REVIEW: The Orosound Tilde Pro Premium C+ Bluetooth headset is a serious audio listening and speaking device. This headset will not be found on the impulse-buy hangers at your office supply store. (The price was my first clue.) You can listen casually with the Tilde Pro, but if you want excellent sound reproduction from a Bluetooth device, and that can be hard to come by, read on to see what the Tilde Pro can do.

What is it

The Orosound Tilde Pro Premium C Plus is a high-end, Bluetooth, automatic noise cancellation headphone with removable boom and built-in microphones.

What’s in the box

• Orosound Tilde Pro Premium C Plus headphones
• Detachable boom microphone
• Instructions and warranty
• Charging / direct connection cable
• Zippered fabric carry case

Hardware specs

• Designed & manufactured in France
• Battery life: 28 Hours
• Weight: 9.5 ounces
• HD Music
• Microphone type: 6 noise-canceling microphones
• Wireless: Bluetooth 5.0
• Wireless range: 60 Feet
• Active Noise Cancelling (ANC) – 4 microphones for noise reduction to speakers
• Patented magnetic removable microphone boom
• 3 Busy lights: 1 on left speaker, 1 on right speaker, 1 on mic boom
• Modular ear speakers. Upgrade, change, or replace speakers from over-the-ear to on-ear speakers
• Use as wired headset with USB-C to USB-A cable

The ear cups are very easy to remove and the on-ear replacements are under $25 if you want to have both.

Design and features

• Detachable and interchangeable parts
• Comfortable over-the-ear padding around speaker cups
• Noise cancelling ‘focus’ mode, or ‘aware’ mode
• Detachable boom microphone
• Plug and play connection

Installation and Setup

I fully charged the Orosound Tilde Pro C Plus headset, then paired it to my phone and Chromebook. The connections were made as quickly with the Tilde Pro as with any high-end devices I’ve previously paired.

Testing and observations

MUSIC QUALITY Highs and lows in music are easily discernible through the Orosound Tilde Pro. If I must vote I’d say its lows are its strong suit, but the highs were pleasantly present as I listened to my few usual audio test music selections.

AUTOMATIC NOISE CANCELLING MODEAt low noise levels indoors I could only tell a slight difference with ANC mode turned off or on. Then I wore the set while mowing. Oh my goodness. The Tilde Pros -really- brought the noise to a level so low I was able to listen to a radio station stream at normal volume. With some other devices I’ve used when mowing, the volume has to be so loud that it defeats the purpose of having the hearing protection on.

With the ANC feature on, a slight hiss is produced, presumably to help cover external sounds. Isolation from external sounds is pretty complete with the C Plus headset whether ANC is off or on. If our den is silent, I can barely hear a wall clock ticking with ANC off. With ANC on I cannot hear the clock ticking. In contrast, if I repeatedly and lightly tap a pen on my laptop I can hear the clicking whether ANC is off or on, with not much difference in the perceived volume of the pen sound. But see again my experience when mowing. The ANC really worked well in a loud noise environment.

PHONE CALL QUALITYTo test phone call quality I enlisted the help of a friend who has a phone line through his fiber internet service provider. He claims my phone call sound quality using the Orosound Tilde Pro was as good as the old ‘phone company’ days of wired landline phones.

During our call, I made three voice quality comparisons. I spoke with the headset boom mic attached, then with the boom mic disconnected, thus using the built-in headset microphones, and finally by speaking directly into my cell phone with the Tilde Pro turned off.

My friend reported that my voice sound quality was best when using the boom mic on the Tilde Pro as compared to using my phone directly. But he noted that my voice volume was very slightly lower using the Tilde Pro with the boom mic in place vs. using my phone directly. My vocal quality through the headset’s built-in mic (boom mic removed) was understandable, but was reported to be the lowest vocal sound quality of these 3 comparisons.

VOICE ISOLATIONMaybe this is personal preference, but I don’t enjoy phone calls or online conferences when using any style of headset that isolates my voice from my own audio. The Tilde Pro does that. Maybe it’s a bit different with the on-ear speakers vs. the over-ear style that I tested. The C Plus is over-ear style.

There is a software solution if you use Windows, which I don’t. As a Chromebook user I’m out of luck. Apple software will be issued in the future. For Windows users who buy Orosound headsets, the software for fine-tuning the headset can be had at https://www.orosound.com/orosound-link/

Tech support said the feature that provides adjustable levels of one’s voice into phone call / Zoom call audio is called ‘Side Tone’. Is the desire for that feature so rare that it has to be delivered via downloadable software, and only to Windows users who must connect their headphones to a computer by wire? No, that feature should be built into the Orosound Tilde Pro headsets.

I know this isolation tends to make me talk louder and just feels unnatural. When you and I make phone calls with our cell phones we hear our voices and we hear the other party. If a headset isolates me from my voice during a call or conference it is, for me, unpleasant.

VOICE QUALITYI tested my voice quality with the Orosound Tilde Pro headset paired to my phone and made several recordings using the Google Recorder app. Audio quality was excellent, and I could tell no difference with boom mic attached or detached. The quality of the audio recording was better with the Tilde Pro, either via boom mic or without, than with my phone alone.

This view shows the power on-off, the ANC on-off (push in) and ANC level control (rocker up or down), and the USB C port.

What I like

• Build quality of the Orosound Tilde Pro C Plus including fit, finish and operation is excellent. The headset has no detectable physical flaws whatsoever. The Premium C Plus looks, feels and performs like a professional headset.
• The ANC feature performed very well for me in high noise environments.
• The set was comfortable during chores, workouts or long phone calls.

This view of the left ear cup shows the plus button for up volume (short press), advance (long press), minus button for volume down (short press), and previous track (long press), and pause control (short press).

The round black center piece of the ear cup is to choose ‘aware’ or ‘focus’ mode and to answer or hang up phone calls. ‘Aware’ is so you can talk to someone in person without having to remove the headset. ‘Focus’ feeds the audio from the source to the speakers again.

What I’d change

The Side Tone feature, which inputs the headphone user’s voice into the speakers during phone or conference calls, should be a standard feature built into these pricey headphones.

Final thoughts

The Orosound Tilde Pro Premium C Plus headphone set is not cheap, but I think you can pay double this price for audio as good. The device is extremely well made and delivers excellent sound from any source. If you’re done with unpredictable quality from low-end devices, the Tilde Pro line is worth a serious look.

Price: $399.99Where to buy: Headset AdvisorSource: The sample for this review was provided by Headset Advisor.