Kygo Xellence, great sound and noise cancellation

With the huge variety of wireless airculars that flood the market, I have finally found the first ones that would raise serious questions with the AirPods Pro. Kygo Xellence offer great sound, with good noise cancellation, enormous autonomy and touch controls to be a serious rival to the AirPods Pro.

Different and daring design

It is very boring that all headphones look the same, and today it seems that you either look like AirPods or you have no chance of success. Luckily we still have those who prefer to bet on a more conventional design, in which an LED located on the X-shaped touch surface clearly stands out.. Don't worry, if you don't want anyone to notice your headphones, you can turn it off. These are "in-ear" headphones with silicone plugs, with various sizes available inside the box to choose the ones that best suit us, helping the noise cancellation function.

Available in white or black, the finish of the headphones and the charging box is very good, with magnetic systems for closing the lid and for the headphones, that are placed in the perfect position inside the face box just by dropping them so that they begin to recharge. A small LED on each headset indicates the connection and when the battery is low, and four LEDs on the box indicate how much battery it has left. The box is small enough to fit in any pocket. A USB-C allows us to recharge it using the cable that is included.

Autonomy of 30 hours

The specifications of the headphones include Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity, compatibility with aptX and AAC codecs (which is the one that interests us iPhone users), resistance to sweat and water with IPx5 certification that allows you to use them for sports without problems, Touch controls, proximity sensor to pause playback when you take them off, microphone for hands-free use and compatibility with Siri and Google Assistant. And we leave for last the two characteristics that make the difference: active noise cancellation, transparency mode and autonomy of up to 30 hours.

Noise cancellation has already become a feature that must be required of all upper-mid-range headphones, and of course these Kygo Xellence fulfill this task with a good note. The silicone plugs help to passively cancel noise, and we also have to add an active system that we can control from the headphones themselves through its touch control system. Its level of cancellation I put it at the height of the AirPods ProIn the tests I have carried out, I do not find differences between the two. The transparency mode also works very well, letting you hear what is happening around you, although perhaps the sound you hear is not as clear as in Apple headphones.

Its other star function is its excellent autonomy. Headphones by themselves can hold you up to 10 hours of continuous playback on a single charge, something that I have not been able to verify because it is impossible for me to spend that time with headphones on, and with the charging box you have two more full recharges, so you can use the headphones for 30 hours without having to connect them to any socket. This autonomy can satisfy anyone, I don't think you can put a single fault on its battery life. Also, if you leave them in the charging box for several days, you will not find them unloaded when you go to use them, something that is quite common in other models.

Also worth mentioning is the touch control system included in the headphones. Touch controls usually work relatively poorly on these small headphones, because you have to touch a small surface very precisely, so sometimes to do what you want you have to repeat the action until you get it. The Xellence have a large surface, and all of it responds to touch, so although you must get used to making gestures, controlling playback, answering calls, raising or lowering the volume, or activating noise cancellation or transparency modes are all achieved with relative comfort.

Control by app

Kygo also offers us an application with which we can control the headphones. With it we can activate or deactivate functions, such as noise cancellation or transparency mode, as well as activate or deactivate the LED of the headphones, depending on how you like it more or less. It is the only way in which we can activate the “Bass Boost” mode, a bass boost that goes very well with certain music., but that for example when you listen to podcast it is better to deactivate for a more natural audio. Another option that we can control is the proximity sensor, so that when you remove the headset, playback is automatically paused.

But this does not stop here, because this app allows you to customize your audio, and I am not talking about modifying an equalizer manually, but about perform a test that will make the audio from the headphones adjust to your hearing, because not all of us hear the same, especially when age is advancing. This personalized audio can also be modified later by means of a sliding bar that allows you to vary the degree of personalization of the sound emitted by the headphones.

Sound quality

We come to the most important section of headphones and the most difficult to describe: their sound quality. If I take the AirPods Pro as a reference, the audio of these Kygo Xellence is better in almost every aspect. The volume offered by these headphones is high, more than in the AirPods Pro, without distorting, but the first thing you notice is really powerful bass, surprising for headphones of this size. the rest of the frequencies are also very good, they are not basses that hide the deficiencies in the mids and treble, it is a good sound throughout its spectrum, although the bass stands out above the rest, especially with the Bass Boost function activated.

If the sound of the AirPods Pro does not convince you because it feels a bit "flat", these headphones are just what you are looking for. Sound quality in calls is good, with the limitations that earbuds have in terms of the microphone they incorporate. We can say that in this aspect they fully fulfill their mission, without further ado.

Editor's opinion

After many headphones I finally find ones that in a lower price range than the AirPods Pro stand them face to face. Not only for superior sound quality and wide-eyed bass, but they also include features such as noise cancellation, transparency mode and touch controls, as well as an app that allows you to customize the sound to your hearing. and incredible autonomy. Due to their lower price, functions and sound quality, these Kygo Xellence are an excellent option for those looking for quality headphones with excellent features. They are available on Amazon for € 199 (link)