About Valco ANC Bluetooth Headphones

[AngelGR]

Hi.
I'm looking for a decent (but not expensive) wireless headphones for outdoor listening, and I found this:
valco.io
They seem to be well built, and the marketing is funny. :-D
Do somebody have any reference, advice or opinion about them?
Thanks in advance.

 

[ANC1980]

So I got these Valcos a few days ago. I first bought the Bose 700 ANCs a couple of weeks back after my brother recommended them but I returned them as they seriously disappointed me.

The sound quality in the 700's was significantly worse than in my wired Sennheiser HD 380 PROs (which are great headphones BTW with a really clear natural sound BTW that I bought both to listen to music and use as monitoring headphones for making music.

It's a mystery that Sennheiser discontinued them).

Anyway I wanted a pair of headphones with good ANC for concentration when working and making noise cancelled work phone/teams calls. I was also getting tired of the wire of the Sennheisers.

The idea was to get something that sounded (almost) as good as the Sennheisers.

The Bose 700's have 3 problems:
- It is impossible to get a consistent connection when using a Bluetooth dongle. I bought two different ones and spent a day on installing and deleting drivers but I still could only get a connection that constantly dropped. It worked fine with my phone

- Sound is a disappointment. Not horrible but nowhere near my Sennheisers and nowhere near EUR 400.

- The headphones get uncomfortable after an hour or two. They made the cups too shallow so my ears (no, I don't have flappy or otherwise weird ears), so they hit the wires/antennas inside

I must say noise cancelling is really good with the Bose's though.

In come the Valco's which seemed to be a bit of a gamble in all honesty. I still needed the ANC headphones for concentration and work calls so I figured at least I would feel less ripped off paying less than half the price if they proved to be crappy.

The set-up with the bluetooth dongle only took me 15mins as I had to download the right dongle drivers from Intel.

The sound in the Valcos struck me as overly bassy at first, with the kick drum hitting me in the head a bit. Clearly a more engineered bass than in the Sennheisers. After spending an hour or so with the Valcos, I learned to really appreciate the bassier sound as it brings out more groove and clearer bass lines in the music (great for funk etc.). The great part is that the bass actually doesn't drown the other detail in the music as you could expect. The details are very present and clear to hear; almost as good as my Sennheisers which I found very surprising. The result is actually a very rich experience that is even more fun to listen to than my Sennheisers. Now I love the Valco sound!

The noise cancelling is actually very effective, but focussing on persistent sounds. It blocks out vibrating mobile phones, my tumble drier, washing machine, dish washer, every day sounds. I have no issues concentrating on work at all.

Valco claims 40-45hrs battery life with ANC on, but due to my nervous nature I only dared go 2x12hrs before charging.

I have done a couple of calls with good feedback from the other party, but without any major noise in the background so I haven't really tested how noise cancelling works during calls yet.

As you may have figured, I can give you a warm recommendation to get these headphones. They are worth every penny and much more.

 

[Jazmanaut]

Jazmanaut from Valco here. Thank you for your great review!
Just came here to tell you, that we just launched a new model VMK20, that is even more neutral sounding and improved version. Check it out: valco.io

 

[NTomokawa]

@amirm You might wanna designate member "Jazmanaut" as "manufacturer".

 

[Jazmanaut]

@amirm You might wanna designate member "Jazmanaut" as "manufacturer".

That would be nice.

 

[Atratusnex]

Hi.
I'm looking for a decent (but not expensive) wireless headphones for outdoor listening, and I found this:
valco.io
They seem to be well built, and the marketing is funny. :-D
Do somebody have any reference, advice or opinion about them?
Thanks in advance.

They seem to be mostly identical to this one with different cups and different Bluetooth version . https://www.aliexpress.com/item/400...earchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_ for 3x the price

 

[Jazmanaut]

They seem to be mostly identical to this one with different cups and different Bluetooth version . https://www.aliexpress.com/item/400...earchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_ for 3x the price

Totally not ours. Similar headband construction, but thats it.

 

[Atratusnex]

Totally not ours. Similar headband construction, but thats it.

the headphone looks nearly identical to me without the wooden cup inlays, same buttons, same overall design

Where are the valco headphones manufactured? couldn't find anything about that on your site.

 

[Jazmanaut]

There is several very similar knockoffs from china nowdays. Thats the another good reason, that we changed the cup design. https://valco.io/

 

[Thördur]

@Jazmanaut Hello, is multipoint bluetooth being supported by Valco headsets?

 

[Jazmanaut]

Im not sure what do you mean by multipoint, but you can connect them to two devices at the same time.

 

[Atratusnex]

There is several very similar knockoffs from china nowdays. Thats the another good reason, that we changed the cup design. https://valco.io/

Can you tell me where the valco are made? Not in Finland i guess....( your ceo talks on LinkedIn about his job as partially " importing parts"
Is the driver your own design? is the headphone entirely your design, since you claim other products are copies?

I find it always strange if a seller doesn't show the country the product was made on their site. Gladly you guys are very upfront about the possibility to talk to you.

I don't want to act so harshly sceptical.
But the HIFI community is notorious for selling relabeld OEM parts with minor changes ( if at all).
I just want to be absolutely sure that this isn't what you guys are doing here.

Wish you a nice day.

 

[Jazmanaut]

Hello.
I truly understand your scepsicisim, and yes, we try to be as open to our customers, as possible.
Our product are designed and voiced here in Finland, and made in little but very capable factory in china. We are their biggest customers, and we are pretty small company our selves I cannot tell you more specific, because its about our businesss secrets after all.

Most of those copy products are much cheaper, that what we pay to our factory per units, so that should tell you something about things.

Here is my blog text about designing our previous model:
https://valco.io/blogs/blog/great-headphone-odyssey

 

[Thördur]

Im not sure what do you mean by multipoint, but you can connect them to two devices at the same time.

Thank you. That's what I meant.

 

[Atratusnex]

Hello.
I truly understand your scepsicisim, and yes, we try to be as open to our customers, as possible.
Our product are designed and voiced here in Finland, and made in little but very capable factory in china. We are their biggest customers, and we are pretty small company our selves I cannot tell you more specific, because its about our businesss secrets after all.

Most of those copy products are much cheaper, that what we pay to our factory per units, so that should tell you something about things.

Here is my blog text about designing our previous model:
https://valco.io/blogs/blog/great-headphone-odyssey

Thank you for your answer. I have seen (on some of your YouTube videos) some measurements of the valcos, but can't find them on your site. Can you share them and maybe even send amirm a review unit to get some measurements independently done?
That would be very interesting and you might be even allowed to use them on your site. ( if you ask , i think)

Last question for now: do you think about or plan to launch a spare parts store like ollo audio has done, to prevent waste if the headphone would fail after warranty ?

i actually like to see as much transparency as possible...like the DAC you are using etc. Im that kind of person how likes to know as much as possible about what they are buying.
A.N

 

[bogart]

@Jazmanaut your returns information page on the site is some of the better reading I've had on an audio manufacturer's page. Well done

 

[Jazmanaut]

Thank you for your answer. I have seen (on some of your YouTube videos) some measurements of the valcos, but can't find them on your site. Can you share them and maybe even send amirm a review unit to get some measurements independently done?
That would be very interesting and you might be even allowed to use them on your site. ( if you ask , i think)

Last question for now: do you think about or plan to launch a spare parts store like ollo audio has done, to prevent waste if the headphone would fail after warranty ?

i actually like to see as much transparency as possible...like the DAC you are using etc. Im that kind of person how likes to know as much as possible about what they are buying.
A.N

We do have quite liberal warrantypolicy and a maintenaince minnion, who fixes all things fixable.

 

[Atratusnex]

And the rest i asked ? i really don't know why you only answer one part of my questions and ignore the rest..... twice now .... either my English is to bad or you are to busy or you don't want to answer.

Let me repeat : if you don't plan a spare parts shop, can you share measurements ? Maybe even send amirm a review unit to get some measurements independently done? What parts are you using? DAC for example. ( or driver)

Thank you

 

[Jazmanaut]

Sorry. Been bysy and on mobile whole day. All of those informations and mesurements you asked, can be found in our web page.

...and now that I looked, they are a bit messed up, and the product page does not show all the info. But if you go to the main page and scroll down, woop there it is! Got to fix this one!
https://valco.io

Yeah, I might send a pair for Amir in some point, but I'm not sure if he can measure thru bluetooth on his system?

And as said, we don't sell spareparts, but we do fix and send them for free when needed. Our returns are counted by a promilles, when bigger brands are counting even tens of percents.

 

[Atratusnex]

Sorry. Been bysy and on mobile whole day. All of those informations and mesurements you asked, can be found in our web page.

...and now that I looked, they are a bit messed up, and the product page does not show all the info. But if you go to the main page and scroll down, woop there it is! Got to fix this one!
https://valco.io

Yeah, I might send a pair for Amir in some point, but I'm not sure if he can measure thru bluetooth on his system?

And as said, we don't sell spareparts, but we do fix and send them for free when needed. Our returns are counted by a promilles, when bigger brands are counting even tens of percents.

We all get sometimes busy. it's fine.
amirm can measure Bluetooth headphones, I'm pretty sure about that. ( since he has measured Bluetooth dac and headphones in the past.) that you for this measurement, is this the 19 or the 20 version?

Take care