Customer Ratings & Reviews

The headphones are a decent pair of headphones. I really loved the swivel of the headphone cups. I have to say this is a genius way of separating yourself from the rest of the headphone industry. The materials and construction of the headphones was outstanding. Microsoft definitely put in some time to the build of the product. The sounds of the headphones was decent but did sound muffled. I hate to compare brands but was looking for something closer to Sony. I was able to get a pair of the Sony M4s on sale close to the price of the Microsoft, so I purchased those headphones. The headphones were a solid pair of headphones but due to the sound quality and noise cancellation not being what I was looking for I returned the phones.

Great comfort - audio noise cancelling could be better, but good enough!

Surprisingly these are some awesome sounding head phones by Microsoft.

Great head phones use every day working from home. MS teams.

Good headphones. I think they're a great deal for the price comparison to the Sony headphones. Sometimes the touch features can be a bit fidgety, but overall I haven't had any significant issues with these headphones.

Excellent product Best headphones that I have ever purchased

Totally recommendable, best noise cancelling, works with apple

When I first looked at them I did not know how to use them. You need to have better instructions in order for the user to fully understand how to best use these types of headphones!

Awesome Headphones. Connects to my Android and Apple Phones, Desktop PCs and Laptops. Will only connect to 2 devices at a time. Noise cancelling is only average, but is functional. I use them all the time in meetings when I'm at work in the open cubespace.

As someone who loyally resides well within the grounds of Apple’s walled garden, I have to give credit where it’s due. Microsoft’s Surface team made a great pair of cans. Hard to believe I’m saying this after swearing off of Microsoft years ago. I own AirPods, BeatsX, Beats Solo Pro, and I retired an ancient pair of Bose AE2i that stopped working. I was looking for something more robust and comfortable for longer at-home listening sessions to complete my collection. Do not sleep on these. They deliver. Below are my thoughts broken down by category. LOOK: I have the Llight Gray pair. Great colorway, though I would’ve liked a dark gray more. The hardware design is sleek, modern, svelte. Boost some of the materials, and remove the Microsoft logo, you could convince many these were from Bang & Olufsen. They only get knocked on style points because there is a slight Mega Man effect from the large, wide cans. Not a dealbreaker at all, and maybe less pronounced with the Matte Black colorway, but let’s just say the side profile is where these cans look their best. COMFORT: Comfort comes first. If they hurt, you won’t wear them and nothing else matters. These are outstanding, comfortable ear pads. Fit my large ears. The rubber pad at the top could use a bit more padding. At first, I found the headband placement gave me a little pressure with a minor hotspot, but I remedied this by nudging it backwards a quarter inch or so to resolve this. I can wear these far longer than I can wear my tight clamping Beats Solo Pro, which I have because I wanted an AirPods Pro “experience” with more battery charge cycle longevity. Truly wireless earphones are a great innovation yet have a much shorter lifespan because of how fast they eat up their finite charge cycles. SOUND: These have great sound, though some more expensive cans will give you more depth in the soundstage, warmer bass. I stick to mostly electronic music that is heavy on synths and classical music. Works great for both. I think in the age of compressed audio streaming services, people often overpay for headphones when the files they are streaming over bluetooth are kneecapped anyway. The Surface Audio app’s equalizer allows you to tune the sound signature to adequately compensate for shortcomings, which vastly improved my listening experience. I graphed a “W” sound signature in the equalizer app; it works well. I don’t know if lacking Apple’s AAC codec support makes much of a discernible difference. A side-by-side comparison was too difficult to tell for me. Call quality is great. I tend to prefer using these in Low ANC mode (aka Pass through sound mode) on calls because it lets in my ambient voice to reduce the tunnel effect when speaking. The amplified ambient mode is too strong for calls. Helps make calls sound more natural, though I suspect some headphones will still do their best to cancel ambient noise for the person you’re talking to regardless of which mode you’re using. Not completely sure on that. ANC/TRANSPARENCY: The ANC itself works great too. I am someone who can’t use Bose because the cabin pressure effect is so strong it makes me dizzy, gives me an instant headache with nausea. I would admit the Bose 700 have the best ANC I’ve ever tested, but it’s not worth inducing physical illness for $400+ to obtain this. Both the Surface Headphones 2 and my Beats Solo Pro do not make me ill. Neither did the AirPods Pro when I briefly tried those. All that said, there’s hope out there if you once swore off ANC like I did. Try different brands until you find one that works. Beats, Microsoft and Apple don’t make me ill, perhaps they’ll work for you too. I like being able to dial the ANC strength too. Beats/Apple don’t allow that; it’s always automatic, unless you toggle on transparency mode or turn both off for power efficiency. At home or at a busy office these will work great. Construction outside? Noisy neighbors? Bathroom or kitchen fans? No problem. All handled well. Haven’t been able to test on a plane yet. The Surface Headphones 2 should explicitly be marketed as having two transparency modes: a subtle transparency and an amplified transparency. Twisting the knob to the “low” ANC setting will trigger a light beep, or the computer to say “Pass through sound,” if nothing is currently playing. I happen to like this mode for when I need to talk to someone, make a call, etc. The stronger computer prompted “Ambient Sound Amplified” is better for when you really need to key in on something, not so good when talking because the mics overcompensate for your voice. And, like a lot of reviewers have mentioned, the amplified mode does have a hissing white noise thing going on. Could be nice if these had another modest beep for when “Medium” ANC is reached while dialing the knob. You can’t enter a power save mode without going wired, but my guess is being in Low ANC mode may use less power than being full blast on either end. I don’t know. INTERFACE: The Surface Headphones 2 shine above the rest when it comes to the interface. The two knobs on each side that adjust volume and ANC levels are pure intuitive genius. This puts other touch interfaces or the tactile buttons in the marketplace to shame. The Surface Audio app is a useful sidekick too when it comes to managing and fine tuning these headphones, but you likely won’t spend a ton of time in here, even after you’ve paired everything. Still very nice to have though. Beyond helpful to have the headphones announce how much listening time is left and which two devices are simultaneously paired every time I power them on. Again, another feature all headphones should incompatible. They auto-pause when removed too. Nice to have. They charge quickly via USB-C. Also nice to have. A dedicated mic mute button for phone calls, another nice to have. Included a 3.5mm headphone-mic cable too. A useful hard shell case. Microsoft loaded up the nice-to-haves. Apple/Beats didn’t include a wired cable nor a hard shell case with the expensive Beats Solo Pro, a comparatively lame move. The touch interface on both cups also works well. I just needed some target practice hitting the large sweet spot, which takes a few days. There are some instances where I miss having “Hey Siri” while my hands are not available, but that’s what my other Apple headphones are for. BATTERY: 20 hours is on the low end when compared agains the competition. There is also no way to turn off Active Noise Cancellation or transparency mode to enter a low power mode when used wirelessly. We are stuck at 20 hours, unless using the included wired cable. Then, the battery more than doubles. Personally, I’m connecting to an iPad Pro and iPhone, each with Bluetooth 4.2, and the highest battery I’ve obtained is 18 hours. I suspect this is an iOS thing paired with the fact that I’m not streaming through Bluetooth 5.0 iOS devices. When I do upgrade my Apple devices, I suspect the stated listening time will improve. I do notice my iOS devices themselves chew through more battery with Microsoft than they do when my AirPods/BeatsX/Beats Solo Pros are connected. Apple has aced the power efficiency game, even in the absence of BT5. CONNECTIVITY: I wish Apple would license their current H1 chip technology, so it could be merged with simultaneous multipoint pairing. This would amount to something close to a bluetooth Holy Grail. Well, that, and junking compressed media files in favor of lossless streaming audio too. I had one problem pairing these to an old MacBook Air. Otherwise, for you Apple fans out there, I’ll explain this process because nobody else out there has contrasted simultaneous/multipoint pairing against Apple’s H1 chip. For the Surface Headphones 2, you must go through the pairing process for each device. With Apple, you do it once on your iPhone and this pairs said H1/W1-equipped headphones to all of your eligible iCloud devices instantly. However, Apple only does simultaneous pairing between iPhone and Apple Watch. Every time you want to swap to an iPad or a MacBook, you must select it manually from the menu. In Microsoft’s case (and other manufacturers who allow multipoint), you are connected to your iPhone and, say, iPad at the same time. Thus, pausing something on your iPad, then hitting play on your iPhone is seamless and requires no manual selection at all. This is nice and only something iPhone + Apple Watch owners have experienced if they’ve exclusively stayed inside Apple’s ecosystem. In other words, other manufacturers let you choose which devices are simultaneously paired, whereas Apple makes that decision for you and limits it to Apple Watch + iPhone. No Apple Watch? No simultaneous pairing inside Apple’s ecosystem. Hope that clears it up for everyone. With Microsoft, I can select my previously-paired Apple Watch and it boots one of the previously connected devices off until I select it again. Seems to work well so far. If the iPhone gets booted ever, you won’t be able to use the Surface Audio app until it is connected again. Overall, not a bad experience once you get the hang of it, especially if you keep it locked to your two most used devices. I mostly decided to do this and use my Beats Solo Pro for Apple Watch stuff. Haven’t experienced many signal drops with the Surface Headphones 2. I will admit that my AirPods and Beats tend to maintain a better connection in trickier nooks where I’ve tested all of them. There’s some extra signal spice in Apple’s proprietary chip and code. No doubt about that. CONCLUSION: Thanks for reading this far. I hope this helped. I tried to answer and discuss things I found missing in other reviews. I consume a lot of audio content and need silence most of the time, thus I take this seriously. It takes one to know one. I give these my full recommendation at $250. It’s a seriously great value, even for Apple sheep.

A near-perfect set of headphones. There are some bluetooth pairing oddities, especially when pairing to a device with a long device name (you may need to shorten it for the connection to work). Passthrough exterior audio amplification is amazing and so helpful.

The Microsoft Surface headphones are amazing. Being able to pair the headphones to multiple devices at once as well as the means to control the device is amazing. In this price range the surface headphones can not be beat!

Overall nice headphones and great software and app but slithery can’t handle some of the lows very well like the Sony’s mx4. Price point is great as well.

Before I begin I want to let you know that I am part of the Best Buy Tech Insider Network Program. Reviewers in this invitation-only program are provided products for the purpose of writing honest, unbiased reviews. Unboxing: I have had almost two full weeks to test these out. The Microsoft Surface Headphones 2 come in a well packaged box & upon opening I was greeted with the Surface Headphones 2's carrying case, cabling, instruction card, etc. To ensure a full charge during my initial testing I went ahead and let it charge for a little while. Initial setup was fairly easy. I wanted to see how these would perform listening to music, making video & conferencing calls, listening to an audio book, listening to a podcast, etc. Once I was done for the day I let them charge using the included USB to USB C cable. Comfort: I was prepared to wear these headphones for a few hours straight just to see if my ears began to hurt or if the headphones would be too tight & cause an issue of them squeezing my head. I wore these headphones for 8 hours straight one day & did not experience a single issue of my ears hurting & a headache or anything else. They felt amazing & I am very pleased with the way they look, feel & the level of comfort when wearing them. Controls: I played around with the volume & noise cancelling rotating dials to get a feel for it so it would be more natural to me. There is no indication clicking or anything to let you know where you are in the rotation spectrum however there is an audible tone for the noise cancelling & volume controls. For me the volume being on the left ear would have been ideal & then noise cancelling on the right. Since I always have my phone held on the left side of my face & using my left ear as well as sometimes only wearing 1 wireless earbud when I use my other daily earbuds it just feels more natural to have the volume on the left for me. Maybe I haven't figured out a way to manually or via software change this but that would be a nice addition. Yes, I could turn the headphones around but then all the controls would be opposite of how they are supposed to be-again causing me to just not get the hang of the controls. It is something I will overcome & get used to, I just haven't yet. It took me a while to get used to the tones when rotating the dial to get a feel for what I was actually doing. When I want to turn down the sound of something I am listening to I usually just whip out my phone or open the volume controls on my PC to do so. So this is something I am still getting used to. Your mileage may vary but for me it's been a weird transition. The individual controls for answering or rejecting a call was easy to use & performed as expected. Noise Cancelling: This is the main reason I wanted to give these a try. I have my everyday earbuds that I use when jogging, walking, running errands, etc but I wanted something that I could listen to a meditation playlist, an audio book or even a podcast & just get lost in. Wow, man, I am really really blown away by this. The feature I found really cool was the amplification of the surrounding environment in one of the modes. I was standing near a ceiling fan and it went from totally silent with noise cancelling enabled, to audible in the normal/pass-through mode, to being able to hear it crystal clear and even better than if I didn't have the headphones on in this amplified mode. If you have a chance to try these out in an environment near a fan or vent/register when an AC unit is on definitely do so. I thought it was a great way to show others (my family) the nifty feature. I'm a geek and I fell in love with playing with that. My sons thought it was really cool too. Quality: These are well made & the quality of materials does not look or feel cheap. They are not overly heavy, nor are they big, bulky & ugly. They are sleek, elegant & beautiful. I really like the design of these headphones. Conclusion: What is my final verdict? II must say my only real complaint is the volume & noise cancelling controls being swapped from how I'd like them to be (what is more natural for me). I am 100% sure I will get used to it & I'll be smooth sailing once I do. Every day I get more used to it. I love the noise cancelling, I love the comfort & feel, I love the carrying case & the quality of the sound coming from the headphones has been great. This set up of headphones has become & will remain my go to for my video conferencing & phone calling needs. As well as my go to for meditation, audio book & podcast listening zoning out times. Final Verdict: Would I recommend buying these? Yes, I absolutely would. I am using them right now to listen to a podcast & continuing to play with them as I type this review. I really love them!

Still early with using them but so far, so good. Volume and sound settings can always be better especially for the price range.

Just what I needed to go with my new Surface Laptop4. Exceptional quality. Kind of pricey saved$50.00. Well worth it.got extended warranty also

I got this headset with high expectations. But they were barely OK, until one day they just broke when removing it from my head; I didn't pull them with excessive strength. I reached Out to Microsoft and they didn't take care of them even when this is a known issue, and the item was still under guarantee. Don't buy them!

These are the best headphones I’ve ever had, the noise canceling could be better but that’s my only gripe about them.

This product feels premium. I was surprised by the fit and the control. Though the sound is just okay.

Best over ear headphones I own. Works great with my Surface book Studio. Highly recommend!