These noise-cancelling headphones allow you to adjust what you hear

The biggest issue with noise-cancelling headphones is the same as their biggest advantage: they’re noise-cancelling. While this can be exceptionally useful when you want to focus on listening to one thing, it can be annoying when you want to hear someone talking to you, or even hear yourself speaking. This is an issue that the OnVocal Mix360 wants to fix with its mobile app that allows you to adjust what you hear.

Have you ever worn noise-canceling headphones and wished they were, you know, not so noise-canceling? That’s the idea behind OnVocal Mix360, a pair of behind-the-neck headphones that let you adjust exactly what you hear. The headphones themselves are sound-isolating, passively blocking out most ambient noise. But the magic happens when you pair your Mix360 with the accompanying app (iOS and Android), which lets you adjust the levels of the three sounds you’re experiencing: the music you’re listening to, the ambient noise and your own voice. You control all three inputs with sliders on the app. When you make an adjustment, the Mix360’s three microphones go to work, bringing in the sounds you want to hear — similar to Bose’s noise-canceling earbuds.