Gadgetory

this USCS 2018 bang & olufsen announced their h 9i and HH i headphones and their slightly redesigned versions of the previous h9 + h8 headphones banging olsen claims they're padding active noise cancellation sound quality and battery life have all been improved but to be frank the h9 i aren't cheap so let's find out if they're worth of premium the bien all play h9 i come in two colorways you can either get them in all black like I have them here or you can get them in a natural two-tone color way as well I usually try to stay away from all black products cuz they usually look boring to me but I have to say that h9 I look incredibly cool and sleek in their stealthy all black colorway now when it comes to price Toby Noa h 9i retails for $499 $100 more than the bow and wilkins PX which are another pair of incredible headphones and $150 more than the sony 1000 XM 2 which are the gold standard right now when it comes to active noise cancellation if you want to pick these headphones up i'll have links on description below and if you use the links it really helps out to channel concerning what's in the box the h9 i are pretty standard issue you get a USB see two USB a cable for charging a pretty cheap 3.5 millimeter audio cable for wire listening with no inline controller and an airplane adapter and a carrying pouch now the quality of the carrying pouch is pretty nice and i'm not worried about it falling apart too quickly because it is a pretty fake fleece but when i'm paying $500 for a pair of headphones I'm kind of expecting a hard shell carrying case the sony 1000 XM - both QC 35 series 2 NB Studio 3 all come with hard shell carrying cases and even though the powers in wilkins PX also come with a carrying pouch it's a diamond weave pouch that looks much better than this one if you plan on traveling a lot with the h9 eyes I suggest you invest in a hard shell carrying case ok now let's talk about the headphones themselves first off these are not vegan-friendly the headband is covered in Callaghan leather which has a beautiful textured look and the ear cups are covered in lambskin leather which just feel incredibly luxurious on the side of your head and just to the touch under the headband we have fabric with minimal padding and the rest the frame is made out of brushed aluminum the earcups swivel and pivot very gracefully but unfortunately these headphones do not fold up now when it comes to comfort these headphones feel amazing right out of the box there's no need for a break-in period and this is coming from someone with a big head they have very little clamping force but just enough to keep them in place while you're walking around the East Nine eyes weigh in at 285 grams but for some reason they feel much lighter than that and overheating is not an issue with the pads on these headphones there are times where I actually forget I'm wearing these headphones well without a doubt the boss QC 35 series two are the most comfortable headphones on the market right now and the BN o h9 eyes are a very close second and that's because of the rounded ear cups when you put these headphones on your ears are not craft whatsoever but since these ear cups are round instead of oval they might rest on your you lose a bit if you have larger ear lobes this your cups rest on my ear lobes just a little bit but I don't notice them after a while now let's talk about the tech specs the write your cup is where all of the action is there's your 3.5 millimeter audio jack for Wired listening and these headphones do work passively there's your USB C port for charging and an on/off switch and that's it when it comes to physical buttons everything else is controlled with the touch pad on the right ear cup you swipe down to turn your active noise cancellation on or off you swipe up to turn transparency mode on or off which is similar to Sony's ambient sound mode you tap once to play or pause your music you swipe forward to skip a track and you sway backwards to go back a track these touch controls work well and are accurate for the most part but there are hiccups here and there adjusting the volume of the touch controls is a pain in the neck though in order to adjust the volume you have to do circles on the touch pad but you have to place your finger just right on the touch pad and it takes forever to raise or lower the volume and sometimes it just doesn't work so I usually just end up whipping up my phone and adjusting the volume from there these headphones also have proximity sensors built in just like the bottom opens px but unlike the px they will start to randomly start playing and pausing your music if you move your head around too much which is a good thing when you take these headphones off they'll automatically pause your music and when you put them back on they'll start play it again although this feature is nice and all I just wish you could turn it off these headphones are also using bluetooth 4.2 and they have a very respectable range of about 40 feet the connection is very stable and they have very little latency when watching videos there's a little bit of lag but you really won't notice and these headphones can be connected to two devices at a time which is good but these headphones don't support the apdex HD audio codec if you're an iPhone user and won't matter to you but I know that for some people it does matter now when it comes to battery life the h9 IR little below average in my testing with ANC and Bluetooth turned on I average 20 hours of playback time with the volume and sent after 50% and with ANC turned off I average 24 hours of playback time although these numbers are a little higher than what B&O advertises the average battery life for AMC headphones these days with ANC and Bluetooth turned on is 25 hours playback time Bang & Olufsen also doesn't have official quick charging numbers for these headphones but I found that charging them for 15 minutes from a dead battery will get you about two and a half hours playback time and that's pretty good and it does help make the shorter battery life not that big of a deal now when it comes to sound quality the ace 9 I are all about balance and clarity their sales stage is nice and wide and their instrument separation is very good as well something that you're obviously going to be expecting when you're paying $500 for a pair of headphones the low ends are nice and deep and they do a good job of not modeling the rest of the sound if the bass really gets going but don't expect any hand something bass the highs are also very clear and there's almost never any turning for the most part these headphones have a flat sound signature but you can't go into the piano play ad and adjust their EQ a bit you can choose from their preset or you can make your own personally I like to have mine on the excited side because it gives the headphones are a good amount of base but vocalists are still front and center regarding their noise cancellation it's pretty good they do a very good job of blocking out both constant sounds like road noise and they also do a good job of blocking out chatter but the noise cancellation on the h9 I does cause a little bit of pressure on your eardrum not a whole lot like the bose qc25 where it's unbearable for some people like myself but you will notice it if you're not playing music but if you're playing music with the noise cancellation turned on then you won't notice there whatsoever these headphones also have what Bing and all of some calls transparency mode and the headphones will pump in the ambient sound around you so you can still hear what's going on when you have these headphones on this feature is useful if you're walking around in the city now let's talk about what I don't like even though that h9 i our beautifully designed I think Bang & Olufsen could have done better when it comes to these headphones UI and phone application for starters all of the times on these headphones are the same so when you turn noise cancellation or transparency mode on or off you hear the same tone and there have been multiple times where I'm just swiping up and down on these headphones trying to turn noise cancellation on if the headphones used a different tone for each setting or if they outright told you noise cancellation on or noise cancellation off then there wouldn't be as much confusion I also think Bang & Olufsen should bring more functionality to their app you should be able to toggle your noise cancellation and transparency mode settings straight from your phone I also want to be able to adjust how much noise cancellation and how much ambient sound I want on these headphones and like I said earlier I wish these headphones came included with a hard shell carrying case but I do feel that Bing and all of them can and should bring the extra app functionality and verbal readouts through a software updates and here is the microphone test on the Bang & Olufsen h 9i headphones and i think it sounds pretty good but this audio clip is being recorded by the microphone on the h 9i headphones so you can be those of that so to wrap things up if you're somebody that likes the finer things in life I think you'll be happy with the Bing in all of them h 9i headphones they're very comfortable too where they look great they sound very good and their noise cancellation is very solid they do have a little bit of cabin pressure but it's nowhere as harsh as the bose qc25 their battery life is a little below average but there are unofficial quick charging does help compensate a bit I just hope Bang & Olufsen pushes out a software update that improves the UI on these headphones and bring some extra functionality to their app but for sure the h9 eyes have earned a slot in my top 5 favorite headphones hey if you enjoyed the video please like and subscribe it helps out more than you realize for more product reviews and deal alerts check out Jim Carrey that net if you wanna support the channel pick up a shirt and I'll catch you next time