Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H9 Gen 1 Wireless Headphones Review

The Beoplay H9 look almost identical to the H6 but with a wireless design. They're great-looking headphones that feel premium and make use of a lot of high-end materials like aluminum, leather, and memory foam. They have a low profile headband and large circular, flat ear cups that do not protrude much. This makes the whole look design eye-catching yet understated, especially if you get the all-black color variant like in this review. They also come in a Tan/Argilla grey color scheme that's a bit more flashy but overall they're one of the better-looking over-ears that we've tested so far.

The Beoplay H9 are very comfortable headphones but the circular ear cups can feel a bit small for some listeners. They're slightly heavier than the H6 but have pretty much the same fit and design overall. They have thick and soft leather pads on the ear cups and the overall build is fairly lightweight for an over-ear design. However, since the ear cups are a little small they may cause a slight pinch on the top of your ears depending on the user. On the upside, they're not too tight and you can wear them for hours without feeling any fatigue.

The Beoplay H9 by Bang & Olufsen have a unique touch-sensitive control scheme that's relatively easy to use once you get familiar with it. You turn up the volume by swiping your finger along the circular touchpad (clockwise for volume up and counter-clockwise for volume down). Tapping on the right ear cup plays and pauses tracks and also manages calls. You can disable noise canceling by swiping downwards, and skipping tracks is done by swiping left and right. Unfortunately, the touch-sensitive control scheme is not as responsive as physical buttons, and you do not get a lot of auditory feedback when changing tracks or disabling noise canceling, which is a little disappointing. Also tapping twice on the touch-sensitive surface redials your last called number which can be quite frustrating since it is easy to trigger accidentally. On the upside, they have an actual switch for power and Bluetooth pairing which makes connecting to Bluetooth sources a bit easier, like the QuietComfort 35 II.

Like most closed back over-ear designs, the H9 are not the most breathable headphones. Once you get the right fit they seal off the ear fairly well which prevents a good amount of airflow. They're not much worse than most over-ear headphones but won't be ideal for strenuous physical activity since they will make you sweat a bit more than usual under those conditions.

The Beoplay H9 are decently compact for over-ear headphones but unfortunately do not fold to save space. The ear cups lay flat which may come in handy in some situations but they're still a bit too cumbersome to comfortably carry around on your person without a bag.

The Beoplay H9 come with a simple pouch that should protect the headphones from scratches and scuffs when in your bag but won't shield them from impacts or water damage. Also, considering the price of these headphones, a simple pouch instead of a hard or even a soft case, feels really cheap.

The B&O PLAY by Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H9 are one of the better-built headphones that we've tested so far. They have a sturdy yet lightweight build quality made from high-end aluminum and coated in a luxurious leather. The headband feels durable and flexible and the ear cups are dense without being too heavy, although they do weigh a little more than the H6. They're easily on par with the Oppo PM-3 and Parrot Zik 3.0 although the hinges are a little thin and probably the weakest part of their design. Overall they're durable headphones that feel very high-end.

The B&O Play H9, like the H6, are decently stable headphones but won't be ideal for working out. They stay put during casual listening sessions but sway a bit when jogging or running since they're not as tight on the head as some of the other headphones we've tested. On the upside, they're wireless so they won't get yanked off your head because the audio cable got hooked by something.

• B&O Play H9 headphones
• Audio cable
• Airline adapter
• Carrying case
• USB charging cable
• Manuals

The Beoplay H9 has great freqnecy response consistency. The bass delivery is very consistent across our 5 human subjects from 40Hz and up. The maximum deviation is at around 20Hz and about 6dB, but only over a narrow range, which makes it less noticeable. In the treble range, the maximum deviation is about 15dB, which is quite significant, but again, only over a very narrow range so won't be very audible.

The bass of the H9 is very good. The LFE (low-frequency extension) is at 10Hz, which is excellent. Also, low-bass is hyped by more than 6dB, indicating that the bass of these headphones is deep and very thumpy, which should be pleasing to the fans of bass-heavy genres like Dubstep, House, and Hip-hop. Mid-bass is also hyped, but by only 2dB which gives some extra emphasis to the body of bass guitars and the punch of kick drums. High-bass is overempasized by less than 1dB, which is good and means that despite the hyped bass, the sound won't be very cluttered and boomy.

The H9 has an average mid-range performance. The response is quite even throughout the range but recessed by about 6dB around 700Hz. This noticeably pushes vocals and lead instruments to the back of the mix, by giving more emphasis to bass frequencies.

The treble performance is mediocre. The overall response is relatively uneven, throughout the range. Low-treble, is within 1dB of our neutral target, which is good. However, mid-treble shows a 7dB dip around 6KHz, which will have a noticeable negative effect on the brightness and detail, especially on vocals and lead instruments. The 10dB peak around 10KHz could make these headphones noticeably sibilant. That is, sharp and piercing on S and T sounds common to vocals and cymbals.

The imaging is good. The weighted group delay is at 0.31, which is also good. The GD graph shows that entire group delay response is below or at the audibility threshold. Indicating a tight bass and a transparent treble reproduction. Additionally, the L/R drivers of our test unit were very well-matched in amplitude and frequency response, but showed significant mismatch in phase response. This wouldn't affect the accuracy of the placement of objects (like voices, instruments, and video game sound effects), but could skew the stereo image and cohesion a bit.

The soundstage performance of the Beoplay H9 is sub-par. The PRTF graph shows excessive amount of activation, which could be either due to resonances in the enclosure when the pinna is removed, or pinching the pinna. Also, there is no "10KHz notch" present either, and instead there is unusual activation in that region. The result would probably be a soundstage that is perceived to be relatively large, but unnatural and located inside the head as opposed to in-front.

The isolation performance is about average. With their ANC (active noise cancelling) enabled, they achieved about 6dB of isolation in the bass range, which is mediocre. This means they won't be able to cancel out the rumble of bus and airplane engines quite effectively. In the mid-range, which is important for blocking out speech, the Beoplay H9 achieved about 13dB of isolation, which is above-average. In the treble range, we had difficulty getting a perfect seal on our dummy head, and the H9 only achieved 27dB of isolation. This is an above-average result, but with a better seal their performance could be improved by 3-4dB in treble.

The leakage performance is sub-par. The significant portion of the leakage is spread between 400Hz and 12KHz, which is a broad range. This means the leakage will sound rather full-bodied. The overall level of leakage, however, not very loud. With the music 100dB SPL, the leakage peaks at 60dB SPL at a foot away, which is just above the noise floor of most offices.

The microphone of the Beoplay H9 is mediocre. In quiet environments, speech recorded or transmitted with it will sound relatively thin. It will also sound noticeably muffled and lacking in detail, but will still be easy to understand. In noisy environments, they will struggle to separate speech from ambient noise even in moderately loud places like a busy street or a loud office.

The integrated microphone is mediocre. The LFE (low-frequency extension) of 269Hz means that speech recorded/transmitted with this mic will sound relatively thin. The HFE (high-frequency extension) of 3.5KHz indicates a speech transmission that is somewhat muffled and lacking in detail. However, it'll still be decently intelligible. Lastly, the bump around 700Hz could make speech a bit honky sounding.

The mic is mediocre at noise handling. In our SpNR test, it achieved a speech-to-noise ratio of about 11dB, indicating it is best suited for quiet environments, as the Beoplay H9 may struggle to separate speech from background noise even in moderately loud places.

These headphones have a decent battery life that should last you throughout a day of moderate-to-heavy use but take quite long to charge. Unfortunately, they do not switch off automically when they are paired to a Bluetooth source so the power will continue to drain unless you switch off the headphones. On the upside, you can also use them while they're charging and passively if battery completely runs out which is pretty convenient. For a similar headset, but with better battery life, take a look at the H9i.

Update: 11/03/2019: The BeoPlay H9 does have a stand by mode that puts the headphones into low power after 15 mins of inactivity. The headset will disconnect from your device but will not be completely switched off. We've updated the battery test score to reflect this.

The H9 support the Beoplay app which offers moderate customization options but does not feel as feature packed as some of the other apps that we've tested for similarly designed headphones. They provide an in-app player, battery data, and a preset EQ that lets you chose between different intensities of 4 set sound profiles; Warm, excited, relaxed and bright. This lets you somewhat personalize the sound profile of the headphones but not like the PXC 550 Wireless or the Parrot Zik 3.

The H9 do not support NFC or multi-device paring. On the upside, they have a dedicated Bluetooth pairing switch like the Bose QuietComfort 35 II which makes pairing to new devices fairly easy.

Update: 04/26/2019: While testing the H9i we noticed the missing codec support for the original H9. We've since updated the available codecs and latency numbers for the H9.

These headphones come with a simple audio cable with no in-line remote or USB adapter. They do not have a mic that is compatible with consoles or PC when using them wired.

These headphones do not have a base/dock. If you want a good sounding headphone with a dock/base for watching movies and gaming, check out the Astro A50.