Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I'm a "prosumer" audophile. I don't own $20,000 speakers, but I listen to music a LOT, every day, at home, at work, in bed, doing chores, cooking dinner. With four kids, immersive high-quality music soothes the savage breast... and so it does for me. I've been using bluetooth over-ear headphones frequently for many years, previously primarily two pairs of Bluedio R+ Legends, which I thought were excellent, had spectacular bass (and I am a man who enjoys his deep, articulate, thorough, controlled but punctuated bass... one could say, even a little too much). I primarily listen to EDM, "sadcore", easy-going, Jazz, some Ibiza-style stuff, all of which has a lot of stuff going on between 20Hz and 60Hz that you need to hear - clearly - every tone - or you're missing something important on the track. I've read plenty of reviews of plenty of headphones and have been on a Quixotic journey in recent months to cover all the big names and find a modern, appropriately feature-rich, ooey-gooey soft and comfy, sparkly, vocal, deep, rich, spectacular-sounding pair of headsets that just say, wow, damn, that's it. I tried a couple (relatively) cheap pairs and was very thorough and scientific, and wrote MANY hundreds of words picking them apart, when the fundamental question is: does it work? Is it comfortable, do the controls work, does it look/feel like quality stuff, and most importantly, does it sound good? I'll admit on my journey cost was a bit of no object. I tried pairs for $20 and pairs for $500. I found that the reviews are very subjective and indeed, it can be pretty hard to describe the "rich mids" or "sparkling highs", or even soundstage, or what "controlled" or "prominent" bass even really means. One person's "lots of bass" is another's "meh... it's good". I don't want bass that rattles the windows and license plate frame. I want bass you can HEAR. And with headphones, I expect to hear tones that my 12" powered subwoofer can make, without going all wet and rubbery. So that's it - not a punch-you-in-the-ear-lobes bass, but just below that. It's there, it's clear, it's no quieter than any other tone. Overall sound quality, I gave my top spot to the Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H9. That having been said, I've also tried Sennheiser Momentum HD1 Over-Ear/ANC (same price), Bluedio Victory and Bluedio Vinyl, Bose QC35, Sony MDR1000X to name a few of the more prominent contenders. The Bose and Sony sound good but not B&O or Sennheiser good. The Bluedios sounded OK, but make a lot of amplifier hiss - a huge let-down from a brand I otherwise expected to deliver a pretty clear no-regrets experience. The Sennheiser sounds great, but has some surprising cheap plasticky material that's surprising on a headset at that price point. The Bose can't maintain a steady Bluetooth connection outdoors with your phone in your pocket and the Bluedio Vinyls had an odd breaking-up playback randomly with the first and last few seconds of several tracks in a row - seemingly at random, regardless of location or which tracks were listening. The Bose does probably win the comfort war by a hair, but the Senns, B&O and Sony are all so comfortable and well-designed, it's hard to say any one is clearly the best. It's like asking, which super-soft plush, open-grain leather arm chair you prefer sitting in. They're ALL great. Straight out of the box, where are these on the spectrum defined above? Build quality is good. They're light enough. They are predominantly plastic, like the Senns, Sony and Bose, but textured plastic that looks pretty good. The aesthetic with the faux wood (plastic) inserts on the ear cups won't be for all, but at least they stand out. Comfort level is pretty good - let me wear them for a few hours... Features: plenty of controls and they all feel well put together. One I REALLY like about these is they have tilt / gyro sensors that automatically pause your music when you lift them off your head or lay them down. You can also apparently answer a call automatically just by picking them up and putting them on. That's slick - that's an idea by a company who grew up making headsets for wireless phones. Now: sound quality. KaBOOM! The bass here is beautiful, resonant, vocal, and undeniable. Somehow the bass on the B&O feels a touch more... articulate. But the performance is "near as doesn't matter". It sounds just fantastic. A joy to listen to. Now, that alone doesn't make it a win. 1) whereas top-notch integrations of ANC with, e.g. Sony and B&O, make no discernable impact on the sound quality and minimal to no 'white noise', this does seem to damper the bass. Not to the point where it's under-performing; it simply sounds better, BIGGER, with ANC off. You can't deactivate ANC on the Bose or Senns, but both do a good job making virtually no white noise even when the music is silent. 2) When you have the headphones at full volume, there is a minimal, but perceptible amplifier hiss, which is most certainly not present on the Senns or B&Os. I flayed the Bluedios for this, although it was far more prominent, and didn't diminish significantly turning down the headphones onboard volume. With these, if you turn them down a few notches and turn up your phone, the noise is effectively imperceptible. The Bluedios also weren't this comfortable, were a great deal heavier, didn't sound this good, and didn't have the nifty gyro sensor feature. Admittedly, the metal tangs that adjust the headband size feel a little loose when extended. Sony, Bose, B&O and Senn all feel very well-manufactured by comparison. I'll also note that the cans don't fold under, so they aren't quite the same kind of compact "road warrior" as the Sony, Bose or Senn. (The B&O also doesn't fold in but the cans rotate 90% on the vertical axis, so you can easily wear them around your neck.) Last complaint is, these are a few ounces heavier and grip a few ounces harder on your head than Bose, Sony, B&O or Sennheiser, together which means, they can generate a little physical fatigue around your ears after a few hours of listening. The pads are soft and pliable, but I don't think these are quite the peer of the other four in comfort. Overall, I like these - greatly. I'm happy with them. I'll keep them. If you value Very Good sound together with more compactness for storage, sort of "road warrior" portability, I'd recommend the Sony, Sennheiser or Bose (even give the Sony the edge because of some also-very-nifty touch controls - you hold your hand over the right side and can hear the environment around you, better even than with your own ears, as these can do, but with toggling a manual switch that you won't be able to find quickly if, for example, there's a boarding call or an announcement about a flight change.) If you value dazzling good sound performance above all else, I'd suggest the Bang & Olufsen first, with the Senns and these Plantronics tied for second. They're all very good, all very comfortable, and sound sculpting is going to be a highly subjective determination; but for outright sound performance, given that they're 40% of the price of the Senns or B&O, that might carry the day giving these my #2 spot. Very good! Happy listening! ------------------------ Updating this - the gyro feature is a bit of a blessing and a curse. I was wearing these while cooking and found that the gyro paused the music a bit too often when I hadn't moved it off my ear, and when I had, didn't un-pause the music several times when I had put them back on my ears. Another challenge - when connecting to a bluetooth transmitter connected to the TV, the "pause when taking it off your ear" function causes it to cut its connection to the transmitter. There is no "pause" or "mute", just "disconnect". So whenever I lift these from my head while watching TV, the only way to re-connect to the transmitter is to get up and go press the button on the transmitter to re-connect. I love the idea and they tried to really carefully craft the feature to match the motion of lifting an ear cup from your ear, or taking them off your head. All very cool. But it seems it gets a bit flummoxed at points. Still like these a lot, and still brilliant for listening to music connected to a smartphone, but maybe that "auto-pause" feature should be able to be toggled on and off.