Mixx StreamQ C4 Review

Introduction

Budget headphones are not hard to come by these days – good ones, though, can be harder to find.

Appealing as the price first looks when you eye a new pair on Amazon or another website, in many cases you’re trading affordability over performance. For some that’s a fair trade to make.

For others, maybe not so; and while you’ll never get the performance of a Sony WH-1000XM6 from a pair of over-ears under £100, you can get a respectable enough performance for the outlay.

The Mixx StreamQ C4 over-ears are headphones that aim for that respectable bang for your buck, and if it weren’t for a few issues, they wouldn’t be too far off delivering it either.

Design

• Physical controls
• Wired inputs
• Foldable design

The StreamQ C4 look, unsurprisingly, like a pair of over-ears; a case of function over style considering the budget price. The plastic frame is befitting of the price but helps keep the heapdhones light (around 240g), the earpads and headband combine to provide a solid sense of comfort with a clamping force that’s not too tight to cause discomfort.

There’s no stepless slider, so adjusting the headband does make a bit of noise. The design is foldable, although as far as I can see there’s no carry case or pouch provided for travel. The headphones plastic coating does make them susceptible to marks and smudges.

Operating the headphones was slightly confusing at first. Buttons for power/playback and volume are all placed in the usual position but noise-cancelling controls were a little tricky to find until it became slightly more obvious with the curved line that says “Active Noise Cancelling” on the right earcup.

Click that and you’ll be able to flit between ANC and transparency modes which is a little different from the usual button arrangement (though a ‘normal’ button would have sufficed)

Colours are choice of black and sand (basically white); while you’ve got USB-C (charging) and 3.5mm ( audio) inputs provided.

Features

• Bluetooth multipoint
• 40 hours per charge
• No app

The Mixx StreamQ C4 are not what you would describe as extensive for features. There’s Bluetooth 5.3 support, naturally, with AAC streaming onboard to provide a decent level of audio quality.

There’s also Bluetooth multipoint for connecting to two devices at the same time.

Mixx is claiming 40 hours per charge for the StreamQ C4 which is more than just respectable – that’s longer than efforts such as the Sony WH-1000XM6 and AirPods Max.

In reality I reckon you could get even more than that. Performing a battery drain with a Spotify playlist at 50% volume, and the headphones fell to 90% charge after five hours of listening. That implies you could unlock even more battery performance from these pair of headphones.

Fast-charging is supported, and that provides another eight hours of battery from a quick 15-minute charge. Full charge time from a dead battery takes two hours.

There’s no app, no EQ button to change the style of the audio. You’re furnished with the basics and that’s it.

Noise Cancellation

• Transparency mode
• Not the strongest ANC

I’ve learnt to be wary about the claims from brands when it comes to noise-cancellation, especially with budget headphones. The Mixx StreamQ C4’s ANC does reduce noise by not a by a whole lot. The performance here is more about reducing environmental noise than full-on removal of all the noises around you. It feels like the Night mode button you’d use on your home sound system.

With ANC on I can still hear what’s happening around me, and when I’m using the headphones at home with the door closed, I can still hear someone moving about upstairs. On public transport voices manage to get through, as does the sound of a construction site as I walk past. It’s certainly isn’t the most conclusive performance but it does dial down and muffle the intensity of sounds around me.

The Transparency mode filters through sounds to ears but it does so with the element of additional noise that doesn’t make for the clearest performance. Given the relative weakness of the ANC performance, the difference between blocking out sounds and letting them in is not the widest.

What if you want to take calls? The performance is good enough for the price in terms of voice pick-up and clarity but there’s not much noise-cancelling happening to suppress sounds around you. My voice has been competing against a lot of noise which makes it harder for the person on the other end to hear me. In quiet areas it’ll be fine but it gets worse in noisier areas.

Sound Quality

• Decent clarity and detail
• Not quite a natural-sounding tone
• Reserved performance with treble and bass

The audio performance of the Mixx StreamQ C4 is not too shabby for the price. The emphasis here is on balance, and the StreamQ C4 achieves a decent equilibrium across the frequency range. They’re not particularly exciting or dynamic, the tuning is more towards the reserved side, but all this should be considered in lieu of the asking price.

Treble is the area where the StreamQ C4 doesn’t feel its strongest. It’s not that highs don’t sound detailed or aren’t described with decent clarity for the £50 asking price; but there does feel as if there’s a slightly recessed quality to the highs, shorn of a bit more sharpness to tease out more brightness, with a slightly brittle tone to them.

Perhaps a recessed tone isn’t the right word, but there’s definitely a sense of restraint to the overall sound. The soundstage is wide and spacious but also distant. Voices and instruments seem far away to the point where the headphones sound quiet, event at its default volume. Raise the volume up and that brings the soundstage forward, but it doesn’t alleviate the Stream Q C4 of its other problems.

Namely, that it lacks a degree of sharpness, detail and also a naturalism to its sound. Things just sound a little off, so while clarity is actually pretty decent, the headphones don’t quite strike the right tone in terms of how vocalists and instruments should sound.

Midrange clarity and detail is decent, in spite of its tone, though there’s more clarity and a better tone struck with the noise-cancellation turned off. It’s another reason why I think ANC for cheaper headphones doesn’t always help.

The bass shares the same reserved output as the rest of the sound. At default listening levels there’s a presence of bass in Justice’s Genesis but it lacks punch and a real sense of solidity and depth. Raise the volume and there’s more punch to the low frequencies but the headphones reserved nature and that slightly amiss tone means there’s a ceiling to how good the bass, and the overall sound, can be.

Should you buy it?

FAQs