Recently, our friends over at Phiaton sent out some of their audio products for us to check out, one of which is the Phiaton 900 Legacy over-ear headphones with Active Noise Cancellation (ANC). Below are my impressions after using them for the past few weeks.
Features
The Phiaton 900 Legacy’s defining design characteristic is the carbon fiber accents on the ear cups. This is the first time I’ve seen this on a pair of headphones and it certainly makes them stand out in a crowd.
Besides the unique look, the right ear cup features touch controls that allow you to control volume and playback of music with a swipe of your finger. Swipe up or down for volume, forwards or backward to skip tracks, and tapping will play or pause music.
Touch controls aren’t always my favorite, but these worked fairly well. Although, I did pause music from time to time when I was trying to adjust the volume or skip tracks. In addition to the swipe controls, the Phiaton 900 Legacy includes only two buttons on the left ear cup, one for power and the other toggles ANC or transparency mode.
Comfort
The memory foam ear pads are a little shallow on the Phiaton 900 Legacy but they still provided plenty of space for my ears. I did feel the inside brush lightly against my ears but not enough for it to be an issue. The padding along the top was also sufficient given how lightweight the Phiaton 900 Legacy is, and overall, they were comfortable to wear for hours at a time.
Sound quality
The Phiaton 900 Legacy uses the aptX HD codec for a 24-bit connection with a transfer rate of 576 Kbits. This provides a high-quality connection with more throughput than AAC or aptX Adaptive, and more bits is always an advantage for audio quality. The only drawback being that it could introduce a little lag if you plan to wear them while gaming.
My first thought after firing up the Phiaton 900 Legacy headphones was, the bass is strong with these my friends. That’s not a bad thing though, and the bass isn’t overpowering or distorted. Thankfully, the highs and midrange are still present for full-bodied sound, just know that the Phiaton 900 Legacy skew toward being bass-forward.
Personally, I prefer a little extra in the low-end when I listen to music, so that’s not a problem for me. However, if you’re not a fan of bass then you’ll want to look elsewhere. Especially because there’s no app with an equalizer to tweak the sound signature to your liking. That’s one of the biggest downsides of the Phiaton 900 Legacy considering the $250 price tag.
ANC
It used to be that you needed to buy Sony or Bose if you wanted good or decent active noise cancellation. These days, many other brands have closed the gap. While Sony and Bose may still reign as ANC kings, you can now get good results from other brands.
I’m happy to say that the Phiaton 900 Legacy offer great active noise cancellation performance for the price. These will be perfect for helping to drown out all of the neighbor’s mowers as lawn-cutting season has just begun.
Plus, there’s also a transparency mode that can be activated with the touch controls to allow for quick conversations without the need to remove the headphones.
Battery life
One of the areas the Phiaton 900 Legacy excels is its battery life. They are rated for 43 hours and that estimate stands up to my testing. I was very impressed by how long these headphones last, they just keep going and going.
Furthermore, with fast charging you can get up to a little over 4 hours of playback time with only a 10-minute charge, or you can even use them wired via the 3.5mm headphone jack.
Final thoughts
The Phiaton 900 Legacy are a good pair of headphones for the price. The sound quality is admirable, albeit a little bass-heavy, the ANC works well, and they offer fantastic battery life. While they may come up a little short in some areas—notably the lack of an app with an equalizer—the Phiaton 900 Legacy still provides a decent value at $250 or less. Especially, if you can’t afford the latest offerings from Sony or Bose.
