OneOdio A10 wireless headphones: Good sound, great value for money
OneOdio A10 wireless headphones. Picture: OneOdio.
Hot on the heels of my previous review, I received another Oneodio headphone, but rather than a wired studio set like the Monitor 60, this time they sent me a Bluetooth headset that boasts up to 54 hours of battery life. While we’ve come to expect to pay hundreds of euros for good ANC wireless headphones, the OneOdio A10 offers a lot of premium features including a high-res audio certification at an affordable price point.
The A10 come in a really nice case that’s compact and sturdy offering excellent protection. Inside you’ll find the A10 headphones that can neatly fold away for maximum space savings. Included in the case are a USB-C cable for charging and a 3.5mm to 3.5mm audio cable to use the A10s in wired mode.
The mostly plastic construction makes them relatively light and the build quality isn't bad either. The headband has a metal band inside and uses a ratchet system for adjusting the size which should suit a large range of head sizes.
The faux leather padding under the headband is soft and offers adequate comfort. The same spongy material and faux leather are also used on the ear muffs. I don’t have massive ears but I would have liked slightly bigger ear muffs as my ears were hitting the sides of the insides. This did cause a little discomfort after long periods but overall comfort was pretty good.
There are no touch controls here and many will see this as a positive. The left ear cup has a USB-C port for charging and an ANC button for toggling through ANC on, transparency mode and ANC off. The right ear cup has a volume up and volume down button with a multifunction/power button between them along with an LED indicator light. The 3.5mm audio jack is also on this side and can be used to listen to audio wired but only passively. The good news is that when used wired, you’re not using the internal battery so you have infinite use. However, this also means you can't use ANC or transparency modes.
The OneOdio A10 doesn’t have a companion app so features are relatively limited. They feature Bluetooth 5.0, but there’s no dual-connect support and codec support is limited to SBC and AAC. The lack of high-res codec support is a little puzzling since the box has a High-Res audio certification label. Perhaps on a more expensive headset, you’d also expect AptX or LDAC for a higher bit rate in the Bluetooth stream. However, such labels are no guarantee of audio quality.
Noise-cancelling headphones are generally more expensive so It’s good to see such a feature on the A10. ANC reduces a significant amount of obtrusive noise and just enough vocal noise, but it’s far from class-leading. That being said, ANC performed much better than I was expecting for cans in this price range.
Transparency mode does a decent job of amplifying sounds around you and makes it easier to hear your own voice for calls. I found call quality on my side pretty good, but it’s not so great for those on the other end with some callers saying my voice sounded poor and distorted.
The sound quality is generally decent, however, the bass is a little stronger than I like out of the box and there’s no companion app or EQ to tweak this. Those who listen to a lot of music with heavy won’t be disappointed.
Mid-highs are sufficient for the majority of casual users, while higher frequencies can sound a little bright but clear.
The mids are warm with excellent clarity and detail and I really loved the way the vocals were presented.
The soundstage isn’t massive and I wouldn’t expect it to be considering these are closed-back headphones. Instrument separation in classical music isn’t as distinct as you’d expect from more expensive headphones, but it’s not noticeable for most genres of music.
When the ANC is enabled it noticeably changes the sound, which is a pity. They still sound good, but it changes enough that I preferred listening with ANC off. However, even with ANC off, there’s a decent amount of passive noise isolation, so you may find you don’t need it as often as you might other headphones.
The A10s offer excellent battery performance. Charging time is less than 2.5 hours and up to 54 of playtime. The headphones also support quick charging, meaning just five minutes of charging, providing an additional two hours of use! This drops to 35 hours with ANC on which is still very respectable.
There’s never been such a great choice of headphones and the top brands offer incredible audio quality and features as long as you don’t mind paying the premium prices. It’s great to see more options like the OneOdio A10s which offer excellent sound and ANC at an affordable price point. Sure, they’re not perfect but the gap in quality between the most expensive and headphones as good as the A10s is not as great as it once was.
OneOdio A10 2-in-1 hybrid active noise cancelling headphones €78 www.oneodio.com
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