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Here are two affordable wireless headphones that claim to offer more than what you generally get at this price point read more
 "Boat Nirvana Eutopia + Zebronics Zeb Aeon Wireless Headphones Review Snapshots")
Image Credit: Firstpost | Ameya Dalvi
Two popular Indian brands have released a pair of wireless headphones recently that caught our eye. Boat Nirvana Eutopia boasts of features like spatial audio with head tracking well under Rs 5,000, while the Zebronics Zeb Aeon flaunts active noise cancellation (ANC) and some insanely high battery backup figures for half its cost. Let’s figure out if they can deliver on their promises. Mind you, this is not a direct comparison between the two as they cater to very different audiences.
Boat Nirvana Eutopia review at a glance
Pros:
- Good sound quality
- Comfortable to wear for long
- Spatial audio with head tracking, further tuning through app
- Decent call quality
- USB-C port; fast charging support
- Can be used as wired headphones with the bundled Aux cable
Cons:
- No active noise cancellation
- Average battery backup
- Lacks dual pairing support
Price: Rs 3,999
Rating: 3.5/5
The Boat Nirvana Eutopia is a sizable pair of wireless headphones that sits nicely over the ears. The ear cups are amply cushioned and so is the headband and it is comfortable to wear them for long hours. Things don’t tend to get sweaty too, but we largely wore them indoors in this weather (monsoon) as they do not offer any ingress protection like most on and over-the-ear headphones. The build quality and finish are quite good and the buttons are neatly arranged on the right ear cup; the keypress feels just right.
Strangely, I did not find any demarcation for the left and right ear cups on these headphones. Another thing missing here is ANC, something we have come to expect in headphones and earphones in this budget. Having said that, the focus of these headphones is something else - Spatial audio with head tracking. Before you jump out of your seats in excitement, let me say upfront that it doesn’t necessarily enhance the listening experience in everything you throw at it.
If you are wondering what spatial audio or head tracking is, let me simplify it for you. Spatial audio creates a virtual 3D soundstage and makes the sound more immersive in certain cases. With head tracking, it locks the direction of the sound source, and if you move your head, you still get the impression that the sound is coming from that specific direction with differential sound in each of the ears, unlike regular headphones.
For instance, if you are in a music concert facing the stage and turn your head right, your left ear will tend to hear the music louder than the right. A similar effect is replicated here with the help of a 3D accelerometer and a 3D gyroscope. You get to choose between Fixed Spatial audio (manual) and Head-tracked Spatial audio (automatic), and the companion app gives you calibration options, which we would suggest you indulge in to set these up.
All said and done, this is a fun feature to have that works in certain scenarios and feels a little weird in others; that also depends on person to person. You can give it a go when listening to music as well as watching movies but keep your expectations in check. If it doesn’t work for you or disorients you, there’s also the Boat Signature Sound mode that you can switch to to make the Boat Nirvana Eutopia behave like normal stereo headphones, and the sound quality is pretty good.
The 40 mm dynamic drivers produce a loud, energetic and reasonably balanced sound output with a surprisingly tight bass for a Boat product. Now the default sound signature here is not the typical bass-heavy Boat Signature Sound that you get on most of the company’s audio products, but a lot more restrained and balanced, something that I liked. Mind you, the bass is not at all deficient here, but if you are a bass head (or a Boat-head), you may feel a little letdown.
Interestingly, switching to one of the spatial sound modes enhances the bass and should please the bass heads, however, you will need to keep your head still. As I mentioned earlier, you do not get ANC here but the passive noise isolation is decent. There were no latency issues with no perceptible delay between audio and video when watching content on OTT platforms. You also get Beast mode that when enabled drops the latency to 65 ms, which will be handy in gaming.
The call quality on these headphones is more than decent. In fact, it is pretty good indoors or in quieter places, with those on the line clearly audible to each other. In noisy areas, it does pick up some background noise but it is still very much usable. The voice sounds just a little soft though.
The battery life of the Boat Nirvana Eutopia is average at best. It promises 20 hours without head tracking and 15 hours with it. I didn’t try head tracking for that long but got about 15 hours with head tracking switched on for an hour intermittently during testing. It supports quick charging with 10 minutes of charge giving you 90 minutes of playtime in normal mode. It takes less than an hour and a half to charge fully from empty.
The Boat Nirvana Eutopia is priced at Rs 3,999 with a one-year warranty. If you are looking for a wireless headphone with a head tracking function, it is probably the most affordable option in India. However, head tracking doesn’t work well with all types of content and can be disorienting at times for some. So if you have an option, experience it first before buying this product. If you don’t need that feature, and sound quality tops your priority list, you can get a lot of better-sounding options in this budget from Sony, JBL and even Boat.
Zebronics Zeb Aeon review at a glance
Pros:
- Lightweight and comfortable to wear
- Foldable design, easy to carry
- Insanely good battery backup
- USB-C port; fast charging support
- Can be used as wired headphones with the bundled Aux cable
Cons:
- ANC is barely functional, no transparency mode
- Low on bass, sounds sibilant at high volume
- Core performance suffers in trying to be jack of all trades
Price: Rs 1,999
Rating: 3/5
The Zebronics Zeb Aeon isn’t as fancy as the Boat above but does promise ANC and 100+ hours of battery life under Rs 2,000. Let’s investigate these claims. For starters, the build quality, though a tad plasticky, is acceptable for the segment and the product feels sturdy despite being fairly lightweight. The foldable design helps in storing these headphones away in smaller spaces. You get three colour options to choose from - black, blue and beige.
The ear cups are well padded and the Zen Aeon is comfortable to wear for long. It is hard to term it on or over the ears as it seems like an in-between size. For some, it may go entirely over the ears and for others, it may sit on them. Either way, it exerts just the right amount of pressure and things are largely comfortable. The volume and playback controls and the ANC button are present on the left ear cup (the keypress is fine), along with a USB-C charging port and a headphone jack.
The Zeb Aeon also uses 40 mm dynamic drivers, however, the tuning is completely different from that of the Boat headphones or even some of the Zebronics products I have tried before. The output is distinctly on the brighter side with the highs being the dominant frequencies. Those who like their audio with low bass will like this kind of output. Unfortunately, those are in a stark minority. Even the Boat Nirvana Eutopia didn’t have excess bass but was sufficient. Here, it feels deficient, and I am not even using the bassheads’ yardstick.
While the sound is sharp, the highs feel sibilant and it can get fatiguing rather quickly. One unexpected way to improve the sound quality is to turn on ANC. Not that the bass gets thumpy after that but the highs certainly sound a lot better, lending the overall sound a relatively better balance. While the ANC toggle serves as a sound preset of sorts, which is good, the problem is ANC doesn’t actually do what it’s supposed to - suppress ambient noise. At best, it’s barely functional, and there’s no transparency mode either to let ambient sounds through.
Moving on to another key feature of this product - battery life, it is mighty impressive. While I cannot confirm if it’s actually 110 hours (at 50 per cent volume) as advertised, it easily lasted more than a couple of weeks with 3 hours of daily listening at 75 per cent loudness with over 30 per cent juice left in the tank. That would make it a pair of budget headphones with perhaps the longest battery backup in the segment in India. It also supports fast charging, with 10 minutes of charge facilitating close to 10 hours of playtime.
The call quality is decent in quiet areas, but the voice clarity tends to drop in the noisy outdoors as it cannot filter out background noise. I did not face any latency issues when watching videos using these Bluetooth 5.3 headphones. You can also use the Zeb Aeon as wired headphones with the bundled Aux cable in case they run out of battery.
The Zebronics Zeb Aeon is priced at Rs 1,999 with a one-year warranty. The price is not an issue but the company has tried to fit in too much and hasn’t managed to do justice to most of the features. In the process, the sound tuning also seems to have taken a back seat, while ANC barely cancels any noise. The battery life is great though, in fact, one of the best around. If that’s your primary need, the Zeb Aeon won’t disappoint. For better sound quality in this budget, look elsewhere. For a truly functional ANC, you will need to stretch your budget further.
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