Are these the most impressive headphones you can buy? No, but they’re affordable, sound pretty good, and deliver plenty of active noise cancellation for flights.
When you’re searching for a pair of headphones with ANC, or Active Noise Cancellation technology, you’ll see a lot of pricey options. So with OneOdio’s refreshing $80 price tag attached to the A10 Hybrid ANC headphones, you may be wondering: Is this too good to be true? Luckily, it’s not!
I’m not going to lie and say you’d be disappointed if you dropped $200 to $500—or potentially a lot more depending on the brand—on a premium pair of ANC headphones. With headphones and earbuds, you get what you pay for. Spending more money generally means better drivers and noise-canceling microphones, and therefore a better overall listening experience. But it’s possible to invest in a budget pair of ANC headphones that delivers on its promises and sounds pretty great—OneOdio’s A10 Hybrid ANC headphones are proof of this.
Here’s What We Like
- Well-rounded, full-sounding listening experience
- For a plane, the ANC features will work well enough
- Transparency Mode is great
- Long battery life
- Affordable and a great value
And What We Don’t
- Ear cushions aren’t super plush
- ANC features are lacking
- Headphones felt slightly loose on my head
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Specs
- Battery: 800 mAh
- Charge Time: 2 hours
- Using Time: 35 hours (ANC + BT) / 45 hours (BT only) / 50 hours (ANC only)
- Bluetooth Range: 10 m / 33 ft
- Noise Reduction Depth: -35 dB
- Driver Diameter: 40 mm (~1.57 inches)
- Frequency Range: 20 Hz – 40 kHz
- Weight: 295 g (~0.65 pounds)
Design and Build
Like many modern headphones, OneOdio’s A10 Hybrid ANC headphones can fold down compactly to fit inside a case—which is included, by the way. Where the ear cups fold down, the joints are reinforced metal, which is nice for longevity since the joints are always the first piece to break in a pair of headphones.
Then, the headband is adjustable, but it unfortunately was a bit too large for my head and there’s no way to adjust it down a size. They fit well enough on my head when I was sitting up, but if I leaned over—or shook my head lightly for testing purposes—they would slip. There’s a chance that they could fit slightly better with some thicker aftermarket ear cushions, but since it feels like the looseness is coming from the headband, I’m not holding out hope.
Regardless of whether thicker ear cushions would help secure the headphones on my head, I’m probably going to replace them anyway. The ear cushions that come with OneOdio’s A10 headphones are soft, but they feel way too thin to be comfortable for super long periods of time. Plus, when my husband tried them out, he said that the ear cushions touched the tip of his ears. I imagine that since I apparently have a small head, I also have small ears too, and my ears fit entirely within the cushion.
On the left ear, you’ll find a USB-C charging port and the ANC button that toggles between ANC On, ANC Off, and Transparency Mode. Then, on the right ear, there’s a 3.5mm aux jack, a volume up button, a volume down button, and a raised and textured button between the volume buttons. This textured button is the multi-purpose button that lets you play or pause a song, answer or reject a phone call, double press for assistant help, hold to pair with your smartphone, and more.
Sound Quality
For an $80 pair of headphones, I was impressed with how great the sound quality was for all the songs I chose to test. As a refresher of what’s inside, there are 40mm dynamic drivers with Hi-Res audio and a frequency range of 20 Hz to 40 kHz.
My current go-to songs when testing any audio product is Wasted Times by The Weeknd, Nothing is Safe by clipping., and Time by Hans Zimmer—and yes, this is from Inception. I played the first two songs at about 40% volume, and the last song at 50% volume. For the most part, the headphones picked up all of the small, niche elements of each song, but not everything was always as well-balanced as I would’ve liked.
Wasted Times was able to capture the higher notes from his voice and most of the mids and lows, though the lowest notes got a bit muddied, especially with so many high and mid frequencies for the headphones to focus on. In clipping.’s Nothing is Safe, the high-pitched piano notes come through crisply in the beginning with nice reverb, but there’s something lacking in the bass. When the highs and lows in Nothing is Safe are supposed to mesh together—on fantastic speakers, that is—the lows virtually disappear and the highs take over.
In the beginning of Time by Hans Zimmer, there are some pretty low notes that barely come through or don’t come through at all on a bad pair of headphones. Luckily, OneOdio’s A10 Hybrid ANC headphones are capable of creating an atmospheric experience with the song’s beginning, and I can clearly hear the beat and the melody. The song’s build sounds really nice, but as soon as the song hits the highs and crescendos, the low notes are completely lost.
So if you want a pair of headphones that can handle the deepest notes and you love to listen to bass-heavy music, the A10 Hybrid ANC headphones may not be the right pick for you. But I think most people that typically listen to music with a decent combination of lows, mids, and highs would be pleased with these headphones.
Active Noise Cancellation
OneOdio’s A10 Hybrid headphones are equipped with two feedforward and two feedback ANC microphones that can block out up to 95% of low and mid-frequency backgrounds, like those you’d hear from car engines in traffic, planes, or your home’s AC system. That said, these are budget ANC headphones, and they’re not able to block out nearly as much noise as premium ANC headphones, especially if music isn’t playing while you have them on.
I played a movie loudly on the TV in front of me, and then had my husband talk to me at a normal volume and a slightly raised volume—all to test how much these headphones blocked out. It’s important to note that physically putting headphones over your ears provides some element of noise-blocking, and that’s essentially what you experience when ANC mode is turned off. I switched to ANC On with no music playing, and then to ANC Off, only noticing a slight difference between the two. With Transparency Mode, both the TV dialogue and my husband talking were super clear
Even though I tested the above situations, ANC headphones are known for being best at blocking out low and mid frequencies. My husband talking, a movie playing in the background, music playing through speakers—these are all typically high-frequency sounds, and the headphones aren’t well-equipped to cancel out these sounds.
With this in mind, I wanted to give the headphones a chance to shine and test out how well they might work on a plane. Since I don’t have any flights planned in the near future, the next best thing was a pink noise video on YouTube. I only had the pink noise video playing at 30% volume on my laptop, but man, it felt louder. When cycling through the three modes, I could clearly tell a difference between ANC On and the other modes.
Transparency mode lets through the higher crackle sounds in the pink noise video, while ANC Off blocks out what the headphones physically block out and lets low drone sounds through. Then, ANC On blocks out that lower drone sound and only lets through the staticky sound that likely hovers between a mid- and high-frequency. While I was still in ANC On mode, I played a song and could barely hear the pink noise. I could noticeably hear the pink noise in ANC Off mode, but the music playing and physical ear cushions definitely helped mute it.
Battery Life
Because the ANC technology isn’t as powerful as the tech inside more premium over-ear headphones, OneOdio’s A10 headphones are able to hold a charge for quite a while. If you only have Bluetooth turned on, you can get up to 45 hours of use. Or, with only ANC enabled, you can get up to 50 hours of use. If both Bluetooth and ANC are turned on, the battery life drops to 35 hours, but that’s still a pretty long time!
When the headphones are connected to your smartphone via Bluetooth, you can head to your Bluetooth devices to see how much battery life the A10 Hybrid’s have left. After I played music for over an hour, experimenting with all the headphone’s features, the remaining battery life never moved from 90%. If you’re ever pressed for time and somehow run the battery out on OneOdio’s A10 headphones, a 5-minute charge gives you roughly two hours of listening.
Verdict: A Solid Pair of Budget ANC Headphones
If you’re after the best of the best with ANC technology, you won’t find it with OneOdio’s A10 Hybrid ANC headphones. If you know that going in—and that you might need to find some thicker replacement ear cushions—I think most people will be happy with this purchase. All my songs sounded fantastic, dialogue from my shows was crisp, and the battery life is insane. Overall, I was thoroughly impressed by this unassuming, budget pair of ANC headphones.
Rating: 7/10
Price: $80
Here’s What We Like
- Well-rounded, full-sounding listening experience
- For a plane, the ANC features will work well enough
- Transparency Mode is great
- Long battery life
- Affordable and a great value
And What We Don’t
- Ear cushions aren’t super plush
- ANC features are lacking
- Headphones felt slightly loose on my head