We test our fair share of noise-cancelling headphones, but we’ve never come across a pair like the $199 Urbanista Los Angeles, which integrate a solar cell material called Powerfoyle to convert light into battery power. That alone is impressive enough to earn the headphones our TechX award, but of course, it wouldn’t mean much if they didn’t also sound good. Luckily, the headphones deliver powerful audio with rich bass and sculpted highs, along with effective active noise cancellation (ANC) for the price. Thanks to their combination of technological (not to mention eco-friendly) innovation and impressive audio performance, the Urbanista Los Angeles headphones also earn our Editors’ Choice award, and we hope to see more products use this charging technology in the future.
Powered by Light
You might expect solar-powered tech to be unwieldy and heavy (to us it conjures an image of ostentatious solar panels glued to a headband), but the Los Angeles headphones are quite stylish. Available in matte black or gold, they have a pleasing minimalist aesthetic.
The earcups are circular like on typical supra-aural (on-ear) pairs, but they’re large enough to cover your entire ear and some of the surrounding area like the earcups on over-ear models. The headphones exert a little too much pressure on the ears no matter how you position them, but the earpads feature generous cushioning, which helps with comfort.
Internally, 40mm dynamic drivers deliver a frequency range of 20Hz to 20kHz, with an impedance of 32 ohms. The headphones are compatible with Bluetooth 5.0 and support the AAC and SBC codecs, but not AptX.
The right earcup’s side panel houses a three-button control pad. The central multifunction button handles playback, call management, and power and pairing. The plus and minus buttons on either side control volume when you press them, or track navigation when you hold them. We’re not fans of combining these functions on the same button, as it’s far too easy to accidentally skip a track when you simply mean to adjust the volume.
The headphones come with a thoughtfully designed case that uses a similar matte material. The case leaves the headband exposed, which is ordinarily something that we’d complain about, but it makes sense here, as it allows the headphones to charge while you protect the earcups.
The left earcup sports a feature button; pressing it cycles through ANC, Ambient, and off modes, while holding it down summons your phone’s voice assistant. Switching between modes is intuitive thanks to vocal prompts each time you press the button. Next to it, there’s a USB-C port for charging (the box includes a USB-C-to-USB-A charging cable) that you will probably won’t need to use often. Despite not plugging in the headphones during our testing period, they never ran out of battery. Most of the time, the battery level hovered between 70% and 85% according to the companion app.
Urbanista estimates that the headphones can last roughly 80 hours on battery, but your results will vary based on your volume levels. Of course, that claim factors in the fact that, so long as they are exposed to light, the headphones are always charging. The brightness of the light source determines how much power the headphones can glean from it, but the Powerfoyle material can capture some energy from even a dim bulb or a windowsill on an overcast day. Even if that battery claim is way off and the actual battery life is roughly half that amount, it’s still an impressive feat.
Companion App
The coolest feature of the Urbanista Audio companion app (available for Android and iOS) is a simple graph that shows whether the headphones are draining or gaining power. It’s satisfying how quickly the meter switches once you place your headphones under a light.
In the app, you can also adjust some basic settings and switch between ANC and Ambient listening modes. Another option is to toggle the headphone’s ability to detect whether they are on or off your ears. However, the app doesn’t include EQ, which is disappointing because the drivers seem capable of achieving a more nuanced sound signature than their default.
Above-Average Noise Cancellation
The headphones do a good job of lowering the type of deep, low-frequency rumble you hear on an airplane, but mids and highs are a bit more of a challenge. The pair cut back the lows and mids from a recording of a busy restaurant with relative ease, but the highest frequencies crept past the ANC circuitry in testing. The difference between Ambient and default noise cancellation modes is subtle—you hear your surroundings similarly in both modes, but Ambient mode boosts the high-mids so you can focus on conversations more easily.
Unfortunately, the headphones add a layer of high-frequency hiss when the ANC is active. The noise isn’t unpleasant (think faint white noise), but it’s a telltale sign of lower-end noise-cancellation circuity. The ANC also affects the sound signature—sculpting in the high-mids seems to differ slightly, depending on the track. For the price, however, these issues aren’t significant.
Strong, Bass-Forward Sound
On tracks with intense sub-bass content, like The Knife’s “Silent Shout,” the headphones deliver a palpable thump and avoid distortion at top, unwise listening levels. At more moderate levels, the bass depth is still powerful—the sound signature is decidedly bass-forward, but sculpting in the highs provides balance.
Bill Callahan’s “Drover,” a track with far less deep bass in the mix, gives us a better sense of the sound signature. The drums on this track are heavy and large—the bass boosting is obvious, but it doesn’t push things into overwhelmingly thunderous territory. Callahan’s vocals receive a bit of additional low-mid richness and high-mid presence that prevents the lows from drowning out their detail. The acoustic strums and higher-register percussive hits sound bright, and the tape hiss in the background takes a slight step forward in the mix.
On Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “No Church in the Wild,” the kick drum loop receives enough high-mid presence for its attack to retain its punchiness, but it could use a little more high-mid definition. The sub-bass synth hits that punctuate the beat come across with serious depth. At times, the boosted bass threatens to distract from the vocals, but the headphones manage to provide enough space for them. Purists won’t love the sound signature, but it should satisfy anyone seeking boosted, subwoofer-like bass depth.
Orchestral tracks, like the opening scene from John Adams’ The Gospel According to the Other Mary, get a bit more bass depth than they need, but the real boosting is down in the sub-bass. Here, the lower-register instrumentation takes a step forward in the mix, but without overwhelming the balance. The higher-register brass, strings, and vocals retain their bright place in the spotlight.
We tested the built-in mic using the Voice Memos app on an iPhone and could clearly understand every word we recorded, without any obvious Bluetooth audio artifacts. On a strong mobile signal, call clarity shouldn’t be an issue.
Forward-Thinking Audio Never Sounded Better
If Urbanista’s Los Angeles headphones sounded terrible, we’d still commend them for their innovative, eco-friendly design. Luckily, they manage to deliver above-average ANC performance for the price, along with robust bass depth that will appeal to plenty of listeners. And we can’t overstate how convenient it is to not need to plug these in for charging with any frequency, earning the headphones our Editors’ Choice and TechX awards. For a similar price, Sennheiser’s HD 450BT offer arguably better audio, but without the benefit of solar charging. And for the absolute best active noise cancellation, we recommend the Bose QuietComfort 45 headphones, though they cost a lot more at $329.
