Background information
Silence at the touch of a button: how does ANC work?
by Dayan Pfammatter
Breggz Zohn-1: Sounds good, but I can't recommend it
The Breggz Zohn-1 in-ear headphones are designed to set new standards in sound. In this respect, they deliver. However, the operation is so poor that I wonder whether the device is broken.
Breggz is a small company and the Zohn-1 is its only product to date. It is available directly from the manufacturer and currently costs 499 euros. That's a lot, but significantly less than Breggz originally wanted.
Breggz was founded by Dutch singer Xander de Buisonjé. It is not easy for a small start-up to compete against the big players: mega corporations such as Sony have a generous development budget, their own factories and mass production, which makes the quantities cheaper. They have decades of experience in bringing products to market and distributing them. The brand's high profile automatically attracts attention. In short: almost everything speaks in favour of the big players and almost nothing in favour of the small ones.
Even the charging case is special
This is all the more true if you want to break new ground. And Breggz wants to do just that. The in-ear headphones are designed to reproduce music completely unadulterated and with all the details. Originally, the headphones were even supposed to be customised to the individual ear shape - but this option is not currently available.
The charging case with its hexagonal shape and folding mechanism is unique. It is pulled apart from both sides at the same time. When opened, the headphones automatically connect to the paired device and when closed, the connection is cancelled.
The two headphones are attached to the charging contact with magnets. They hold there very well and are still easy to remove. However, it is difficult to attach the headphones to the holder. There is only one position in which this works, the two headphones must not be swapped and must be snapped into different positions. Breggz has noted the mnemonic «left is low» in the user manual. However, as neither the case nor the headphones are labelled left and right, it rarely works straight away.
No ANC, but good shielding
The headphones fit ergonomically in the ear cup, where they do not protrude far and shield noise well. However, the seal against ambient noise comes primarily from the silicone tips. Breggz supplies six different sizes of these. I have narrow ear canals, so even the smallest tips often don't fit. Thanks to the large selection of attachments, even people like me can find something suitable here.
The Zohn-1 does not have active noise cancelling. However, the passive attenuation is very good. I was able to work with it in an open-plan office without any problems, although I am quite easily disturbed by noise.
To understand something despite the isolation, there is a transparency mode. Microphones record the ambient noise and the headphones play back the sounds immediately. This works with a barely audible delay. The volume of these sounds can be continuously adjusted in the app. The volume is not relative to the music volume, but absolute. At the maximum level, I can hear a loud hissing and even slight whistling and chirping noises. The transparency mode is not suitable for permanent use, as the Zohn-1 is supposed to fulfil the highest sound requirements.
Good sound that can be individually improved
It does that too. These in-ears reproduce the music largely neutrally, as the manufacturer promises. Bass and treble are not artificially boosted in order to somehow «sound more blatant». However, you can adjust this in the app's equaliser if you wish. It also has a bass boost setting. The headphones are quite capable of delivering a lot of bass and treble. However, they only do this on their own when the recording requires it.
A small caveat to the praise: In my opinion, the range around 4000 Hz is slightly overemphasised. The top keys of a piano, for example, lie in this frequency range. In the track «When The Lights Go Down» Prince hits such a key several times, for example at 1:49. That sounds very unpleasant. On well-tuned headphones, this is far less pronounced. However, I can easily correct this in the equaliser and am then completely satisfied with the sound.
The app that comes with the Zohn-1 can create a personalised hearing profile. It guides you through a hearing test that determines which frequencies you hear and how loudly. Due to my age, sounds above 13 kHz have to be quite loud for me to hear them; from 16 kHz upwards, I can't hear them at all. My personal hearing profile amplifies these high frequencies so that I can ideally hear them again like a youngster.
With «Personal Sound» switched on, the tracks actually sound more lively. I've heard several sound enhancements like this with custom profiles, such as Nura, but I particularly like this one. I can hear the difference especially in the overtones of the drum cymbals. On a recording that is audibly noisy - for example a live recording or an older studio recording - the noise is also slightly amplified. However, the strength of the optimisation can be infinitely adjusted. You can also repeat the test if you have the impression that the result is incorrect.
The sound quality when making calls is typically average for in-ears. Good over-ears sound significantly better, but that's fine for the small earbuds.
The operation: I am satisfied
In addition to operation via the smartphone, the Breggz Zohn-1 can be controlled in three other ways: via touch surfaces on both headphones, by head movements and by voice control. Many things can be customised to your own preferences in the app.
There are three touch surfaces per headphone, so six in total. The centre surface can be configured, whereby a distinction is made between single tap, double tap and hold. Still not complicated enough? Here you go: Depending on whether you press and hold for three, six or nine seconds, something different happens. Oh yes, there are also swipe gestures. In the user manual, the explanation of touch operation comprises no less than ten A4 pages.
Since the entire top of the headphones is smaller than my fingertip, it's not so easy to hit the dots blindly. The concept seems too complicated for the little things, but maybe I'd learn eventually. I'm speaking in the subjunctive, because that will never happen. The reason: the touch surfaces don't react the way I expect them to. Even after the hundredth time, I still don't understand why I sometimes trigger the centre area and sometimes the top or bottom. In about half of all attempts, nothing happens at all. I never manage a swipe movement on purpose, at most occasionally unintentionally. The double tap is also purely a matter of luck. My hit rate for touch commands is still depressingly poor, even after a lot of practice. The thing is simply unusable.
I don't know whether I have a faulty device or whether this is normal for the Zohn-1. A request for a replacement device remained unanswered. Likewise the question of whether this is a known problem.
The only remaining option is to switch to head movements and voice control. Things look better here: Voice control works without any problems. But I generally don't like using voice control. The joke with headphones is that I don't disturb others. If I then have to say «Hey PA, Volume Down» every time to turn down the volume, I feel very stupid.
I have a similar experience with the motion control. Nodding or shaking your head can easily be misinterpreted by the environment. What's more, these commands can hardly be customised. Nodding always means accepting a call. Shaking your head means rejecting a call or skipping to the next item. If I turn first to the left and then to the right while cooking, I inadvertently trigger the head shake command.
Conclusion: I wouldn't go for that
If it was only about the sound, I would recommend the headphones without hesitation. The noise cancellation is also very good, but an additional ANC would still have been nice. I also give the ergonomics good marks: The large selection of attachments means they even fit into narrow ear canals, which is often a problem for me with in-ears.
But none of this is of any use if I can't use the device properly. The touch controls are very sophisticated in theory, but also complicated. In my case, it was simply unusable - but that could also be a defect in this particular model. That is why there is no rating. However, I cannot recommend the Breggz Zohn-1 under these circumstances with the best will in the world. So once again, all that remains is the realisation that the little ones really have a hard time in business.
David Lee
Senior Editor
David.Lee@digitecgalaxus.chMy interest in IT and writing landed me in tech journalism early on (2000). I want to know how we can use technology without being used. Outside of the office, I’m a keen musician who makes up for lacking talent with excessive enthusiasm.
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