Creative SXFI Air Wireless Headphones Review

The Creative SXFI Air are sleek-looking headphones. They have a matte finish that looks nice, and the headband is well-padded with a leather-like fabric. The ear cup pads are thick and made from a porous fabric. They are bulky over-ears, and there’s RGB lighting around the cups. They come in an all-black design or white with black pads.

The Creative SXFI Air are quite comfortable over-ear headphones. They might feel a bit big for some, and the mesh fabric is a bit rough on the skin, which not everyone will like. However, the cups are very deep and should suit most ear shapes and sizes. Also, the headband is well-padded and distributes the weight of the headphones well.

The Creative SXFI Air's controls are decent. There’s a touch-sensitive surface on the back of the cups that acts as your control scheme. The touch commands aren't always consistent, but you can control calls, music, and your volume. While they're easy to use, the inconsistencies of the surface can be frustrating at times. On the upside, you also have a source/Bluetooth physical button to switch between your different sources. You can even insert a microSD card with pre-loaded music and use that source button to play files on it.

Like most over-ear headphones, the Creative SXFI Air aren’t the most breathable option. On the upside, the cup padding is porous and allows some airflow, but you might still sweat more than usual if you wear these headphones during sports. You shouldn’t have any issues during a casual listening session.

These headphones are bulky, even for over-ears. They also don’t fold into a more compact format, and the cups can’t swivel to lay flat, making it a bit more difficult to carry them around.

These headphones don’t come with a traveling case.

The Creative SXFI Air are decently built headphones. The headband is reinforced with metal, and the hinges feel solid. However, the mesh padding feels cheaply made, and the cups’ material feels shallow and plasticky. Unfortunately, these headphones don’t have a lot of range of motion, meaning that they won’t resist well to physical stress.

These headphones aren't a stable enough option for sports. Head movement makes them sway around, and they can easily fall off your head. It shouldn’t be an issue when simply listening to music casually.

• Creative SXFI Air headphones
• 1/8" TRRS audio cable
• USB-C charging cable
• Detachable microphone
• Microphone port cover
• Manuals

The frequency response consistency is just okay. Depending on your head or ear shape and size, you might experience a different frequency response with this headset. There is a noticeable difference in both the bass and treble ranges, which could result in different sound profiles.

The Creative SXFI Air's bass accuracy is decent. The overall bass lacks a bit of thump and rumble due to the elevated low-frequency extension, which can disappoint fans of bass-heavy music. There’s also a small bump in high-bass, which makes the overall bass a bit boomy.

The Creative SXFI Air have good mid accuracy. The response throughout the range is fairly well-balanced. However, it's slightly overemphasized, which results in a bit more forward-sounding vocals and lead instruments. The bump in low-mid is also the continuation of the high-bass, which results in slightly cluttered vocals.

The treble performance is also okay. There’s a small dip in the low-treble, which will affect the brightness and detail of those frequencies. However, the mid-treble is slightly overemphasized, so sibilants like S and T sounds are a bit sharp.

The Creative SXFI Air's stereo imaging is great. The group delay is under the audibility threshold, which is good. Our unit also has well-matched left and right drivers but did show a bit of phase mismatch, which can result in inaccuracies in the stereo image. However, this might not be audible for most people. Note that these results are only valid for our unit, and yours may perform differently.

The soundstage is disappointing. There isn’t a lot of pinna interaction, which results in a small soundstage. On the upside, the minimal activation is accurate and should sound fairly natural. These headphones won’t sound as open as open-back headphones.

The noise isolation performance is bad. This may be due to the porous pads, but the headphones practically don’t block any noise in the bass range and mid-range, meaning they won’t be a great option for commuting and traveling. On the upside, the treble isolation is pretty good and can block S and T sounds and A/C system noise.

The leakage performance is decent. These headphones’ leakage isn’t too loud and is mainly concentrated around the mid and low-treble ranges. This means that the leakage sounds thin and fuller than in-ears, but it won’t be as disturbing as open-back headphones. People surrounding you shouldn’t hear what you’re listening to unless you’re playing your content at a very high volume in a very quiet environment.

The recording quality of the Creative SXFI Air’s microphone is poor. The small protruding integrated mic sounds thin and muffled. It lacks detail but should still be fairly audible and comprehensible in a quiet environment.

The Creative SXFI Air's microphone is mediocre at noise handling. It struggles to separate ambient noise and actual speech, making it difficult for the other person on the line to hear you in moderately loud environments like a busy street. It's better suited for very quiet environments.

The Creative SXFI Air's battery performance is satisfactory. They give about 11 hours of continuous playback, which is slightly disappointing, especially since they don’t have a power-saving feature, so be sure to turn them off if you’re not using them. On the upside, you can use them wired, even if the battery is dead, and while charging as well.

The Creative SXFI Air have two apps: SXFI Air Control and SXFI App. With those apps, you get access to a great amount of customization. There's a head mapping function that personalizes the sound profile to your particular head and ears. You also have a good parametric EQ with presets and can also customize the color of the RGB rings on the cups. There’s also a virtual surround sound mode called Super X-FI.

These headphones are Bluetooth-compatible, but unfortunately, they don't support multi-device pairing and NFC, meaning they can only connect to one device at a time. Thankfully, their pairing procedure is easy, simple, and works well.

Their wired compatibility is amazing. You get audio and microphone support on consoles, phones, and PCs with the 1/8" TRRS cable. It supports both audio and mic on PC and PS4 via USB, but you can't use the USB cable on the Xbox One.

These headphones don’t have a base/dock.