of the face. , but to be honest we didn’t notice any major differences compared to standard use. However, if you want to work on the equalization profiles, it is essential to install it. However, it must be said that SXFI does not manage external audio libraries (Spotify on all) but the tracks must be loaded into the application, to take advantage of the possibilities offered by equalization.
We keep one last note for the comfort of use: these Hybrid Zen are really comfortable headphones for prolonged use and despite their compact size, they rest well on the temples, covering the entire ear cup. We used them for long hours on the train and at home without any particular problems, a sign of a good design as regards the rigidity of the loop and the softness of the memory foam. The only contraindication, also given the summer period, are not the best to wear when it’s very hot, like all products of this kind. Obviously, no problem in an air-conditioned environment, but outside with high temperatures the leatherette is not particularly breathable, so better keep them aside for the cold or mid-season and dedicate yourself to earphones.
Overall, Creative’s Zen Hybrids keep their promises in terms of usability and sound quality, which is truly remarkable for a product of this price range and 360 ° compatibility with any Bluetooth device, without disdaining the cable support. for the more traditionalists. The added value is represented by the extra of active sound suppression which, although it does not reach the levels of high-end products, is in turn superior to products that lack it in the 100 euro championship.
An excellent battery, excellent comfort and first-rate build quality in the service of portability complete the picture. Defects? Lacks more than anything else: no support for aptX, aptX HD or LDAC and lack of compatibility with Creative apps on PC, which maybe could come in the future.
If you are looking for all-round headphones to divide between travel and home use, these Zen Hybrids are a product that must necessarily enter your shopping list. The same thing goes for those who want to have a device capable of doing everything on the move because they spend a lot of time moving around using multimedia content. Those who have no particular needs in the Bluetooth field and are instead focused only on their gaming station may find this kind of purchase excessive by turning to specific headsets with dedicated remote controls, the possibility of configuring them from a PC app and the peace of mind of being able to mistreat them. a lower price. In this case they come into play more as a primary device for travel and luxury backup for home gaming. To you the choice.
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