Headphone help

[bagofpucks]

Well, it’s been 10 years since I bought my corded Bose headphones, so I figure it’s time to upgrade to wireless and blue tooth. Anyone have any recommendations? I’ll be using them mostly for listening to tv or podcasts and maybe flying with them once per year. I’m thinking my main considerations are comfort, battery life, and overall build quality. I’m also hoping my timing is solid to hit some Black Friday deals in the coming weeks.

[Locke]

I've got some BOSE QuietComfort headphones and I love them. Yeah, a bit pricy, but they last a long time and the quality is excellent.

[GranteedEV]

Originally Posted by bagofpucks

Well, it’s been 10 years since I bought my corded Bose headphones, so I figure it’s time to upgrade to wireless and blue tooth. Anyone have any recommendations? I’ll be using them mostly for listening to tv or podcasts and maybe flying with them once per year. I’m thinking my main considerations are comfort, battery life, and overall build quality. I’m also hoping my timing is solid to hit some Black Friday deals in the coming weeks.

I've been using these (I bought them for 199.99 at visions, I believe on a best buy price match. currently Amazon has them for 199.99 so a similar price match should be doable)

https://www.visions.ca/sennheiser-ac...fault_products

They do have the odd quirk, but overall I'd say my experience with them especially in wireless mode has been largely positive as someone who tends to dislike headphones and yet has a need for neutral sound with good resolution.

I did post some comments on them in the thread below:

https://forum.calgarypuck.com/showth...50#post9252850

[DoubleK]

I have the Sony-1000XM4 for my over ear set and use the EarFun Air Pro 4 for my in ear set.

Both have excellent noise cancelling, battery life and most importantly sound quality. The EarFun ones sound as good as earbuds twice the price.

[Locke]

Holy ####!

Those BOSE headphones were not that expensive when I bought them!

[DoubleF]

Budget? and are your wired Bose headphones the baseline or are you OK with slightly lower tier but still decent performing headphones? The Bose ones might be closer to $500 and there's good options in the $200-300 range.

Also, do you want over the ear? or are you also considering ear buds and other styles?

Keep in mind that for bluetooth vs wired, the battery will go over time. The calibre of the headphone may also determine if such headphones might be repairable, or just counting down to the day they will be replaced. Some can also be used as a wired headphone with removable wire and most cannot.

[bagofpucks]

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

I've been using these (I bought them for 199.99 at visions, I believe on a best buy price match. currently Amazon has them for 199.99 so a similar price match should be doable)

https://www.visions.ca/sennheiser-ac...fault_products

They do have the odd quirk, but overall I'd say my experience with them especially in wireless mode has been largely positive as someone who tends to dislike headphones and yet has a need for neutral sound with good resolution.

I did post some comments on them in the thread below:

https://forum.calgarypuck.com/showth...50#post9252850

Sorry, did not see that other thread when I searched. Thanks for the recommendation, those are in the running for sure.

[bagofpucks]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

Budget? and are your wired Bose headphones the baseline or are you OK with slightly lower tier but still decent performing headphones? The Bose ones might be closer to $500 and there's good options in the $200-300 range.

Also, do you want over the ear? or are you also considering ear buds and other styles?

Keep in mind that for bluetooth vs wired, the battery will go over time. The calibre of the headphone may also determine if such headphones might be repairable, or just counting down to the day they will be replaced. Some can also be used as a wired headphone with removable wire and most cannot.

I’d say if I can stick in the $200-$300 range and get some good bang for buck that would be great, but if I needed to expand the budget for something that is worth it that’s fine too.

My preference is over the ear. Ear buds just are not comfortable for me at all.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by bagofpucks

I’d say if I can stick in the $200-$300 range and get some good bang for buck that would be great, but if I needed to expand the budget for something that is worth it that’s fine too.

My preference is over the ear. Ear buds just are not comfortable for me at all.

The other recommendations for accentum and XM4 are solid in the $200-300 range. IMO the ATH M50xBT2 for $280 is also solid, but it's more for music, no ANC.

In the $500 range, IMO sonos ace, B&W Px7 and B&o Beoplay are worth keeping tabs on over the XM5/Bose/Air Pods. But surprise discounts could change this. These will look and feel incrementally more refined than the previous options.

In this range, there's also the Senheisser Momentum 4. I think it might be slightly better sounding, but perhaps not most solid build like comparatively as it's more plastic to be light weight. It has a long battery life and a transparency mode I don't think the others have.

More solid build and looks, nicer materials/more solid build, better feel, incrementally better performance... But I cannot say for certain if you'll think the incremental increase in performance and quality premium is worth paying for for you though. I do feel like the $500 range funny features and build quality cause the pros and cons become more noticeable such as gaming, TV, unique features like quick swap/transparency mode, app interfaces, ANC quality, battery life, wired usage etc.

[calumniate]

I just used wired headphones with a dongle. Always an option though not for everyone. The headphones I have will stick around for a lot longer than your typical bluetooth stuff.

Like as doubleF mentioned B&O, I have the b&o H6 and is superb for calls. Swapped out the earpads and good as new pretty much. And with a cheap dongle they still work with modern phones

[DoubleF]

Oh, I guess to put it this way for those $500 range headphone options:

Advertised/understanding:
- Sennheiser Momentum 4 (M4): Music focused. Higher battery life (60 vs 30-50 for others). Transparency mode (hear outside sound). Lightweight, but mostly plastic build.
- Sonos Ace: Home theatre focused. Spatial sound. Easier handoff for devices for home theatre vs phone. Aware mode (ambient sounds). Steel and leather.
- B&O Beoplay Portal: Gaming focused. Virtual surround sound. Wired, Wireless or bluetooth low latency connectivity. Virtual boom mic. Steel and plastic build.
- B&W Px7 S2e/Px8: Balanced focus for usage in all scenarios. Lightweight via aluminium and fabric build.

Others in the range I didn't go super deep into:
Sony XM5 is battling vs M4/Ace in overall build and performance in a value build, but seem to have some of its own features as well.

Bose Quiet comfort vs M4 and Portal in performance but not build. Was the standard, but many have moved on for reasons of performance or build.

Airpods Max vs Ace and Portal. I mean, seems comparable to some of these guys, but you pay a premium of about 20-30%.

Beats Studio Pro. I almost didn't want to even mention them. I'd argue these are basically fighting against the M4, but with up to a 10-20% premium on the M4. I'd consider paying up to 10-20% premium for the M4 over the beats, not the other way around.

I've been hawing and humming about whether to pick up another set of wireless headphones in the $500 ish range. I have the Sennheiser 450BT (precursor to the Accentum) and they're good enough, but I don't like the plastic. But then I'm looking at $500 headphones and I wonder if I should look into higher end wired headphones... ugh.

[DownInFlames]

Focal Bathys. If you're gonna go $500 might as well spend a grand.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by DownInFlames

Focal Bathys. If you're gonna go $500 might as well spend a grand.

Based on what I read about these, it seems like the Bathys MG are attempting the ethos of what the B&W Px8 is trying to do (overall balance), but also incorporate the music performance of the Momentum 4 and the ANC of the MX5.

Metal usage is magnesium and there's supposedly a built in DAC. I saw some honest reviews saying they basically fight at around a $700 wired headphone level of performance but cost nearly double. I don't know the accuracy of that, but based on the wording vs typical audiophile verbiage, it seems like a reasonable thing to say.

Personally not the price point I'd want to spend that kind of money on wireless headphones, especially since IMO there will be some quiet upgrades to wireless sound codecs in the next 3-5 years. But what I read about these also makes it seems like they're relatively respectable quality wireless headphones for their price point.

[Titan2]

Costco has good sales on the Bose QuietComforts. I recently bought them and am very happy with them. Beware, they are not the Ultra but are pretty good for the price. They are currently listed at $429 but are often available for $199. I have seen them at that price a couple of times since I bought mine. https://www.costco.ca/bose-qc-sc-hea...000247779.html

Bose did announce a new version of the Ultra, and I saw an article stating they were now the best, but I couldn't find it. Keep that in mind if you are in that price range.

Sony seems to be the king of NC for now, with Bose a good runner-up.
Here is the rtings page based on noise cancelling, FYI:
https://www.rtings.com/headphones/re...ise-cancelling

I also like the Wirecutter reviews. Also, Sony as king: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/r...ng-headphones/

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Titan2

Costco has good sales on the Bose QuietComforts. I recently bought them and am very happy with them. Beware, they are not the Ultra but are pretty good for the price. They are currently listed at $429 but are often available for $199. I have seen them at that price a couple of times since I bought mine. https://www.costco.ca/bose-qc-sc-hea...000247779.html

Bose did announce a new version of the Ultra, and I saw an article stating they were now the best, but I couldn't find it. Keep that in mind if you are in that price range.

Sony seems to be the king of NC for now, with Bose a good runner-up.
Here is the rtings page based on noise cancelling, FYI:
https://www.rtings.com/headphones/re...ise-cancelling

I also like the Wirecutter reviews. Also, Sony as king: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/r...ng-headphones/

I had an inkling I was sleeping on the Sony 1000XM series a little bit when I wrote the comparison post, but I kinda brushed it off. It seems that was unfair. It was one of those builds like the M4/Quiet comfort and beats that were mostly made of plastic and fidelity focused. Quick glances seems to show that the MX1000 seems to have higher quality plastic/durability design out of all of them, but of course it won't hold a candle to a build that is more metals based.

There are differences in complaints of active noise cancelling (ANC) via passive, active and/or effects to fidelity when active, but I kinda assumed that if OP started off with corded, it'll all still be superior to what OP started with. But yes, the Sony and Bose rank quite highly, and there's supposedly a noticeable gap between the, and the others. rtings is showing solid 9 scores for the 1000XM, Quietcomfort and Airpods Max with the next guys ranking in the mid 8 ranges or lower.

The Px7/Px8 and Beoplay portal seem to have ANC that are suited for indoors mentioned to be poor at bass. This implies it's good for home/office, but not as great at outdoors stuff vehicles/busses, street noise and planes. Sonos Ace is weird as it has low 8s for office/commute isolation but very good overall full range isolation. I think that is because this rtings chart had testing blends both the natural isolation of closed headphones with the ANC feature added on top? Somehow it had a good overall ranking that challenged the Bose and Sonys but base rankings that didn't compare.

I also think that the Sony 1000XM series for the 4-6 models are all still close ish in price and worth comparing to each other, and not just against the other headphones.

ANC seems to go XM6>>XM4>XM5 with almost everything else being compared to, but falling short of the XM5 for ANC. Fidelity goes XM6>XM5>XM4.

IMO, for just the Sony 1000XM series, XM4 are still solid, but if you can reach the XM5 <$100, worth considering. Then there's a similar calibre of improvement from XM5 to XM6, but the 6 also boasts a redesign for folding that the XM5 doesn't have, so I'd say if it's within <$100, worth considering upgrading, unless the folding feature is worth a little more than a $100 price gap.

Amazon showing XM4 at around $430 XM5 at around $400-500 (currently discounted), and XM6 at $600.


Blahhh.... I just grabbed a pair of open box XM5 at a decent price. I've been looking for something to upgrade from the 450BT since my wife likes them and I've been leaning towards grabbing some Sony headphones to pair with my Xperia phone I'm using as a music player. That's the 9th set of headphones now and that also ignores half a dozen pairs of IEMs/earbuds/bone conducting headphones. I gotta find new homes for some of these headphones.

[calgarywinning]

Px8 s2 released yesterday, getting stellar reviews. Sony's 1000 XM6 is nice. I have been using a pair of pi8 and can say for earbuds, these are in a class all their own. AirPods Pro 2 have a really unique purpose as well and work great in the Apple ecosphere but if you want sonic the pi8 will shame them. I just wouldn't want to mow the lawn with them. AirPods Pro 3 will be interesting to compare to them.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by calgarywinning

Px8 s2 released yesterday, getting stellar reviews. Sony's 1000 XM6 is nice. I have been using a pair of pi8 and can say for earbuds, these are in a class all their own. AirPods Pro 2 have a really unique purpose as well and work great in the Apple ecosphere but if you want sonic the pi8 will shame them. I just wouldn't want to mow the lawn with them. AirPods Pro 3 will be interesting to compare to them.

https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/the...r-price-hurts/

B&W is owned by Samsung? Neat.

Seems like this release upgrades the fidelity. Lots of reviews saying the px7 and px8 are some of the comfiest headphones out there. I can't justify that type of price though.