I’m going to do something very different with this review and tell you what I think of the Parrot Zik 3 headphones right up front.
They are simply outstanding. Here’s why.
First of all, they look and feel classy. Not a shock as they’re designed by famed designer Philippe Starck. The ones that I got were a tan leather that felt very soft both in my hands and on my ears (for the record, seven colors and textures are available). I could also smell the leather and the fit on my head was very light and comfortable. Second, these are noise cancelling headphones. Almost nothing gets through from the outside world. That was impressive.
The Zik 3 headphones have a capacitive panel on the right earpiece that allows you to control your music by swiping backwards and forward to skip tracks, up and down to change the volume, and tapping to play and pause. It does work, but in my testing I would sometimes accidentally stop the music when I adjusted the headsets on my head. Fortunately, you do have the option of using your Apple Watch or Android Wear device to control the Zik 3 headphones. Don’t have a smartwatch? No problem. There’s an app that you can download for your iOS or Android device that allows you to tweak the sound to your liking. And there’s a lot of options for you to tweak. Thus, if you’re a “control enthusiast”, you’re going to love that. Another cool feature, there’s “head detection” sensor. Music pauses automatically when you remove the headphones and resumes when they are back on.
Parrot bills the Zik 3 headphones as being completely wireless. What does that mean? You listen to music via Bluetooth connection (alternatively, you can use a headphone jack or USB port). Thanks to the replaceable battery, which I got 7 hours of wireless listening via Bluetooth. But here’s the other part of the wireless story. You can charge wirelessly as the Zik 3 headphones are compatible with most certified Qi inductive chargers.
But sound quality is where the Zik 3 headphones shine. At least when playing music. I played everything from Diplo to Miles Davis on them and found the sound to be outstanding. Every aspect of whatever I was listening to was reproduced perfectly. And as mentioned earlier, you can tweak it to make it perfect for you. You can also receive phone calls. The Zik 3 uses two dedicated microphones to reduce noise and it does so pretty well. Under my test, road noise was still audible but the speakers sounded clear enough. But voices can sound distant, probably due to the design and the distance between microphone and mouth. When you have an incoming call, the “Text-To-Speech” synthesis system announces the name of whomever is calling if they’re in your address book.
So, what do the Parrot Zik 3 headphones cost? They’re $399 US. Not cheap. But quality audio is never cheap. If you demand quality audio, you need to listen to the Parrot Zik 3 headphones. They’re simply the most outstanding headphones I’ve ever reviewed.