The Bang & Olufsen Earset Wireless are mediocre mixed-usage headphones with a well-built, premium design and stable ear hooks for sports. They have an open earbud fit that makes them a decent option for those who run outdoors. Unfortunately, it also makes them highly susceptible to noisy environments so they won't be the best choice for commuting. Also, their sound quality is not ideal for more critical listeners but should be passable for most.
Our Verdict
Mediocre-at-best for mixed usage. These headphones have an open fit and stable ear-hook design that makes them a decent option for sports and running outdoors. However, they aren't sweatproof or specially made for sports, so they won't be the ideal option for more intense workout routines. Unfortunately, their old-school earbud design means they won't provide enough isolation for more noisy environments like commuting. Their sound quality is also mediocre, with a lot of bass and a fairly pronounced treble range that won't be ideal for more critical listeners.
- Premium looking design.
- Lightweight and compact.
- Stable enough for sports.
- Poor noise isolation, by design.
- Mediocre-at-best sound quality.
- Slightly short battery life.
- Bass and treble delivery varies significantly across users.
Mediocre for neutral listening. The Bang & Olufsen Earset Wireless have a slightly muddy sound that packs a decent amount of bass for an open earbud design. Unfortunately, since the fit is a bit loose, their sound will be a little inconsistent for some, and their treble range will sound a bit too sharp on already bright tracks. On the upside, they have a slightly better soundstage than typical in-ears although it won't be ideal for more neutral listeners. They also have a preset EQ so you can somewhat modify their sound profile to better suit your tastes.
Below-average headphones for commuting or traveling. They have an open fit that poorly isolates in loud, noisy environments, so you'll hear most of the ambient noise in your surrounding even when playing music at high volumes. They're decently comfortable and have a practical control scheme, but unfortunately, they don't have the longest battery life and will die after 5 hours of continuous listening, so they won't be ideal for long flights.
Decent headphones for sports and fitness. They have a stable ear-hook design and excellent breathability. They aren't likely to fall from your ears, but the earbuds have an open fit that will often move and slightly change their sound profile when working out. On the upside, they have a decent control scheme and they're lightweight and compact enough to easily fit into your gym bags or your jogging pants pockets.
Sub-par for office use. The Bang & Olufsen Earset Wireless have an open fit that won't block a lot of noise so you will hear most of what is going on around you in a noisy office. They also leak a bit so they won't be the best choice in quieter conditions, either.
These are bad headphones for gaming. The Bang & Olufsen Earset Wireless have a mediocre-at-best sound quality and high latency that will not be suitable for gaming. They also can't be used wired, so an adapter is required to use them on a game console.
Changelog
- Updated Nov 21, 2019: Converted to Test Bench 1.3.1.
- Updated Nov 21, 2019: Converted to Test Bench 1.3.
- Updated Jun 22, 2018: Review published.
- Updated Jun 20, 2018: Our testers have started testing this product.
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The Bang & Olufsen Earset Wireless have a well-built design and stable ear-hooks for sports but their unique, and old-school earbud fit will not be for everyone. They're a bit more comfortable than typical in-ears, but getting the right fit can sometimes be slightly frustrating and requires frequent adjustments especially when working out. They also have a fairly open earbud design, which won't be ideal for loud, noisy environments like those involved in commuting. The odd fit sometimes causes consistency issues in their sound quality. On the upside, they're portable and compact enough to fit into your pockets.
We've upgraded our Headphones Test Bench to 2.0! This update brings several key changes to our tests and usages, making it easier than ever to interpret our sound results based on your personal preferences. You'll also find a brand-new interactive graph tool featuring multiple targets (including our own!) for you to explore and compare.
For a full breakdown, check out our changelog, which includes detailed commentary from our test designer explaining the rationale behind our update.
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Test Results
The Bang & Olufsen Earset Wireless have a unique and premium looking earbud design. They're a wireless update to the Bang & Olufsen Earset 3i and have the same old-school earbud design with sturdy metal and adjustable ear hooks that feel high-end and well made. They'll stand out in a crowd, especially compared to some of the other wireless in-ears with ear-hooks that we've tested, although the cables are a little thin.
The Bang & Olufsen Earset Wireless are moderately comfortable headphones with adjustable ear hooks and an old-school earbud design. Like on the original Bang & Olufsen Earset 3i, you're able to adjust the height and tightness of the hooks as well as the angle of the earbuds. Unfortunately, the earbuds don't quite fit as snuggly in the notch of your ear even after trying the different tip sizes. The earbuds feel like they're just slightly hovering over your ear canal, which can get a bit annoying and may and force you to adjust their fit somewhat regularly. They're also a bit more complicated to find the right fit if you wear glasses, but on the upside, it won't cause the fatigue and soreness of more typical in-ear designs, which some listeners will prefer.
The Bang & Olufsen Earset Wireless have a decent control scheme that's slightly better than the old Bang & Olufsen Earset 3i but also worse in some aspects. They have a 3-button set-up on their in-line remote that provides the basic functions for call/music, track-skipping, and volume control. Unfortunately, the buttons are relatively small and a bit hard to distinguish by feel alone. They also don't have the best feedback as the buttons don't have that much travel and there's no auditory feedback once pressed.
The Bang & Olufsen Earset Wireless are very breathable. They have an ear-hook design that causes more points of contact with your ear, but since it's a relatively thin metal build it won't make the back of your ears as warm as the Plantronics BackBeat Fit Wireless. On the upside, since the earbuds don't cover the ear, you won't sweat more than usual when working out, and they should be breathable enough for more intense exercises.
The Bang & Olufsen Earset Wireless, like most wireless in-ear earbud designs, are very portable and will easily fit into your pockets. They're a little larger than typical earbuds since they have sturdy metal ear hooks that won't be as flexible to fit into tight spaces as the BackBeat Fit or Anker Soundcore Spirit X Wireless. However, they're small enough to not be too cumbersome to carry on your person.
The Bang & Olufsen Earset Wireless come with a sub-par pouch that won't protect your headphones from impacts and drops but should prevent them from getting scratched when they're in your bag. Unfortunately, this pouch is a downgrade from the sturdy hard pouch/soft case of the older model and feels cheap especially considering the premium price, compared to some cheaper ear-hook headphones.
The Bang & Olufsen Wireless Earset have a good build quality that feels premium but slightly thin cables that do not feel as durable as the rest of the design. The metal ear-hooks look and feel solid. They don't rattle or make any noise when adjusting them and they hold their shape which further emphasizes their premium construction. The earbuds and the in-line remote also feel dense and well-made. However, since they have a lot more moving parts than typical wireless in-ears with rubber or silicone ear-hooks, they have more potential weak points that may get damaged by wear and tear. Also, their cable is thin and a bit fragile, but it's a lot better than that of the Bang & Olufsen Earset 3i.
The Bang & Olufsen Earset Wireless have adjustable hooks that fit around the ear and prevent them from falling off your ears while running. They're also wireless, so they're less likely to move around than the Bang & Olufsen Earset 3i since they will rarely get tangled in your clothing or hooked by something that'll yank the earbuds of your ears. Unfortunately, the earbud design does not always provide the best fit. So although the headphones won't fall off your ears, the swiveling earbuds may move about as you’re exercising, which can get a little frustrating, especially when it causes a loss of sound quality.
- Bang & Olufsen Earset Wireless headphones
- Carrying pouch
- USB charging cable
- Earbud tips (x3)
- Manuals
The frequency response consistency is sub-par. The earbud design means they won't have a consistent fit across multiple re-seats and multiple users. They show more than 6dB of variance in the bass range and about 6dB of variance in the treble range.
The Bang & Olufsen Earset Wireless have decent bass. LFE (low-frequency response) is at 45Hz, which is above-average. Low-bass is lacking by more than 5dB, suggesting a bass that lacks a bit of thump and rumble. Mid-bass, responsible for the body of bass guitars and punch of the kick drums is over our neutral target by more than 4dB. High-bass, responsible for warmth is overemphasized by almost 3dB. Overall, the bass lacks sub-bass but is a bit too heavy on punch and warmth which gives the sound a boomy and muddy quality. Also, their bass delivery varies noticeably across users and is sensitive to the quality of fit and seal. The response here represents the average bass response and your experience may vary.
The mid-range performance is good. The overall response is quite even but shows a dip around 800Hz. Low-mid is quite well-balanced which is important for producing clear vocals. The wide 5dB dip in mid-mid and high-mid nudges vocals and lead instruments to the back of the mix by giving more emphasis to the bass and treble ranges.
The Bang & Olufsen Earset Wireless have sub-par treble performance. The response throughout the range is a bit uneven. Low-treble is decently balanced overall but shows a tilt favoring higher frequencies. Mid-treble is overemphasized by almost 6dB, bringing excess brightness and sibilance to vocals, leads, and cymbals. The excess sibilance (piercing S and T sounds) will be mostly noticeable on cymbals and vocals. Also, their treble delivery varies noticeably across users. The response here represents the average response and your experience may vary.
The imaging performance is above-average. Weighted group delay is at 0.59, which is decent. The GD graph also shows that mid and treble ranges group delay is below the audibility threshold. The bump in group delay in the bass range could make their bass a bit slow, but this won't be audible to most. Also, the L/R drivers of our test unit were decently matched in frequency, amplitude, and phase response. This is important for the accurate placement and localization of objects (voices, instruments, video game effects) in the stereo field.
The Bang & Olufsen Earset Wireless have a poor soundstage. Creating an out-of-head and speaker-like soundstage is largely dependent on activating the resonances of the pinna (outer ear). Since the design of in-ears and earbuds is in such a way that fully bypasses the pinna and doesn't interact with it, they tend to have a small and inside the head soundstage.
The Bang & Olufsen Earset Wireless have poor isolation performance. This is expected and due to their open-back design. In the bass range, where the rumble of bus and airplane engines sit, they achieve no isolation. In the mid-range, important for cutting out speech, they don't isolate either. In the treble range, occupied by sharp S and T sounds, they isolate by about -7dB, which is inadequate.
The leakage performance is average. These headphones don't leak in the bass and mid-ranges. A significant portion of their leakage is in the treble range and between 2KHz and 20KHz, which is a wide range but only concentrated in the treble region. The overall level of the leakage can be relatively loud though. With the music 100dB SPL, the leakage at 1 foot away averages at 41dB SPL and peaks at around 67dB SPL, which is noticeably louder than the noise floor of an average office.
The Bang & Olufsen Earset Wireless have a mediocre in-line microphone. In quiet environments, speech recorded or transmitted with this mic will sound relatively thin, noticeably muffled, and lacking in detail. In noisy environments, it will struggle to separate speech from background noise even in moderately loud situations, like a busy street.
The Bang & Olufsen Earset Wireless' microphone has a mediocre recording quality. The LFE (low-frequency extension) of 273Hz means speech recorded/transmitted with it will sound relatively thin. The HFE (high-frequency extension) of 2.6kHz is poor and results in a speech that's noticeably muffled and lacking in detail.
The in-line microphone is mediocre at noise-handling. In our SpNR test, they achieved a speech-to-noise ratio of 14dB, indicating they are best suited for quiet environments and will struggle to separate speech from ambient noise in moderate and loud situations.
The Bang & Olufsen Earset Wireless have average 5.1-hour battery life. They won't last an entire day for listening at the office, and they don't support passive playback. On the upside, they do have a good auto-off feature that saves power when inactive, and they charge fairly quickly at 2 hours for a full charge.
The Beoplay app looks good but lacks a few features. It has a preset equalizer that makes a slight difference to the sound profile but isn't as customizable as the Jaybird MySound App, and you also get a barebones in-app player. Overall, it's a decently useful app but it would benefit from a bit more customization options.
These are Bluetooth-only headphones with no NFC support or multipoint pairing. On the upside, they have a very typical and easy hold-to-pair procedure, so they don't take too long to switch between Bluetooth devices. Like most Bluetooth headphones, the Bang & Olufsen Earset Wireless have a bit too much latency for gaming and watching movies. They also don't support any low latency codecs.
