Plantronics BackBeat Go 810 Wireless Headphones Review

The Plantronics BackBeat Go 810 are good looking headphones. They have a nice matte finish which has a high-end feel, and their copper headband gives them a premium look. They have decently thick ear cup padding and have a fairly similar design to that of the BackBeat Pro 2. They come in three different colors: Graphite Black, Navy Blue, and Bone White.

The BackBeat Go 810 are fairly comfortable, but the cups are a bit small and shallow, which won’t be ideal for everyone. Also, they might be tight and have an unnatural fit on larger heads. The padding is decently thick and soft, and the headphones are lightweight, which is good. The headband is also decently padded, so you shouldn’t feel too much pressure on the top of your head. You can wear these for a while, but some may feel fatigue rather quickly.

The control scheme of the BackBeat Go 810 is pretty good. The cups look like they have touch-sensitive surfaces, but the left ear cup actually has physical buttons for music management. You also get separate volume controls and have additional Bluetooth and presets buttons. The preset button lets you switch between the default/balanced and bright presets and acts as a mic-mute button when on calls. All buttons offer great tactile feedback and are easy to use.

Unfortunately, there are no noise-canceling controls directly on the headphones, but you can change this inside their companion app. Also, there’s no audio cue that lets you know which EQ preset you're on, so you also need to look at the app.

The BackBeat Go 810 broke our breathability testing. They wouldn’t sit appropriately on our testing rig, and a gap would be visible at the top of the ear cups, allowing more airflow. We got fairly low temperature differences for over-ears, so we measured only one ear at a time to get results that would better reflect the user's experience. Overall, like most closed over-ears they trap a fair amount of heat under the ear cups and won’t be an ideal choice for sports as you would sweat more than usual.

Like most over-ear headphones, the Plantronics BackBeat Go 810 aren’t very portable. They aren’t as bulky as some other headphones, but they don’t fold into a more compact format. Thankfully, the cups swivel to lay flat, so it's easier to slide them inside a bag or wear them comfortably around your neck. Unfortunately, they only come with a pouch that doesn’t really protect the headphones.

The BackBeat Go 810 come with a disappointing mesh pouch. It may protect the headphones against scratches, but that’s about it. It won’t do anything against water exposure and impacts. On the upside, it doesn’t add too much bulk when you want to travel with them.

Update 03/31/2021: Some users have reported that their unit's plastic headband has cracked or broke with continuous use over the course of a few months. Although we don't test for durability over time, your unit may be prone to breakage over time. That said, the scoring of this box hasn't changed.

The Plantronics BackBeat Go 810 have a satisfactory build quality. They don’t feel as solid as the Plantronics BackBeat Pro 2, but the materials used feel similarly sturdy. The metal headband is solid and flexible, but the overall build creaks a lot, especially when you’re pulling the cups apart to position the headphones on your head. On the upside, the cups feel dense and should survive a few accidental drops without suffering too much damage.

The BackBeat Go 810 are stable headphones, and you should be able to run with them without too many problems. They don’t move much from side to side and have a fairly secure fit. Some larger heads may feel like they are even more tight, which can be good for sports. However, their bulky design might not be ideal for sports activities. Their wireless design also gets rid of the risk of having a cable getting hooked on something and yanking the headphones off your head.

• Plantronics BackBeat Go 810
• 1/8" TRS audio cable
• Micro-USB charging cable
• Carrying pouch
• Manuals

The frequency response consistency is great. Similar to the Anker SoundCore Space NC, the BackBeat Go 810 seem to be using its noise canceling system to check for bass consistency. Therefore, in the bass range, they perform extremely consistently across our five human subjects. In the treble range, they are also quite consistent, but not as much as the bass range, showing under 3dB of deviation below 10KHz. This results in a consistent delivery of bass and treble across multiple users and re-seats.

The bass is excellent. Low-bass, which is responsible for the thump and rumble common to EDM, hip-hop, and film scores, is well-balanced and extended down to 10Hz, which is great. Mid-bass, occupied by the body of bass guitars and the punch of kick drums, is also reproduced virtually flat, but slightly overemphasized by about 2dB over our target. However, high-bass, responsible for warmth, is within 1dB over our target, which is great. Overall, they have an excellent bass performance, but some may feel like they are bass-light.

The BackBeat Go 810’s mid-range performance is remarkable. The response throughout the range is virtually flawless and follows our target curve almost perfectly. This will result in accurate and detailed reproduction of vocals and lead instruments.

The treble performance is also excellent. The response is flat and even throughout the range, with slight deviations. The small dip around 5KHz will have a negligible effect on some sibilants (S and T sounds) and will sound detail-lacking, while those around 9KHz might sound a bit sharp and piercing for some. However, not everyone will hear it as sibilant as others.

The imaging performance is good. Unfortunately, the Plantronics BackBeat Go 810 show audible amounts of group delay in the bass range which results in slightly soft and loose basses and kicks. On the upside, the L/R drivers of our test unit were well-matched in amplitude, frequency, and phase response, which is important for the accurate placement and localization of objects (voices, instruments, video game effects) in the stereo image. However, these results are only valid for our unit, and yours may perform differently.

The soundstage performance of the BackBeat Go 810 is sub-par. While the PRTF graph shows a decent amount of pinna interaction and good accuracy, there is no 10KHz present. This results in a relatively large soundstage but may feel unnatural and perceived to be inside the listener’s head rather than in front. Also, because of the closed-back design, the soundstage of the headphones may be perceived to be less open-sounding than that of open-back headphones.

The noise isolation performance is alright. With their ANC enabled, the Plantronics BackBeat Go 810 do a poor job of reducing the rumble of airplane and bus engines, especially when compared headphones with a more powerful ANC like the Anker Soundcore Life Q30 Wireless. They do a bit better in the mid-range though, which is where ambient chatter is found, and perform best when cutting down sharp sounds like S and Ts and fan noises.

The leakage performance is good. The significant portion of the leakage is between 500Hz and 7KHz, so the leakage will sound quite thin. The overall level of the leakage is not loud either. With the music at 100dB SPL, the leakage at 1 foot away, averages at about 35dB SPL and peaks at 45dB SPL, which is below the noise floor of most offices.

The microphone's recording quality is okay. The LFE (low-frequency extension) is at 261Hz, suggesting speech transmitted/recorded to be noticeably thin. The HFE (high-frequency extension) of 3.5KHz results in speech that is muffled and lacks detail. However, most Bluetooth headphones perform like this, and these results are limited by the Bluetooth protocol.

The integrated microphone is mediocre at noise handling. In our SpNR test, they achieved a speech-to-noise ratio of about 12dB, indicating that the microphone performs best in quiet environments and may struggle in moderate and loud environments.

The Plantronics BackBeat Go 810 have a great 24-hour battery life that will last you more than a workday, and it won’t need daily charging, which is nice. According to Plantronics’ spec sheet, you can also get 3 hours of continuous playback thanks to a very short 10-minute charge, which is great. They enter a standby mode when being idle for a few minutes and can last for up to 10 days, but we obviously couldn’t test this. You can also use the headphones passively with the included audio cable, even if the battery is dead. We couldn't accurately measure their charging time since the LED wouldn't turn off or change color when fully charged. The specs sheet advertises a 2-hour charging time.

The Plantronics BackBeat App is pretty lackluster. You can only switch between the balanced and bright EQ presets and it doesn’t offer a real equalizer. On the upside, you can control the amount of ANC you want and switch between High, Low, and Off. Unfortunately, you must use the app to change this setting since there's no physical ANC button on the headphones. The app also gives you access to other features like Find My Headset, battery life status, and a Dark Theme.

The BackBeat Go 810 are Bluetooth compatible and can connect to two devices, which is useful if you want to often switch between your cellphone and work computer. Also, you might even get better overall performance if your source supports Bluetooth 5.0. Our current test bench only supports Bluetooth 4.2, but we do plan on upgrading this in a future test bench update.

Their latency is too high for watching video content and gaming. The Plantronics BackBeat Go 810 have more latency issues than the average Bluetooth headphones. You’ll notice a delay between the video content and audio and this will get frustrating. However, some devices and apps seem to offer some sort of compensation, so you might not notice the delay as much, but it will still be there. You can use them wired to get rid of this delay.

You can use the Plantronics BackBeat Go 810 passively with the included 1/8” TRS cable. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have an in-line microphone, so you won’t be able to take calls or communicate in online games. However, we were able to use a third-party cable that has an in-line microphone. The headphones support it, but simply don't come with one.

The BackBeat Go 810 don’t have a base or dock. If you're looking for headphones with a dock for customization options, look at the Arctis Pro Wireless. If you want a charging dock, look at the Astro A50, and if you're looking for wireless headphones for watching TV, look at the Sennheiser RS 185.