The high-end Danish speaker maker Bang & Olufsen, affectionately recognized by its initials B&O, has lengthy been recognized for constructing audio and video parts sporting fashionable, hanging designs that command very excessive costs.
Hit laborious by the 2008 financial disaster, B&O has since refocused on its conventional strengths, together with constructing a stable line of headphones. The B&O Beoplay H9i reviewed listed below are the corporate’s flagship over-the-ear, energetic noise-cancelling cans.
Styling and options
The Beoplay H9i are merely beautiful. These are fashionable, eye-catching headphones that scream premium high quality and first-class building. They are available in two colours: Traditional black and pure. The latter was the colour of my evaluate pair.
B&O Beoplay H9i headphones in black.
The headband’s arms are produced from brushed aluminum anodized to match the headphones’ colour. The aluminum arms slide out and in in a wonderfully clean, infinitely adjustable movement. This is not any clunky, click-adjustable headband. Best of all, when you set the headphone’s arm positions, they don’t slide or transfer.
You’ll discover comparable high-quality supplies all through this product. The high of the headscarf is real cowhide, for instance, whereas the ear pads encompass extremely snug reminiscence kind enveloped in delicate lambskin. Should you ever have to, you’ll be able to exchange your entire ear pads for $70.
The ear cups are adjustable and fold flat. You’ll have to look laborious to see the wonderful line on the base of the headscarf arms indicating these are two items of steel joined collectively. The folding ear cups accommodate each journey and changes to suit the contour of your face. The folding movement is silky clean.
Theo Nicolakis / IDGThe Beoplay H9i’s ear pads are detachable and replaceable.
The acoustically clear cloth masking the electrodynamic 40mm drivers is printed with a big “L” or “R,” so you’ll be able to simply discern which is left and which is correct. The ear cups are product of a plastic polymer and capped with matching brushed aluminum B&O branded discs. The plastic polymer doesn’t really feel low-cost by any means.
In distinction to the cowhide leather-based on high, the headscarf’s underside has a fabric masking with 4 quadrants of padding, which doesn’t appear to do a lot. These headphones tended to develop into uncomfortable after lengthy listening classes. After about an hour, I’d really feel strain on the very high of my head, forcing me to both take the headphones off for a bit or loosen them. This was a little bit of a disappointment contemplating how snug the ear pads are.
Theo Nicolakis / IDGThe Bang & Olufsen H9i ANC headphones in pure colour.
I discovered the Beoplay H9i simple to slide right into a backpack or further massive coat pocket, however the headphone arms don’t fold. You can’t get them into an ultra-compact kind issue like you’ll be able to with the Bose QuietComfort 35 or the Sony MDR-1000XM3.
Angled drivers for optimum sound
Most over-the-head headphones place their drivers in the midst of the ear cups. The drivers due to this fact hearth immediately at your ears. The drivers contained in the Beoplay H9i’s ear cups are positioned ahead and at a slight angle. The finish result’s the drivers hearth sound barely from the entrance of your ears, making a sound stage that tends to be barely extra in entrance of you, mimicking (to a slight diploma) what you’d get with conventional loudspeakers. You sometimes have to spend a whole lot of extra to seek out such a driver positioning.
Theo Nicolakis / IDGAn in depth view of the Beoplay H9i’s angled drivers.
The Beoplay H9i are additionally constructed with some slick built-in intelligence. A proximity sensor knew once I took off the headphones and would pause the music. When I put the headphones again on, the music would choose proper up once more. The function labored nearly each time. The occasions it didn’t work as marketed had been once I didn’t take the headphones off in a typical style. Lifting each ear cups after which inserting them again on my head re-engaged the music. All in all, this function labored rather well.
These headphones assist Bluetooth 4.2 and the the AAC codec, however you received’t get any of the extra superior Bluetooth codecs: aptX, aptX HD, or LDAC.
Solid battery life
The proximity sensor additionally helps the Beoplay H9i ship 18 hours of Bluetooth playtime with ANC engaged on a single cost. The quantity jumps to 23 hours in case you’re utilizing solely Bluetooth with out noise cancellation, and as much as 24 hours in case you’re utilizing ANC with the headphones plugged into your music supply. It takes about 2.5 hours for a full cost.
Theo Nicolakis / IDGAn in depth-up of the gesture pad on the Beoplay H9i’s proper ear cup.
Some wi-fi headphones at present are pushing even longer play occasions. But right here’s what is actually distinctive concerning the Beoplay H9i: Its 770mAh battery is detachable, so you should purchase a further battery for $50 from B&O’s web site and pop it in for added flexibility.
I used the Beoplay H9i throughout a transatlantic round-trip flight and didn’t have any issues with the battery life on both leg of the journey.
B&O’s cell app
B&O developed a companion app for the Beoplay H9i, which is obtainable for Android and iOS gadgets. The app requires you to register earlier than you’ll be able to entry its options. Once you do, it’ll show your headphones’ battery life and permit you to apply DSP filters for various sound environments: commute, clear, exercise, or podcast. It’s unclear at first look what every of those modes do. There’s no EQ graph with the identify that exhibits you the influence, however cycle by them and also you’ll choose up the variations fairly simply.
The Beoplay H9i’s “ToneTouch” possibility is slick, permitting you to tailor the headphones’ sound to be heat, brilliant, excited, or relaxed. It does so with a easy interface, eschewing any sophisticated handbook EQ curves that may confuse novice customers.
The app additionally offers you quick access to allow or disable the headphones’ energetic noise cancellation and its transparency mode (a function that lets environmental sounds combine with the music to help in your situational consciousness. I’ll get deeper into this in a bit.) Enable the BeoLink possibility, hidden behind the gear icon, and also you’ll achieve centralized entry to Spotify, Deezer, and DLNA servers in your community; your native iTunes library in your system; TuneIn; and extra.
Accessories included
The Beoplay H9i include a delicate, supple, two-layer cinch sack.The interior layer offers the headphones a velvety-soft floor that received’t topic them to friction, however the sack simply turns inside out while you pull out the headphones. Also included within the package deal is a USB-A to USB-C charging cable, a 3.5mm cable, and a two-prong airplane adapter.
A wise contact interface
There’s a touch-sensitive gesture pad on the precise ear cup. Tap on the aluminum disc for play/pause, swipe ahead to quick ahead the tune your listening to, and swipe to the again to rewind. Moving your finger clockwise across the disc will increase the amount, whereas turning it counter clockwise lowers the amount. Swipe from high to backside to activate ANC, and make the identical gesture to show it off. Turning transparency mode on and off is the alternative: You swipe from backside to high to show it on, and once more from the underside to high to show transparency mode off.
Bang & OlufsenB&O’s contact interface labored extraordinarily nicely and even labored with gloves or moist fingers.
Unlike smartphone surfaces that solely work together with your pores and skin or a particular materials, the aluminum plate’s gesture floor is mechanical and strain delicate. It works in case your palms are moist and even in case you’re sporting gloves. I can’t inform you how a lot I appreciated that function in the course of the fall and winter months.
But I do want B&O had a unique alert sound for turning modes on and off—the headphones produce the identical knocking tone for all of them.
Excellent energetic noise-cancelling efficiency
One of the principle objectives of noise-cancelling headphones is to cut back the chance of noise-induced listening to loss. The noisier the surroundings, the louder you’ll wish to play your music, which will increase the dangers of listening to harm. According to the National Institute of Health, long or repeated exposure to sounds above 85 decibels can cause hearing loss. The louder the sound, the shorter the period of time it takes for listening to loss to occur. An airplane cabin, for instance, can usually attain sound strain ranges (SPL) of 94dB. That’s nearly equal to the sound of a bike and may end up in everlasting harm in just some hours.
ANC headphones cut back your danger by decreasing ambient noise round you (reducing the noise flooring), so as to play your music at a decrease quantity. As you’ve most likely guessed, some ANC headphones are higher at this than others. If energetic noise cancellation is an important function you’re searching for in headphones, the Bose QuietComfort 35 and Sony’s WH-1000XM2 and WH-1000XM3 are higher selections.
That stated, the Beoplay H9i come very near ANC parity with these rivals, and I believe B&O’s headphones sound higher musically talking. I examined the Beoplay H9i over a interval of about 5 months in quite a lot of environments: on a world flight, in subways, on trains, strolling metropolis streets, and in a number of noisy and crowded environments.
The Beoplay H9i had been extraordinarily efficient at mitigating ambient noise in each scenario. These headphone did a terrific job of placing me in a cone of silence. When I plugged the headphones into the airplane’s audio jack whereas watching Ocean’s 8, for instance, I may hearken to the film simply at solely one-quarter to one-third quantity. When I switched to the Bose QC35 on the identical flight, I famous how the Bose did a barely higher job within the ANC area, reducing the noise flooring even additional.
Like all different ANC headphones, turning my ears to the path of AC vents on the practice or airplane brought on an accentuated rumbling sound—very like the impact while you open a single window in a automotive whereas touring at excessive pace.
In the air, the B&O H9i headphones utilized some strain to my ears, however not as a lot because the AKG N700 NC.
Theo Nicolakis / IDGThe headphone’s energy, USB-C charging port, and 3.5mm analog audio enter are positioned on the right-hand ear cup.
Perhaps extra importantly, not solely did the Beoplay H9i mitigate ambient noise successfully, they did so with out sacrificing an excessive amount of of their audio efficiency. Typically, while you activate ANC on a headphone, it tends to inflict a sonic hit on the music copy. While there was a slight scaling down of the sound, the Beoplay H9i did a remarkably good job of sustaining their tonal stability and sonic character.
Transparency mode
Transparency mode permits you to hear your exterior environment clearly even whilst you’re sporting headphones. It’s very helpful when it’s essential to hear for boarding bulletins or when it’s essential to be keenly conscious of your environment—equivalent to while you’re crossing the road.
B&O’s transparency mode is great. Activating it after which lifting one of many ear cups was an odd expertise—there was little or no distinction within the quantity or tonal stability with the one ear coated and the opposite ear uncovered. Things like air-con took on a barely totally different tonal stability. I beloved this function.
On many different headphones I’ve examined, ambient-aware mode sounds synthetic. It may even be painful to depart on for an prolonged time period. Not right here. I applaud the B&O crew right here for its glorious implementation.
Theo Nicolakis / IDGAn in depth view of the attractive anodized brushed-aluminum end on the arms.
High-end sound
I performed the Beoplay H9i with an iPhone XS and a Fiio X7MKii hifh-res participant. I used music streamed through Tidal and high-res audio recordsdata on the Fiio as my main supply materials.
The Beoplay H9i are greatest described as reproducing B&Os signature sound. You’ll discover tight bass, a clear mid-range, and a crisp high finish. I loved detailed, dynamic sound it doesn’t matter what I threw at these cans.
The beforehand talked about DSP settings on the cell app can considerably change the sound of the headphones. It’s due to this fact a bit tough to characterize it as heat, impartial, or brilliant as a result of you’ll be able to tailor every of those settings successfully.
I most well-liked the impartial setting, however I can see the place some customers would wish to shift it to achieve a bit extra heat. I didn’t like shifting the headphone’s DSP setting in the direction of brilliant or the opposite choices. My feedback beneath pertain to the headphone set in impartial.
Drums on Robert Plant’s and Alison Krauss’s “Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us” and “Please Read the Letter,” from Raising Sand, had been taut and managed. There wasn’t a way of bass bloat anyplace. I famous that the Beoplay H9i delivered pistonic mid-bass efficiency on Dido’s “Let us move on,” that includes Kendrick Lamar. Percussive bass notes on Imagine Dragons “Bad Liar” began and stopped with glorious management, sustaining element always. If you’re searching for correct, managed bass, you’ll love these headphones. If you’re a bass head and like headphones with “Xtra Bass,” then you definitely’ll wish to go on these.
The Beoplay H9i did a wonderful job making a layered, detailed sound stage irrespective of which songs I performed. Vocals and accompanying devices on “Bad Liar,” for instance, got here throughout with sense of area round them and didn’t exhibit smearing.
Vocals sparkled too. The Beoplay H9i reveled in reproducing feminine vocalists equivalent to Adele, Ariana Grande, Natalie Merchant, Dido, Rihanna, and P!nk. These cans did a wonderful job rendering Adele’s signature vocals on “When We Were Young” and “Send My Love (To Your New Lover).”
What’s particularly uncommon is that the Beoplay H9i sounded nice in each wired and wi-fi modes. Oftentimes, a wi-fi headphone can sound considerably totally different with and and not using a cable connected, with the wi-fi mode sometimes struggling compared.
Bang & OlufsenB&O’s Beoplay H9i headphones sport a classy design.
Sweet sound and stand-out efficiency
B&O’s Beoplay H9i headphones hit a excessive word, with very good sound, premium construct high quality, and glorious ANC efficiency that falls simply in need of the reigning champs from Sony and Bose.
What units these headphones other than different high-end wi-fi cans is how good they sound each wired and wi-fi; with and with out ANC engaged. B&O’s transparency mode can also be excellent. If you’re searching for stellar headphones with robust—even when not best-in-class ANC efficiency—and also you don’t thoughts paying a bit further for model and premium supplies, You ought to audition B&O’s Beoplay H9i.