Gadgetory

so if you look back at the unboxing and first impressions of the Sony Xperia z2 you'll see that in the box there was a really nice addition or two but the one that I'm talking about right now are these headphones that are just sitting around my neck now these are the sony MDR NC 31 am and to be quite honest what i expected from them was good audio quality but i didn't necessarily expect what I got we do know that the Sony Xperia z2 comes with noise canceling technology inside of the unit itself but it requires these headphones in order for them to work so let's talk about them for a little bit so after unpackaging all of the contents in the Sony Xperia z2 box what you're going to find are these headphones just in case in a very simple piece of plastic and once you take them out of the plastic when you look at them the shape of the actual units for the earbuds do tell you that you're probably going to get some better quality from these compared to a lot of other offerings that are found with smartphones the other thing you might notice is in the pin there are five pins in the actual connector for the earbuds that go into the phone itself normally you see something like three pins for a type of headphone that might have a microphone in it or controls for music playing or both but in this case we have even more pins on here and it will register when you enter when you insert this into the phone after that you will also find that the cord is not all that long but the reason for that is because the right earbud goes around your neck because the cord is longer than the one that is found on the left side alright so let's go ahead and take a look at what happens when I connect these headphones to the Sony Xperia z2 now what you're going to see is a prompt that comes up when I insert the connector first thing that comes up is an icon for the noise canceling technology and then after that we have headset connected send it over to the sound settings and take a look at what is available there so here's the audio accessories prompt like I showed you already but also here we are with the sound effects and if I click on here it will give us a couple of options not just for the actual enhancement of the sound which has always been a part of Sony Xperia phones but also the No counseling which is right here it is on on or auto and of course it detects that this is a noise-canceling headset so there you go and then the last thing that you have here which I'll go into in a bit is clear audio now when you're using headphones clear audio tends to narrow the soundstage a little bit and that's not a bad thing by any means what that actually does is it allows for a little bit more clarity in at least the highs and a bit of more power in the lows the mids stay about the same but with clear audio on you are able to get a somewhat richer sound more clarity I should say rather than richer because when you have it off the soundstage becomes wider and has a little bit more of a wider feel I wish that I could really show you just exactly how good the sound is coming from these earphones not just on their own but with the noise canceling technology on with the birds chirping out here with cars constantly going by and people talking across the street I did find a difference in the sound when I have them on without the noise canceling and then a lot of that was just drowned out once I had the noise canceling on the units or the technology that is found in the Sony Xperia z2 does its job very well and I wanted to present to you the justjust the way that it kind of changes the experience of the media consumption that you can have with this phone the Sony Xperia z2 is one of the best phones out this year really all of them are really great but the Sony Xperia z2 has its niche and in a way it has recaptured that old Walkman experience that I used to love having so in that regard the headphones that are included with the Sony Xperia z2 not only are they a high quality offering that helps to justify the higher cost of the entire package but with the noise cancelling in here you'll be able to have a lot of fun with your music and all media using these headphone so as a final note I did want to revisit my comments regarding the front-facing speakers on the Sony Xperia z2 now they are stereo there or there's one on the bottom one on the top and regarding my comments I wanted to revisit them and sort of clarify my position did I seem a little bit harsh in talking about the speakers I probably did did I give you enough info as to why probably not so here it is it pretty much comes down to this the fact that there are two speakers front-facing on the Sony Xperia z2 is a huge selling point for the phone why because they are far and beyond better than any single and rear-facing speakers that are found on pretty much any other phone out there today and that makes the Sony Xperia z2 already leaps and bounds better in terms of the media experience but this is how I viewed it I used those speakers primarily for gaming as I use the headphones for music and what I found was that while with another phone which fine I'll go ahead and say it the HTC One m8 while there is a very immersive experience with the stereo sound coming from those large boom sound speakers unfortunately the nature of the Sony Xperia line just means that with the water and dust proofing the top and bottom speakers for the z2 have to be slits for the most part they're not going to be big units and with that in mind what you essentially get here is a sound experience from this from the Sony Xperia z1 times 2 and now facing forward now those are two big enhancements to the sound quality and the z2 deserves a lot of credit for having that however when you think of it that way sure they face forward sure they do get pretty loud because now they're working in tandem but at the same time the sound is just not as rich as I was expecting if my expectations were too high then I will apologize for that coming out but at the same time I did want these speakers to blow me away and they simply did not I do have a lot of fun with them I do feel that the sound on this is better than pretty much any other phone save for maybe one or two out there and you know which ones I'm talking about but at the same time I do have to say they are a great selling point of this phone so I apologize for being a little bit too harsh on these speakers but now you know exactly why I thought so now X loud does boost the loudness of the sound itself but it also kind of does so detracting from the actual clarity and richness of the sound itself the clarity of the sound is under clear phase aptly named primarily because it does the same thing with the headphones like in clear stereo where it narrows the soundstage s force front surround wasn't necessarily one that I found very enjoyable really because it just widened the soundstage to really try to get that surround sound and just sort of fell artificial so it's not one I use very often most of the time I've just turned on clear Audio plus and just leave it on and from there I just use the speakers the way that they are and so there you have it for this feature focus regarding the sound experience on the Sony Xperia z2 I did want to revisit all of this for two particular reasons the first reason being because I wanted to show you how Sony has sort of taken back that Walkman mentality that Walkman feel with these great headphone offerings that you can use because the z2 has noise canceling built in and in a way this is a review of the actual headphones themselves so it's something that I wanted to sort of give its own due process but also I wanted to revisit my stance on the front-facing speakers now let me just say one more time the front-facing speakers are a great addition to the z2 and are a big selling point for it but for me it just reminded me of a pretty decent speaker that would be found on the rear of many of phones that are found in the market today times two and then put on to the front now while those are great enhancements for a speaker sound in and of itself I didn't find this experience to be incredible to the point that I would say it's better than any other phone out there it's better than a lot of them though so keep it tuned to Android 34 all of the best coverage including our future coverage of the Sony Xperia z2 and all of the flagships that are coming out in the coming weeks stay tuned to Android 34 our in-depth coverage of those comparisons and also for our weekly shows hosted by the likes of Joe Jays and of course we have content coming from Kevin the tech ninja stay tuned for even more job with some likes on our videos because we love to see those thumbs up and also remember to subscribe if you haven't already and after you're done with all of that head on over to android authority comm for even more in-depth coverage because we are your source for all things Android