From the world of sports to the universe of audio: adidas has new wireless headphones with active noise cancellation. We talked about new products earlier, and for the test we took the top version, and in-ear headphones without noise reduction will also appear on sale. Perhaps we will talk about them later, but for now I turn to the story.

Equipment

The headphones are wrapped in rustling paper, like a pair of sneakers, and packed in a cardboard box. The kit is minimalistic, but ordinary by modern standards: a pair of additional interchangeable nozzles and a cable for charging the case.

Design

The cover is light, but pot-bellied, but it is made of plastic with notches and a barely perceptible texture. It does not slip out of the hand, does not scratch and gives the feeling of a practical thing. The lid opens with little effort, is fixed tightly and does not slam shut by itself – the mechanism is tight and without play.

When you hold the case in your hand, you can pay attention to a small detail – the rubberized adidas logo on the case. If you click on the logo, you will hear a soft click – it hides the physical key, which starts the connection mode to the sound source.

The body of the headphones themselves is also made of a similar rough plastic. The headphones are securely fixed in the case with magnets, so they do not accidentally fall out.

In terms of materials, everything is as reliable as possible: the case does not slip out of the fingers. The emphasis is on sports loads – the headphones received IPX5 protection from directed jets of fresh water. In practice, this means that you can take a shower with headphones, but you can’t swim with them in the pool or the sea, immersed in water. The cover has a lower level of protection: with its IPX4, only splash protection can be guaranteed.

The fit of the earplugs is comfortable: they are light, sit tightly in the ears, you can run, train or just walk with them. In any case, the headphones hold firmly and are well fixed, but over time, the ears can get tired – here the complete nozzles come to the rescue, with the smallest ones I was more comfortable than with the basic average ones. Otherwise, unpleasant sensations appeared after a couple of hours of listening to music.

It remains to add that adidas ZNE 01 ANC come in two colors. A choice of dark gray Night Gray and gray-white Light Grey, but so far only a dark version has been presented in Russia.

Control

If you open the case, the automatic pairing mode starts, the headphones support Google Fast Pair. But if something went wrong, then you can click on the button disguised as a three-stripe logo and start manually searching for devices. I tested with a Google Pixel 6 and the auto-connect feature worked great the first time.

To fully use the headphones, it is better to install a separate adidas Headphones app for iOS or Android. In the application, you can disable the touch control of the headphones, then accidental triggering will be excluded in principle. I occasionally encountered them when I took out and inserted the headphones into my ears. In addition, during training, when hands are sweaty, the sensor does not always correctly recognize touches – physical keys in sports headphones would definitely come in handy. If you take the earpiece out of your ear, the music automatically pauses, and when you return it to its place, the song sounds again.

Using touch controls, you can skip tracks and pause music, but you can’t adjust the volume. Therefore, if during a workout you want to add power, then you need to get your phone. Also, through the program, you can update the firmware, turn off noise reduction, activate the “transparent” audio mode when you hear what is happening around without removing the headphones.

Another long press of the left or right earbud can be assigned to launch the adidas running app, change the strength of noise reduction, turn on the voice assistant or the Spotify streaming service, where you launch a specific album, playlist or artist. In general, the set is extremely concise and minimalistic by the standards of “plugs” with noise reduction.

sound

Headphones with 6 mm speakers play loudly, the sound margin is more than sufficient – I listened to music at a level of 50-60% of the maximum. Moreover, if you do not spare the eardrums and turn on the music to the fullest, then there are no wheezing or hoarseness – the songs sound without flaws.

In the application, you can use additional audio settings by choosing one of six ready-made equalizer profiles. I note that there are no manual parameters for changing the sound, only ready-made presets. I liked the Rock profile the most – in terms of game dynamics, the headphones are somewhat reminiscent of Marshall, and this is not surprising, because both brands belong to the same company.

The headphones have a pleasant sound: smooth bass, noticeable high frequencies and even mids. They reminded me of the adidas FWD-01 with the same balanced sound. If desired, you can add bass through the ready-made settings, but I would not amplify it. Although this is a matter of personal preference: the headphones do not pull hard rock, they are better suited for electronics, setting the rhythm and mood in training. I don’t think that athletes will listen to jazz or classical, but I liked the sound of the adidas ZNE 01 ANC in these genres.

Communication and noise reduction

Communication via Bluetooth 5.2 is stable and without failures, if desired, the headphones can be used separately: one in the ear, and the other lies in the case. Of the codecs, only basic SBC and AAC are supported, but aptX is not, and the multipoint mode is also missing.

Noise cancellation works great and by the standards of in-ear headphones, it works at the top five. You can’t hear people in the room, the rumble on the street is noticeably reduced, although the headphones can’t beat the roar of the subway or the howl of a special transport siren on the road. Through the application, you can reduce the power of noise reduction or turn it off altogether.

The microphone in the headphones is of normal quality: in a quiet place, the interlocutors like everything, but on a noisy windy street, it is better to avoid talking if possible.

autonomy

Headphones are charged in a case in 3 hours, and fast charging is provided. In this case, after 15 minutes of charging, the headphones will last 1 hour. Charging goes through Type-C, of course.

The adidas ZNE 01 ANC claims up to 4.5 hours with active noise cancellation and up to 6 hours without it. When using the charging case, we get 20 and 26 hours, respectively.

I can’t call the indicators outstanding, the results are ordinary: fast charging is not so fast, in general, the headphones take a long time to charge. At the same time, the operating time is also modest. Therefore, I advise you to regularly charge the case, all hope is on it.

Price

In Russia, at the time of the review, adidas ZNE 01 ANC headphones cost 16,990 rubles.

Conclusion

Small wireless noise canceling headphones have become a symbol of our times: they are comfortable, practical and always good as a gift. TWS models with an eye on sports have become a separate area.

In the case of adidas ZNE 01 ANC, we get additional protection against water, a practical case, comfortable-shaped headphones with good sound. The shortcomings, I would include the controversial touch control and not the highest autonomy, I would like more margin for operating time.

In summary, we can say that the competition among wireless models is high, but the hyped adidas name will always come to the rescue.