Golzer BANC-50 Bluetooth 4.1 High Fidelity Active Noise Cancelling Wireless OverEar Headphones w/apt-x

No two people have exactly the same hearing or listening preferences. This is why reviews are often contradictory. That said, here are my impressions of the Golzer Banc-50s.I was interested in these headphones primarily because they offered Bluetooth 4.1 with AptX (courtesy of the CSR8645 chipset) and Active Noise Cancelling for audio at a reasonable price. Although this chipset can provide cVc noise cancelling technology for speech the headphone specification makes no mention of it.With ANC off, these headphones sounded good. They offer a rich warm mellow tone that is enjoyable and easy to listen. Listening to Bach’s cello suite, the cello had a big warm woody sound with a sweet treble. On Jazz tracks like the Buddy Rich Big Band and Yellow Jacket tracks, brass, drums and cymbals all sounded natural. There is ample bass. The sound was relaxing with no edginess or unpleasant treble effects. AptX may help here. Volume was plentiful and the rotary volume dial was convenient to use with no crackling noises. Pairing and connecting was easy.With ANC on and no music playing, the ANC worked more or less as expected, removing much unwanted low frequency noises quite effectively e.g. traffic noise.With ANC on, music had much less bass and too much emphasis on the upper mids and treble creating a thin, harsh, tinny sound which lacked the appeal of the sound without ANC. I found it unpleasant to listen to, a bit like listening to music on a telephone. I do not expect ground-breaking noise cancellation at this price point but I do expect the music to be enjoyable to listen to whether ANC is on or off.This is the fourth pair of ANC headphones I have owned. My Taotronic TT-BH060s and TT-EP01s do a much better job of filtering out unwanted low frequency noise without negatively affecting audio quality compared to the Banc-50s. My Mpow H10 over-ear Bluetooth headphones had a slight tendency towards sibilance in the treble when ANC was switched on but the effect was not very noticeable, unlike the Banc-50s.What I liked:- 1) How they sound with noise cancelling turned off. 2) They have Bluetooth 4.1 and CSR8645 chipset with AptX. 3) They are well designed, comfortable and have all the convenience of wireless headphones.What I don’t like:- 1) ANC is effectively useless for listening to music. It is only useful for blocking out annoying low frequency noise like aircraft or washing machine etc. 2) No mention of cVc microphone noise cancelling on speech even though the CSR8645 can support it.