Just to update my inquiry, I just received my Microsoft’s Surface Headphones today. I got them in part because I’m an Office 365 subscriber both for Calendar, Contacts, e-Mail, To-Do cloud services and for Microsoft Office software: Word, Excel, Outlook, MS Access database and these headphones will specifically work with Cortana to access my e-mail, contacts, calendar, To-Do’s, in the Microsoft cloud.
So the Surface Headphones work fine with my ReSound LiNX Quattro 9 61’s. There’s plenty of room in the earcups to put the headphones on, take them off, without disturbing my behind-the-ear HA bodies. They sound pretty good, plenty of bass compared to my HA’s, and even with maximum noise cancellation turned on, I don’t have any hissing or humming and the position of the headphone drivers/speakers relative to my ear canal does not seem to cause a problem with the HA microphones. There have been a number of recent reviews of these just released headphones compared to the top-of-the-line Bose and Sony models. Most reviewers seem to find the latest Sony release (September, 2018) the champs, both in terms of noise-cancellation power and audio quality. Also in terms of battery life. The Surface headphones are faulted in not having as good a battery life as Sony or Bose (you can’t turn Cortana off, yet, except by turning BT streaming off and just using the headphones for noise-cancellation or with a hard-wired connection in addition) and not having as complete a noise cancellation as Sony and not sounding as good as Sony. But for me, they are quite good enough and will work with my Microsoft software subscriptions.
My main complaints are 1) using them with an old 2011 Gateway laptop, although I can stream audio to my headphones, as far as two-way audio with Cortana, I get an “Sorry. Device not supported.” Not sure if it’s because the laptop does not have built-in Bluetooth and I’m using a BT 4.0 USB adapter already paired with my Phone Clip+ for headset audio. Also, when I use the Surface Headphones with my Galaxy Note 8 Android phone, the audio streaming and 2-way audio with Cortana work great but when I go to place and answer phone calls, the phone or Microsoft software on my phone screws things up. Incoming calls rather going directly to my headphones get “caught” with an “Accept” or “Decline?” phone notification. And on outgoing phone calls, I have to tell the phone whether I want to place the call using my mobile phone or Skype (Microsoft software on the phone, undoubtedly). After picking “Always use phone,” I’ve overcome this last difficulty for hands-free calling using the headphones with their microphones as a headset. Wife says call quality sounds good. The PR with the headphones says that they are designed to breathe and be used all day but I think I’ll have to wait for some hot, humid summer nights to really put wear-ability to the test.
In addition to Abram Bailey’s post about noise-cancelling headphones cited in my OP post in this thread, I’ve searched the forum and found other several other threads in the past that say noise-cancelling headphones in general work very well with most users who’ve tried them.
https://forum.hearingtracker.com/t/active-noise-cancelling-headphones/15345
https://forum.hearingtracker.com/t/noise-cancelling-headphones/12368
My main use is for the noise-cancelling feature so ambient noise in the environment won’t get into my open domes, not for absolutely top-of-the-line audio quality since I’m mainly listening to “talk show” podcasts where the most important thing is to block out interfering noise from outside and understand what’s being said in the podcast. I’ll be trying the headphones both in BT-streaming mode and in wired mode to see how they perform but so far, I’m very happy with the noise-blocking features and the audio quality for podcast listening. If I discover any further pluses or minuses of the Surface Headphones, I’ll update the info in this thread. I like it that the headphones talk to you and coach you in their use and the Cortana app, either on a PC or in the Android phone app, has settings to show the degree of noise cancellation that you’ve dialed in (13 levels cancellation intensity or, conversely, ambient environmental sound amplification, if the opposite is desired), the volume setting (13 levels here, too), the battery level and predicted available streaming time in hours, an equalizer with presets and the ability to equalize within 5 frequency ranges, defined only as Low, Mid Low, Mid, Mid High, High up to +/- 12 dB above or below the default setting.
From the reviews I’ve read, if you don’t want to use the headphones with Cortana, you can also set them up to work with the default assistant of your phone (Google Assistant or Siri) but I haven’t tried to do that-have to tap on side of headphone to summon these assistants, if used. Cannot be summoned directly by voice as for Cortana. The Surface Headphones are pretty pricey ($350). I got $85 off on my for being a dyed-in-the-wool Microsoftie and having $75 of “Bing Rewards” points and a $10 Holiday Gift Card for the Microsoft Store so my actual cost was about $293, including the sales tax charged.
If you’re curious as to what they sound like, they probably have demo models in any Microsoft Store near you. I ordered mine online (the only way to redeem the Rewards points). I was worried I hear a humming sound with my Quattros or the sound heard from the headphones wouldn’t sound so great through my HA’s - feedback or whatever. But the Surface Headphones function very well for the reason I got them and so far, several hours into using them, I’m glad I got them.