Poly Voyager Focus 2 review: pro headset has clear voice, surprise oomph

The Poly Voyager Focus 2 headset surprised me. Arriving in a nondescript cardboard box (a commendable move by Poly/HP to make packaging more eco-friendly), I didn't expect much beyond your regular call-centre headset, with its thin build, on-ear cups (rather than over-ear ones), and that customer-service-like mic wand attached to the left cup (or right? There's no labelling to indicate which way to orient the set). 

But while they may not top our list of the best noise-cancelling headphones, I came away mightily impressed and surprised after my few weeks with them, by not just the focus-enhancing noise-cancellation on offer, but the depth of the sound quality across music genres too. If it wasn't for that mic wand making me self-conscious, I'd happily wear it out and about for general use...

Poly Voyager Focus 2 review: Key specifications

Poly Voyager Focus 2 review: Design and build

The Poly Voyager Focus 2 is not a traditional pair of headphones. Instead, this is a teleconference-focused headset, with a mic boom/wand attached to one earcup and traditional-looking on-ear cushions (as opposed to the headphone-like Voyager 8200 UC we reviewed just before the new year, which have larger over-ear cushions). 

The headband is much narrower too, with a flexing thin metallic band rising above the cushioned faux leather that conforms to your head shape. It's overall a much more lightweight construction, and it weighs a lot less than the 8200, at only 175 grams in total, through a combination of plastics, light metal and faux leather. The headband metal is matte grey while the rest of the set is black.

Similarly to the 8200, though, there is a lot of clever innovation built into the headset. One cup includes volume control and a play/pause buttons, depending on where you press it, while the other one can answer and hang up on phone calls via a simple press. 

There's an on/off/Bluetooth switch, which if you press it slightly further up, puts the set into pairing mode, and there's one other switch, which toggles between ANC being off and in one of two intensity modes. 

The padding on the earcups is soft and very comfortable to wear, but as is the case with most on-ear headphones in my experience, you do feel your ears getting slightly hot after a couple of hours of wear. Also, as I wear glasses most of the time, the cushions press ever-so-slightly on the temples. What counters potential discomfort is the lightweight build and the ample flex in the headband, which keeps the touch light.  

Unlike the Voyager 8200 UC, there is a mic wand on the Focus 2, which can be rotated up and down, and is made from lightweight plastic, with the microphone built into both sides of the boom, so you can rotate the headset to have the mic on either your right or left ear without affecting the voice pickup by the mics.

A slight downside to the lightweight build is that I always felt a little scared I'd break something, as there's quite a lot of wobble and flex, although that may just have been me paranoid about breaking an expensive loan unit...

Poly Voyager Focus 2 review: Features and audio performance

The Poly Voyager Focus 2 comes with a host of smart features that you'll also find on board the 8200 UC, including two-step digital hybrid active noise cancellation, voice-clarity tech for videoconferencing and phone calls and multiple MEMS mics to deliver your voice clearly to your recipients.

There are also nifty features like auto-muting the mic wand by simply pointing it upwards, and if your connected phone rings while you're not wearing the headset, simply putting it on answers the call. The same applies to music playback; taking the headset off will pause your music (or film), whether it's Spotify, your phone's media player, a video-streaming app or BBC Sounds on your internet browser, and reapplying it will resume playback. 

While the active noise-cancellation in the 8200 UC disappointed me slightly, I found the ANC performance here more satisfying. Yes, I could still hear my fingers clacking away on my very clacky keyboard, but it filters out most environmental sounds without feeling like I've got blocked ears. With no over-ear cushioning, the effect is reduced slightly, but even so, it was on par with many purpose-built ANC headphones. 

As expected from a triple-figure teleconferencing headset, the voice quality during phone calls and video calls on my PC was predictably excellent, with clear voices coming my way, even with multiple participants, and no complaints over my voice going the other way. 

What did surprise me was the quality of non-voice audio, i.e. music and cinema. I found the Focus 2 headset to have a fantastic depth to the sound, with more bass than expected while retaining very decent mids and highs. It's not quite at the level of studio-quality headphones (the frequency response isn't quite as wide), but it gets impressively close. 

The Bluetooth connectivity is fairly straightforward, and the headset links up almost immediately once it's been paired to a device once. You can connect to two devices simultaneously, so I had it hooked up to my phone and my laptop at the same time. When a phone call came in, it would pause music playback on the laptop automagically, although I did have to press play manually once I'd hung up on the colleague/family member/scam caller in question.

Battery life is very competitive too, with 40 hours of playback quoted with ANC off, and up to 24 hours with it on. The presence of the charging stand also means the battery stays topped up, so I never got any 'range anxiety' from the battery. 

Speaking of range anxiety, the Bluetooth connection is quoted to reach up to 50 metres, much more than the usual 10 you see on most headphones and earbuds. That makes this headset ideal for large offices. I didn't test the outer limits of this claim, but travelling around my home and garden didn't present the headset with any challenges, even when confronted with a few walls and about 15 metres in between my laptop and my head. 

Poly Voyager Focus 2 review: Price

The Poly Voyager Focus 2 is a premium headset, so it comes with a premium asking price, or $247.99 in the US and £229.99 in the UK. Thankfully, there are frequent discounts available, both on HP/Poly's own sales portal and with third-party sellers like Amazon, so do shop around for this one and you should be able to score a pair for a figure starting with 1, at least.

Should I buy the Poly Voyager Focus 2?

The Poly Voyager Focus 2 is not a 'casual' headset, and the maker acknowledges that themselves, describing it as ideal for 'professionals on calls all day in noisy home or office environments looking for a premium solution'. If you fall within that crowd, or you're making a purchase decision for employees who fit that description, they will be worth the substantial outlay. Providing clear voice audio, they also give you a music/cinema sound quality you won't find in many other mic-boom teleconferencing headsets. Of course, the price tag reflects that, and if you like your headset on the sturdier side, you may need to look elsewhere, but if you have a nimble touch (and enough money), the Poly Voyager Focus 2 will do quite nicely, thank you.