Plantronics Voyager 6200 UC Review

At $299.95, Plantronics' Voyager 6200 UC Bluetooth earphones aren't cheap, but they're loaded with features.

You get active noise cancellation (ANC), a desktop charging cradle, and a USB Bluetooth accessory for streaming audio from your computer.

While the ANC is decent, the audio output is wildly sculpted, and voice call quality is just average.

Some sub-bass lovers will be pleased, but those seeking anything close to accuracy will not.

That would be OK for a much lower price, but nothing here rises to the level of quality set by the high price tag.

Design

Available in black or tan models with red cabling, the earphones have a flexible, soft matte rubber neckband with the thin cables connecting to rather chunky, but lightweight, earpieces.

The silicone eartips have an extra section that rests against your ear for improved stability and a more secure fit.

The in-ear fit is comfortable, but for the price, more eartips would've been nice—there are only three pairs included, each a different size.

A multifunction button on the inside of the right end of the neckband handles playback, track navigation (when pressed multiple times), and call management (when held down for two seconds), while dedicated plus and minus buttons on the outside handle volume control.

A small power/pairing button is located near the connection point for the right ear's audio cable.

On the left side, there's a large red button that mutes your mic, a status LED, and a button that controls the ANC.

The neckband vibrates to alert you of incoming calls, which is unique.

In addition to pairing via Bluetooth with a mobile device, the earphones can be wirelessly linked to your computer using the included BT600 USB adapter.

Simply plug it in to your computer and stream audio from the adapter to the Voyager 6200 UC if your computer doesn't make a direct connection to the headset.

There's also an included charging base accessory that can plug into your computer or any USB outlet and act as a desktop cradle for quickly charging the earpphones.

You can also just use the included micro USB charging cable, which connects to a covered port on the right end of the neckband.

In addition to the aforementioned accessories, the earphones ship with an exceptionally flat zip-up protective case that is ideal for travel.

Plantronics estimates battery life to be roughly 16 hours for music playback and 9 hours for talk time, but your results will vary based on your volume levels and your mix of calls and audio playback.

Plantronics also claims a 90-foot Bluetooth range, whereas most models are about 33 feet.

Our own testing didn't yield those results, but performance was solid within 40 to 50 feet.

Call Quality

The four-mic array uses digital signal processing (DSP).

Using the Voice Memos app on an iPhone 6s, we could understand every word recorded, but the audio was laced with fuzzy artifacts and in no way conveyed any advantage these four mics provide over what we typically hear.

The mic system is at least smart—if you start to talk while the headset is muted, you'll receive a voice prompt telling you so.

The earphones are certified for Skype for Business, and have built-in features that eliminate or tamp down transient audio spikes so that loud noises don't disrupt calls.

The mic did a decent job of eliminating some loud low frequency rumble we pumped up while trying to have a conversation—on the other end, you can hear the speaker's voice and virtually none of the background noise.

The issue is that mic clarity is still quite average—it doesn't sound like a crystal clear, business-friendly Bluetooth headset.

It sounds more like your typical Bluetooth earphone mic.

Beyond this, when there's more challenging noise in the background—some rock music, for instance—it becomes nearly impossible to understand the person speaking.

The noise cancellation gets confused and cancels out aspects of the music along with the speaker's voice, as well.

If you're more interested in voice calls than music, you're better off with a traditional Bluetooth headset.

Audio Performance

The Voyager 6200 UC's ANC does a laudable job of tamping down intense low frequency rumble like you'll hear on a plane, as well as high-to-mid-frequency ambient noise like the whir of an AC unit.

It's not the best ANC we've heard by any stretch, and like plenty of other noise-canceling models, the circuitry adds a high frequency, tape-like hiss to the equation—it's not unpleasant, but it does mask some of the noise rather than eliminate it.

The noise cancellation doesn't seem to have a real impact on the audio performance, which is a positive.

That said, if you're after the best in-ear noise cancellation in a wireless pair, the Bose QuietControl 30 earphones are hard to beat.

See How We Test Headphones

For music, on tracks with intense sub-bass content, like The Knife's "Silent Shout," the earphones deliver an exceptionally sculpted sound signature that won't appeal to audiophiles.

The bass depth is powerful, and at top, unwise levels, it doesn't distort.

However, the highs are wildly sculpted—they sound crisp, sure, but things are altered dramatically.

Bill Callahan's "Drover," a track with far less deep bass in the mix, gives us a better sense of the Voyager 6200 UC's sound signature.

The drums on this track are insanely thunderous—the lows are very heavily boosted.

The highs are also sculpted to an intense degree—the tape hiss comes forward in the mix, and Callahan's rich baritone vocals get a sharp treble edge to match their bass presence.

The end result is a mix that sounds very scooped—lots of bass, lots of treble, and very little in the way of mids.

On Jay-Z and Kanye West's "No Church in the Wild," the kick drum loop's attack receives plenty of high-mid presence to help it cut through the mix's layers, while the sub-bass synth hits that punctuate the beat are delivered with serious, subwoofer-like gusto.

The vocals receive perhaps too much high-mid presence—they sound a tad too bright or thin, sometimes overly sibilant—but you can always understand them, even when the sub-bass is booming.

Orchestral tracks, like the opening scene from John Adams' The Gospel According to the Other Mary, get far too much bass-boosting for anyone seeking an accurate response.

But it is at least counterbalanced by a solid high-mid and high frequency presence.

Again, the sound is scooped, and we get more bass depth and brightness than we typically hear, and the mids seem to have gone missing.

Conclusions

The Voyager 6200 UC's mega-bass audio performance isn't awful, but it's nowhere near accurate.

As a jack of all trades that seamlessly transitions from wireless headset to active noise cancellation to music playback, the earphones are solid, but still priced higher than we'd like to see.

For a similar price, the aforementioned Bose QuietControl 30, as well as the wireless, noise-canceling (but not in-ear) Bose QuietComfort 35 II, AKG N60 NC Wireless, and Sony WH-1000XM2 deliver more accurate wireless audio, and in some cases, better noise cancellation.

They may not have as many additional features, but they get the basics right, which is more important.