I’m keen on the idea of noise-cancelling being “cool”, of a company that can develop a pair of headphones that reflect the attitude and resonant styling of the music scene. You’re on a plane, your personal music is your soundtrack, there should be a sense of adventure to it. Phitek’s Blackbox M14 certainly delivers that in name as well as its design. The jet black colour hides the puffy comfort pads around the ears while an angle in the band itself along with rotating cups position the headset to fit over your ears with a caress. There’s a problem with taking the stylish path, however, and that’s making sure that your product can walk the walk as much as it talks the talk. Up in the skies, the M14 takes a dive.

 

The issue is Phitek’s decision to make the headphones and its audio cable two separate pieces. Now you have to plug in both ends of the cable, one to the headphones themselves and the other into your music source, the MP3 player you’re listening to or the audio jack in the plane’s armrest. There’s a number of reasons for this, it makes it easier to pack, if the cable gets caught on an armrest on the plane it will pop out without damage, and it gives you the option to replace the cable with one that’s shorter or longer if needed, but, it also makes the headset more susceptible to picking up interference.

When you have a long cable connected to a set of speakers, it can unintentionally act as an antennae, picking up nearby transmissions. This is why you can sometimes hear the pulsing tone of an in-coming call to your cellphone through your home stereo. To prevent this, manufacturers will use a thicker layer of insulation on the cable, blocking those signals from reaching the wire inside. The audio cable included with the M14 has a very thin layer of insulation, an odd choice from a company specializing in blocking out noise.

Up in the air, the M14 picked up all sorts of transmissions. I heard audio clicks coming from some of the plane’s on-board electronics and that telltale pulse of someone trying to use their cellphone during the flight. Looking around the cabin I could spot a woman three rows in front of me using her cellphone on the sly, thinking no doubt that as long as she didn’t make a call it’d be all right. As soon as you power on a cellphone, it tries to connect to the network, creating a loud transmission that I picked up quite clearly. To avoid this issue for future flights, I’ll need to buy a replacement cable with better insulation and hope that solves it.

To be clear, I didn’t experience this issue on every flight, but when I did I switched over to Sony’s noise-cancelling earbuds, which I’ve recommended earlier and sell for $100 less, and they didn’t pick up any of the same interference.

Noise-cancellation is a technology that listens to the environment of sound around you and produces a counter signal that blocks it from reaching your ears. The M14 does a reasonable job of this, blocking out most of the low bass rumble of jet engines and the high echo and din of air rushing over a cabin. It’s helped by large earpads that produce an isolating seal, so that even with the headphones powered off, it dampens the noise considerably. It’s what you would expect from a $250 price tag, but doesn’t match the serenity offered from more expensive sets by Bose, Nokia, or Sony that utilize a series of microphones, both inside and outside of the earcups for higher performance.

The Blackbox M14 has potential. I like the way they fold flat for easy storage, the hidden AAA battery compartment at the top of one of the earcups, and the included case to pack everything including airline and stereo adapters. The design is there, it just needs follow-through. The M14 have to be more than cool, they need to be quiet.