Pros & Cons
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- Above-average noise cancellation.
- Includes USB receiver for computer-based audio.
- Exceptionally comfortable.
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- Audio and mic intelligibility aren't as crisp as they could be.
- Noise cancellation can affect audio playback.
Logitech's Zone Wireless Bluetooth headset is pricey at $199.99, but it has a lot going for it including a handsome design, an exceptionally comfortable fit, and above-average active noise cancellation (ANC). It also functions as a pair of stereo headphones and delivers decent audio performance that can be adjusted via app. It's no slouch in either realm, but at this price you can ultimately get stronger voice quality from a number of competitors.
Design
The on-ear Zone Wireless is available in gray, and has a modern, understated look. Matte finishes and plush earpads are matched with cool, shoelace-style cloth cabling connecting the earcups to the headband. There's nothing flashy here, but it's also not a boring, institutional design.
The boom mic is located on the left earcup, and has a smooth swivel action to it that allows for easy, pinpoint placement, and for it to be out of your line of sight when not in use. When pushed all the way up, the mic is automatically muted (you get a voice prompt telling you so), and when pulled out of this position, it automatically unmutes. The comfortable earpads have a faux-leather texture, with perforations through which the drivers deliver a frequency range of 100Hz-8kHz in talk mode, and 30Hz-13kHz in music mode. The underside of the headband is nicely padded with rubber-like material, and the overall fit and feel is secure and exceptionally comfortable, even over long listening sessions.
Along the outer panel of the left earcup, there's a power/Bluetooth button and an ANC button. The outer panel of the same earcup houses plus/minus controls for volume, and a central button for playback, call management, and track forward/backward. This earcup also houses the micro USB charging port—the included cable is long, allowing for charging while the headset is in use.
There's a USB receiver dongle that allows for seamless integration of computer-based audio, be it a music library, browser audio, or video conferencing. The headset itself can pair with two devices at once (but it will remember up to eight), and the USB receiver can only pair with one Zone Wireless headset. Logitech claims the operational range of the Zone Wireless is roughly 100 feet—our tests yielded solid results up to about 70 feet, but then we had walls to contend with. Thus, if you don't work in a wide-open room, remember that the range will be affected by whatever doors and walls are between you and your paired devices.
There's also a free companion app, Logi Tune. The app allows for on-screen controls like mic mute, ANC on/off, voice prompts on/off, adjusting sidetone (how much you hear of your own voice), and a five-band user-adjustable EQ.
Logitech estimates battery life to be roughly 14 to 16 hours—your results will vary with your volume levels, how much music you listen to, and your use of ANC. The headset is Qi wireless charging enabled, but the system doesn't include a charging pad.
In addition to the USB receiver and charging cable, the Zone Wireless ships with a drawstring carrying pouch.
Performance
The Zone Wireless utilizes an omni-directional, dual-MEMS mic array that cancels out background noise, with a frequency range of 85Hz-20kHz.
The mic offers solid intelligibility. Using the Voice Memos app on an iPhone 8, we could understand every word we recorded, though there was still some typical Bluetooth fuzziness around the edges. The more impressive aspect of the mic array is its ability to eliminate background noise and still convey your voice clearly. We turned some low-frequency background rumble up to loud volume levels, and it didn't even register through the mic. Loud music came through a bit, but the mic still conveyed words clearly in this scenario.
The Zone Wireless's ANC is solid for the price. It's not amazing compared with, say, the Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700, but it gets the job done, eliminating low frequencies quite effectively. This means that airplane and train rumble gets tamped down significantly. You'll still hear nearby loud music, but the lower frequencies will disappear almost completely, and office chatter or coffee shop clatter are somewhat lessened, too. The ANC does seem to affect audio performance slightly. You get a little less bass depth from music when the ANC is activated.
With the ANC off, the Zone Wireless delivers a strong audio experience. On tracks with intense sub-bass content, like The Knife's "Silent Shout," the headset has solid low-frequency depth. At top, unwise listening levels, there's no distortion on this track, and at more moderate levels, the bass still feels substantial.
Bill Callahan's "Drover," a track with far less deep bass in the mix, gives us a better sense of the general sound signature for music. The drums on this track get some added bass push without things going overboard—it's a fairly natural sound. Callahan's baritone vocals get some low-mid boosting, and can use a bit more high-mid presence, but fiddling with the app's EQ can make things crisper.
Conclusions
The Logitech Zone Wireless headset is exceedingly comfortable, offers solid mic intelligibility in noisy environments, and delivers a decent music experience, too. Throw in some above-average ANC, and the $200 price feels fair. That said, the Zone Wireless doesn't provide the top-notch HD Voice mic clarity we've heard from headsets like $220 Plantronics Voyager 4220 UC. Ultimately, you're trading pristine vocal clarity for tamping down background noise. And if you work in a really, really loud environment (like a construction site), you should consider a model like the $200 BlueParrott B550-XT. For more typical noisy scenarios, the Zone Wireless is something of a jack-of-all-trades, but it does enough things well to be worth your consideration.
Logitech Zone Wireless Specs
| Product Category | Bluetooth Headsets |