After working from home (like many in 2020) for half of the year, I realised my current set up at home picked up a lot of background noise.

I looked online and there were many headsets with noise-cancelling (for listening), but far fewer that had microphones with noise cancelling. I think this is normally achieved by having multiple microphones and cancelling out the ones that do not come from the microphone next to the mouth.

I watched/read plenty of reviews of headsets with microphones that had some kind of noise cancelling, and decided it boiled down to the Logitech Zone Wired and the Jabra Evolve2 40. Most reviews I found online (especially YouTube) rated them very highly.

Initially, I went with the Jabra Evolve 2 40, but ended up returning it to Amazon and bought the Logi Zone Wired.

The TL;DR of this short review: The Jabra Evolve2 40 had much worse sound quality, the buttons on the side did not do anything, but the main reason was that the noise cancellation wasn't any good. The Logi Zone Wired has better sound quality (not the best), the buttons work, is slightly more comfortable but most important: you cannot hear background conversations (the mic noise reduction is great!)

This review will mostly focus on the microphone noise reduction, as that was the main reason I bought these headphones.

My review of the Jabra Evolve2 40

The Evolve2 40 headphones are made by Jabra, a company who seem to specialise in audio equipment for places such as call centres. This is why I thought they would perform better than the Logitech ones.

They arrived in a small box and came with a black carry case. I cannot see this being useful unless you travel a lot and take headphones with you. As these have a microphone boom attached, and are connected via USB I can't imagine you would ever travel with them except for work.

They are comfortable enough for video calls, but I found them annoying if I wore them all day. They are adjustable but start to ache a bit after a couple of hours.

The sound quality is good enough. I didn't buy these headphones to listen to music to, so I wasn't too bothered. I would not recommend them if you want the best sound quality.

I think they're available in both USB-A and USB-C. Amazon only had the USB-A one, so that is what I went with.

The microphone boom seemed adequate, although it did feel a bit flimsy. A positive was that you could use it on either ear. (Unlike the Logitech one).

There are some buttons on the side of one of the headphone ears, however, on MacBook they didn't seem to do anything. There was no way to use the mute button. I suspect that it is meant to work only when using something such as Microsoft Teams or Skype. I only tested it with Google Meet, which within the Chrome browser does not support headphone buttons.

Mirophone Noise Cancellation of the Jabra

I found the noise cancellation on the microphone of the Jabra Evolve2 40 to barely work.

Any background noise (including conversations from others nearby) could easily be heard.

They did offer more background noise cancellation than my normal microphone or the one built into my Macbook. But I was very unimpressed with this microphone's ability to mask background noise - the decrease in background noise was not too great.

My review of the Logitech Zone Wired (Logi Zone Wired)

After sending back the Jabra Evolve2 40 to Amazon, I bought the Logi Zone Wired, which I had read reviews saying their microphone has great background noise reduction via its microphone noise reduction.

Straight away I was much more impressed with the Logitech Zone Wired.

The sound quality that you hear when wearing them is much better. They aren't the best headphones I have, but they're good enough to have music on while working.

They come with in-line controls, which let you mute, adjust volume and play/pause. These worked (unlike the Jabra ones).

The device will also mute when the microphone boom is raised (to the side of the head). There is an audio voice that tells you when it goes into or out of mute mode, which is very useful.

Unlike the Jabra headphones, the Logitech Zone Wired are quite comfortable. Not the best I've had, but I have worn these for 8+ hour workdays and not been bothered by them.

Microphone Noise cancellation of the Logitech Zone Wired

The microphone noise cancellation on the Logitech Zone Wired is amazing. I can have a conversation with someone in the same room and you can barely hear the other person.

(You can hear a very quiet voice from the other person talking - as if they're downstairs and you are upstairs. It isn't enough that people you are talking to on voice chat would easily listen to background conversations in your room.)

The fact that the noise cancellation works so well on these Logitech headphones has made me consider that maybe the Jabra headphones (which also claim to do microphone noise cancellation) were just broken.

If you work from home in 2020 and have other people around you, and are fed up of their voices being heard in your voice chats then I would recommend these headphones.

I found that the Logitech Zone Wired microphone noise reduction really did reduce background noise - including kitchen noises (microwaves, taps, etc) and nearby conversations.

Overall - best headphones in 2020 for microphone noise cancellation

Hands down the best noise cancellation from headphones that I have found are the Logitech Zone Wired.

I've used them for a few weeks now and can still recommend the Logi Zone Wired if you want to reduce background noise being recoded by your headset microphone.