Over the past several months the popular unified communications (UC) company Poly has updated its line of wireless headset solutions with several new products.

One of the new headset products the company introduced during this period is the Voyager Surround 80 UC. Street priced at around $450, the new over-the-ear wireless headphone is designed to balance users’ work activities, and their personal entertainment, including streaming media.

The new headphones from Poly incorporate the company’s latest active noise cancelling (ANC) technologies to make those conference calls and audiophile listening sessions as clear as possible without the distractions of outside noise.

Poly Voyager Surround 80 UC Headphones Support Modern Lifestyles

The nice thing about today’s headphone products, including the Poly Voyager Surround 80 UC Wireless Headphones is this product is something that users can take to work to use for conference calls and then listen to headphones on their train commute home from the office.

The headphones come with a carrying case, along with a USB-C to 2.5mm cable; a USB-C Bluetooth adapter, a USB-C to USB-A adapter, and a USB-C to USB-C charging cable.

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The company recommends to users to connect the included Bluetooth Adapter to their computers, and Poly notes the headphones out of the box ship as a Microsoft Teams communications solution for turnkey Teams communications.

Internally, the headphones utilize six built-in microphones to enable clear and intelligible phone and conference calls, along with an additional four microphones to support the Voyager Surround 80 UC headphones’ ANC capabilities. The headphone also utilizes 40mm drivers, and the headphones provide Bluetooth 5.3 wireless options.

Poly points out the headphones offers IT managers tools such as its Poly Lens program that allows for headphone deployment, as well as configuration, updates and more. The headphones are also supported by the company’s Poly Lens App.

The app allows users to setup their preferred settings, and the app allows for system updates. Using the app under “general” functions I started the setup with the noise cancelling options.

After trying the noise cancelling choices, I opted for the “standard” setting, which worked well in my opinion. Excusing the play on words, for transparency purposes I also set “Transparency” option to “Speech,” which my guess is some type of EQ (equalization) curve that highlights the upper midrange and lower treble regions even though I could not notice a difference with music. I also set the “equalizer” to flat, and under “advanced,” I activated the “anti-startle” function to avoid the possibility of any surprising loud audio levels hitting my ears while wearing the headphones.

I’ll also note the headphone app communicates battery level and connectivity.

In addition, Poly points out the Voyager Surround 80 UC headphones provide up to 21 hours of talk time and up to 24 hours of listening time.

Moving on the performance of the headphones, I have enjoyed my time with the products. Once I completed my setup in the Lens App, including software updates, I used the headphones mostly for music listening. That listening included airline travel, which I thought the ANC functions worked well to minimize the high levels of background noise sitting in the middle of a plane.

I also used the Poly headphones for calls on my iPhone 13 Pro. For these duties the Voyager Surround 80s provided me with the intelligibility necessary to clearly understand conversations at a variety of quality levels, which can be an issue with everyone on cell phones these days.

Elaborating on my music listening with the headphones. I think the Poly Voyager Surround 80 UC headphones deliver a fun, enjoyable quality listening experience that included a variety of content such as Alanis Morrisette, David Bowie, Rush, Boston, and the Foo Fighters.

The headphones image well with sound placement such as percussion, including cowbell, China cymbals and more from Rush’s newly Atmos remixed “Signals” album audible from various locations within the stereo image. The headphones are also dynamic. The remixed Rush album seems to emphasize upper bass frequencies and those tones came through thick and detailed, but at the same time, delicate acoustic guitar parts like the intro to Alanis Morrisette’s “Ironic” rang through nicely with impressive harmonic detail.

I think in the flat EQ position the headphones were also tonally neutral. I didn’t hear any sort of coloration in Alanis’ voice or male singers such as Brad Delp and Dave Grohl.

Adding it all up, the Poly Voyager Surround 80 UC headphones are an excellent all-around performer for everything like music and video streaming, phone calls, and conferencing calls. Maybe the only deduction of points for some users will be the size of the headphones, particularly in their carrying case. The case in a backpack will take up space and that could mean something when traveling.

As you can tell, I am very enthusiastic about the latest Poly headphones, and I highly recommend that if someone’s in the market for a new set of wireless headphones that can do nearly anything, go checkout the new Poly Voyager Surround 80 UC headphones. If you’re interested, you can also check out my review on the Poly Voyager Free 60+ Earbuds for an affordable earbud alternative.

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