Targus Travel-Ease Active Noise Cancellation Headphones Review

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If you’ve ever been on an airplane and found yourself lusting after your neighbor’s noise cancelling headphones, but been shocked at the price, then the Travel-Ease headphones from Targus may fit the bill.  They provide passive and active noise cancelling features and a “talk through feature” in an over the ear form factor for an MSRP of $69.99.

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Features

The Targus headphones are over-the-ear headphones with cups that should cover your ears (unless you’re Dumbo). The ear cups are padded with “leatherette” covered foam and are pretty soft to wear on your head.  The cups rotate on the adjustable headband so that the headphones can lie flat for shoving in a bag.  Folded up, they measure 6 inches x 1.5 inches x 7.5 inches.  They weigh about 8 ounces.

The Travel-Ease headphones provide both passive and active noise cancellation.  Passive cancellation is provided by the over the ear cups that diminishes the loudness of external noises.  Active cancellation occurs when the headphones, powered by a single AA battery, provide audio that is out of phase with the external noise to cancel it out.

When you have the headphones powered on, they also amplify the audio signal from whatever device you’re using.  The volume control on the in-line battery holder lets you boost the audio even more from your device.

The Targus Travel-Ease headphones also feature a “talk through feature”.  When the headphones are powered on, you can push a button on the battery holder, marked “PTT”, which enables a microphone in the battery holder to pipe external audio into your headphones.  This allows you to hear the pilot or flight attendants without having to take off or power off your headphones.

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The headphones come with a plush travel bag, airline audio adapter, a 6.3mm audio jack adapter and a single AA battery.

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Performance

I’ve used these headphones in an office environment, at home, and on a recent flight to Las Vegas.  So far, I haven’t had to change the battery after approximately 6-7 hours of use. 

Noise cancellation, especially at the price point of these headphones, was very good.  At home, it cancelled out the sounds of the HVAC system and any computer fans that happened to be running.  In the office, there wasn’t actually too much ambient noise.  During my flight to Vegas, I was able to easily hear the in-flight movie without having to crank up the volume so much that I worried about my hearing. 

I actually didn’t end up using the talk through feature that much.  During the flight, I found that even with the active noise cancellation enabled, it made the in-flight announcements much easier to hear.  The active noise cancellation doesn’t really cancel out voices or other non-regular noise.  The background roar of the engines is minimized since it’s a constant background noise.

Overall, the headphones were comfortable to wear.  The ear cups are well cushioned and the headband was “springy” enough to keep the ear cups in place.  Since these are over the ear headphones, it’s quite possible that your ears will get hot, but if you’ve used over the ear headphones in the past, you’ve probably experienced this.

Operation was very easy.  The power switch is on the back side of the left ear cup and a green LED lets you (and the flight attendants) know if the headphones are turned on.  The volume switch and PTT button on the inline battery holder are pretty straightforward.

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I did experience some buzzing from external interference on a couple of occasions.  It’s the kind of buzzing that sometimes happens to cheap external PC speakers when a mobile phone rings near them.  It only happened twice, so it’s not enough to really worry about, in my opinion.

Conclusion

For less than $70, the Targus Travel-Ease Active Noise Cancellation headphones are a great value.  You get comfortable, over the ear headphones that take a lot of the roar out of an airline flight.  If you don’t travel much and are still looking for good noise-cancelling headphones, they won’t filter out the loud talker in your office, but I would highly recommend headphones like these for anyone working in an environment with constant background noise, like a data center.

Availability

The Targus Travel-Ease Active Noise Cancellation headphones aren't actually available to purchase at the time of this writing. They will however be hitting the store shelves in the next few weeks, by April at the latest. They will retail for $69.99 and are currently available for pre-order at Buy.com and CDW.com

Pros

• Effective active noise cancellation
• Effective talk through feature
• Included airline audio jack adapter
• Inline battery holder ensures that headphones aren’t too heavy

Cons

• Even though they’re meant for travel, they’re still bulky
• Susceptible to some (very, very minimal) external interference

 

They do look a little bulky with that audio adapter and overall size, but the price of $60 is cheaper than Bose or Shure headphones. Nice review!

 

Thanks for the review, Ben.

Do you have any opinion on the sound quality?

 

Nice review Ben!

These headphones have a striking similarity to the Maxell HP/NC-II Noise Cancelling headphones that I've used in the past.

 

I'm no audiophile and I have bad ears - so I'm not the most qualified person to assess audio quality. However, I thought the audio was good - it was well balanced (not too tinny, not too bassy) and had a full range.

 

A helpful review. Maybe I will retry noise-cancelling headphones sometime (I have bought some less expensive models a couple of years ago) but I don't like anything very bulky. In the mean time I will make do with my Koss Plugs (which are inexpensive but very good once they are inserted properly) and Sony Fontopia earphones. Engine noise isn't such a problem in modern planes and Ben's comments suggest that the noise cancelling isn't very effective against crying babies.

John