[mattbanks]

Really hoping for an H9 firmware update soon that retains ToneTouch preset and lets you connect to 2 devices at once. That’s really I want in the H9.

 

[winslord]

Really hoping for an H9 firmware update soon that retains ToneTouch preset and lets you connect to 2 devices at once. That’s really I want in the H9.

I doubt it’s ever happening. That’s a problem with the chip, not the software. Meanwhile, Qualcomm announced a brand new more advanced chip for Bluetooth headphones around the time H9i was released...

 

[mgw01]

Just got my H9i this evening. Here are my quick first impressions in no particular order. (Note: my only beoplay headphone experience is with my H6 gen 2, so can't compare to the H9)
- Touch controls aren't perfect, but worked pretty well
- Don't like that the only way to turn ANC on or off is via a swipe. And as far as I know there is no visual cue to indicate ANC is on.
- Seem as comfortable as my H6's, but they are noticeably heavier as expected. Not sure how that will impact longer listening sessions. There is a bit more padding in the headband compared to the H6.
- Proximity sensor mostly works, though not as good as the B&W PX. Sometimes take a moment or two to pause the music, although seemed to restart quickly.
- There is a noticeable impact to the sound when ANC is on - much like the PX. I can't say which is worse since I returned my PX's several months back. I would describe it as a narrowing of the sound (less fullness) and a reduced volume. Only listened briefly, so can't say whether it is a deal breaker. I suspect not though. I do wish there were different levels of ANC like the PX.
- As for SQ, since I didn't really give them a good workout I can't speak to that yet. For now I can give the somewhat useless "they sound pretty good" review.
- ANC performance seemed decent, but I was at home with the rest of the family out so not a noisy environment. I did stand close to the TV and it definitely hushed that sound pretty well.

For me I really only intend on using the ANC on the plane so I can deal with a reduction in SQ if the comfort is acceptable for several hours at a time. I had the PX for a bit and while I wasn't a fan of how the SQ was impacted I would've kept them if they weren't unbearable to wear.

I plan on giving them a good a/b comparison with my H6's when I get a chance - including with my dragonfly black in wired mode.

 

[Yreme]

Thanks to everyone for their comments here, I really love this community!

The hype on the H9i from early reviews and posts and members here got me excited to give these a try so I ordered a pair. The combination of sonic improvements over the H9 (which I have never tried), gesture improvements, and USB-C really intrigued me. This is my very first B&O product ever purchased.

Currently I have a pair of B&W PX and PSB M4U 8’s for comparison. I’m planning on doing a write-up but it’s taking a lot of time. I wanted to get some first impressions out here first since I’ve found comments from so many of you invaluable.

All of my listening is done through Bluetooth paired to an iPhone X. I use Apple Music for music and Overcast for podcasts.


COMFORT

The pictures are deceiving. The ear cups are a lot smaller than I was hoping - they don’t completely surround my ears, which means they’re an over/on-ear hybrid for me which is unfortunate. I’ve had them on for 2 hours at the time of writing this and need to keep adjusting because of the pressure they place on my ears.

But man, for short listening sessions these things are like pillows. The pads are soooo soft compared to the PX’s, but I personally find the PX ear cups to be more comfortable because they completely surround my ear without touching them.

As for weight, like other people have experienced, the PX’s are very heavy. They’re so heavy that they make the top of my head hurt after 30 minutes of listening. They’re also so heavy that looking down to zip up my coat causes them to fall forward. The H9i’s perform much better here. They’re not perfect, mind you, as there is some top headband pressure that forms as well, but it’s not very significant.


CONTROLS

I don’t even know where to start. A string of expletives might be a good idea. I can’t update the firmware to the latest version so I’m on 5.0.1. B&O support told me to delete/reinstall the app, which I did, but I get an “Internal error (1)” after waiting 10 minutes and watching the progress number go from 0% to 99.9%.

I’m riding the train as I write this, and the music is randomly starting / stopping on me. I’m not touching the controls just to see what happens, and so far it’s stopped and started maybe 10 times. Music will play for a few minutes or seconds, then stop for a few minutes or seconds. Sometimes turning my head makes the music stop. Sometimes doing absolutely nothing makes the music stop. Sitting at my desk in the office earlier today while at the computer, the headphones just stopped playing music after 6 songs of the album I was listening to. While walking to the train station and standing at a traffic light my podcast just stopped playing. I got it playing again and wanted to skip forward, so I swiped forward to advance 30 seconds, and it worked. Swiped again, worked again. Swiped a third time, and it worked, but then one second later the podcast stops playing. This is literally the most frustrated experience I’ve ever had with a tech product. I seriously hope these issues are resolved in 5.0.3, but I wouldn’t know because I can’t update.

Holy. F’ing. $4!7 - where’s the cursing emoji?

And I haven’t even touched on the proximity sensor that automatically pauses the music when you take the headphones off, and plays when you put them back on. This works so unreliably that I want to shut the feature off, but you can’t. When I was doing listening tests in my quiet basement, in a controlled environment, carefully and completely putting the H9i’s on or off, the feature worked very well. In fact, it was really nice not having to tap to play each time I put them on. But when you’re out walking, or in the office with people coming to talk to you, or you lift an ear cup to hear the train announcer - behaviour is unpredictable when it counts. At least B&W give you the option to shut it off in the app if you don’t want to use the feature.

Swiping down to toggle ANC generally works reliably, but will often be followed up by pausing what I’m listening to. Then I tap to resume playing and one second later it pauses. I tap again, rinse and repeat; the only way to fix this loop is by hitting resume on my phone.

The circular volume gesture is interesting. I thought I would like this but in practice I don’t. Often I want a quick one-step-up or down adjustment. Doing a circle with my finger takes a moment for it to realize I’m doing the volume gesture (assuming I did it right and it doesn’t think I want to toggle ANC or something else instead) and thus by the time it kicks in I have to leave my finger on the ear cup and continue to adjust where I want the volume to be. It’s non-deterministic. Most of the time I just want a simple step function.


ANC

For the most part, ANC is decent. In my opinion, music with ANC turned on is better on the H9i than on the PX, but it’s not a slam dunk. ANC definitely impacts the sound quality and is not as good as listening with it turned off, in my opinion - the H9i feels like it has a more V shaped sound signature with ANC on (the already pronounced highs get higher). If you’re not doing an A/B comparison though it does sound good, and does cut out quite a bit when it’s working properly which is 99% of the time when stationary, (but pretty bad when walking). For what it’s worth I choose to leave ANC turned on while on the train, making sure to not tilt my head. With the PX I only use ANC when on the bus and there’s a persistent deep loud rumble.

That said, overall the execution of ANC is done better on the PX. For example, listening to headphones while walking always causes you to hear some muffled vibration of your heel making contact with the ground with each step. When ANC is on with the H9i’s, that muffled step sound gets amplified and therefore makes each step sound like you’ve actually got transparency mode turned on and someone is tapping the external mic with their hand. I have hard heels on my winter boots making contact with the concrete sidewalk, so you may not have this issue, but that never happens to me with the PX or PSB. Often times I’m running for the train and this makes it even worse - I can’t use ANC when “on the go”.

Here’s another example. On the train, the H9i’s sometimes pick up the deep rumble of the track and pass that through with the music. In fact, if I tilt my head sideways a bit, it’s somehow at the perfect angle to pick up the resonant frequency (or something) and the rumble is persistent in the music. With the PX and PSB they *always* cut out these deep frequencies for me.


SOUND

I’m still trying to decide if I like the H9i sound signature. Like others have mentioned, it very much accents the highs, but doesn’t sacrifice the low end which offers a fairly rich sound. It has better sub-bass than the PSB’s (some frequencies the H9i’s can handle that I don’t even hear on the PSB’s). I need to do more A/B testing but the H9i feels like it could be classified as a sibilant headphone. “s” sounds are noticeably hisssssy. That said, the PX does this too, but the PX just isn’t as bright as the H9i so it’s not as noticeable (the PX has a different problem of treble being veiled, in my opinion, but that’s a separate post). In essence these cans hit hard with the bass *and* treble. Of course, you can go into the Beoplay app and tweak all of this but then it’s impossible to have a reference comparison. They are certainly a fun headphone to listen to - when I’m not trying to be analytical I do very much enjoy using them. And no, I haven’t burned them in yet.

The max volume on these things is high-ish but not as high as I want. For most songs it’s fine, but when I want to crank some older songs that haven’t been normalized to 98% or what have you, I find myself maxing out the volume and wanting more.

I’m sad to say the distortion already mentioned previously is real. I was up late the other night and cranked up Joe Satriani - Flying in a Blue Dream as high as the H9i’s could go (which probably wasn’t great for my ears). During the intro in the first 30 seconds there are two times when the guitars are doing some funky oscillating thing and the H9i’s “poop” the bed. Tried the same listening test with the PX’s and PSB’s - they passed with flying colours. I’m probably not going to be listening at such high volumes for this to really be an issue, but why am I paying so much for a headphone that can’t handle distortion?


SUMMARY

There’s no such thing as the perfect headphone but I really thought these H9i’s were going to be close. Man was I wrong. The gesture controls are a complete dumpster fire train wreck - and that description is going easy on them. I hope someone can confirm that 5.0.3 is better. Comfort for me and my head is not a slam dunk based on the smaller ear cup opening. ANC has some oddities that leave the feature not feeling rock solid and does affect the sound. If I can’t resolve the control issues these things are definitely going back.

 

[mgw01]

Since you mentioned it - I noticed that the update to 5.0.3 is available but I chose not to install it. Anyone know what the benefits are? Should I install the update?

 

[Plantsversuszombies]

The more I read about the new „i“ Beoplays the more I think to keep my „old“ (1year) H9 and the 2-3 years old H8 which still looks brandnew. In the meantime I got the PX (which is ages ahead BOSE/SONY/B&O...) at least for my ears.
The new H9 has a bit more fancy stuff but the sound signature seems to be more or less identical to the H9. No Update needed.

 

[winslord]

Thanks to everyone for their comments here, I really love this community!

The hype on the H9i from early reviews and posts and members here got me excited to give these a try so I ordered a pair. The combination of sonic improvements over the H9 (which I have never tried), gesture improvements, and USB-C really intrigued me. This is my very first B&O product ever purchased.

Currently I have a pair of B&W PX and PSB M4U 8’s for comparison. I’m planning on doing a write-up but it’s taking a lot of time. I wanted to get some first impressions out here first since I’ve found comments from so many of you invaluable.

All of my listening is done through Bluetooth paired to an iPhone X. I use Apple Music for music and Overcast for podcasts.


COMFORT

The pictures are deceiving. The ear cups are a lot smaller than I was hoping - they don’t completely surround my ears, which means they’re an over/on-ear hybrid for me which is unfortunate. I’ve had them on for 2 hours at the time of writing this and need to keep adjusting because of the pressure they place on my ears.

But man, for short listening sessions these things are like pillows. The pads are soooo soft compared to the PX’s, but I personally find the PX ear cups to be more comfortable because they completely surround my ear without touching them.

As for weight, like other people have experienced, the PX’s are very heavy. They’re so heavy that they make the top of my head hurt after 30 minutes of listening. They’re also so heavy that looking down to zip up my coat causes them to fall forward. The H9i’s perform much better here. They’re not perfect, mind you, as there is some top headband pressure that forms as well, but it’s not very significant.


CONTROLS

I don’t even know where to start. A string of expletives might be a good idea. I can’t update the firmware to the latest version so I’m on 5.0.1. B&O support told me to delete/reinstall the app, which I did, but I get an “Internal error (1)” after waiting 10 minutes and watching the progress number go from 0% to 99.9%.

I’m riding the train as I write this, and the music is randomly starting / stopping on me. I’m not touching the controls just to see what happens, and so far it’s stopped and started maybe 10 times. Music will play for a few minutes or seconds, then stop for a few minutes or seconds. Sometimes turning my head makes the music stop. Sometimes doing absolutely nothing makes the music stop. Sitting at my desk in the office earlier today while at the computer, the headphones just stopped playing music after 6 songs of the album I was listening to. While walking to the train station and standing at a traffic light my podcast just stopped playing. I got it playing again and wanted to skip forward, so I swiped forward to advance 30 seconds, and it worked. Swiped again, worked again. Swiped a third time, and it worked, but then one second later the podcast stops playing. This is literally the most frustrated experience I’ve ever had with a tech product. I seriously hope these issues are resolved in 5.0.3, but I wouldn’t know because I can’t update.

Holy. F’ing. $4!7 - where’s the cursing emoji?

And I haven’t even touched on the proximity sensor that automatically pauses the music when you take the headphones off, and plays when you put them back on. This works so unreliably that I want to shut the feature off, but you can’t. When I was doing listening tests in my quiet basement, in a controlled environment, carefully and completely putting the H9i’s on or off, the feature worked very well. In fact, it was really nice not having to tap to play each time I put them on. But when you’re out walking, or in the office with people coming to talk to you, or you lift an ear cup to hear the train announcer - behaviour is unpredictable when it counts. At least B&W give you the option to shut it off in the app if you don’t want to use the feature.

Swiping down to toggle ANC generally works reliably, but will often be followed up by pausing what I’m listening to. Then I tap to resume playing and one second later it pauses. I tap again, rinse and repeat; the only way to fix this loop is by hitting resume on my phone.

The circular volume gesture is interesting. I thought I would like this but in practice I don’t. Often I want a quick one-step-up or down adjustment. Doing a circle with my finger takes a moment for it to realize I’m doing the volume gesture (assuming I did it right and it doesn’t think I want to toggle ANC or something else instead) and thus by the time it kicks in I have to leave my finger on the ear cup and continue to adjust where I want the volume to be. It’s non-deterministic. Most of the time I just want a simple step function.


ANC

For the most part, ANC is decent. In my opinion, music with ANC turned on is better on the H9i than on the PX, but it’s not a slam dunk. ANC definitely impacts the sound quality and is not as good as listening with it turned off, in my opinion - the H9i feels like it has a more V shaped sound signature with ANC on (the already pronounced highs get higher). If you’re not doing an A/B comparison though it does sound good, and does cut out quite a bit when it’s working properly which is 99% of the time when stationary, (but pretty bad when walking). For what it’s worth I choose to leave ANC turned on while on the train, making sure to not tilt my head. With the PX I only use ANC when on the bus and there’s a persistent deep loud rumble.

That said, overall the execution of ANC is done better on the PX. For example, listening to headphones while walking always causes you to hear some muffled vibration of your heel making contact with the ground with each step. When ANC is on with the H9i’s, that muffled step sound gets amplified and therefore makes each step sound like you’ve actually got transparency mode turned on and someone is tapping the external mic with their hand. I have hard heels on my winter boots making contact with the concrete sidewalk, so you may not have this issue, but that never happens to me with the PX or PSB. Often times I’m running for the train and this makes it even worse - I can’t use ANC when “on the go”.

Here’s another example. On the train, the H9i’s sometimes pick up the deep rumble of the track and pass that through with the music. In fact, if I tilt my head sideways a bit, it’s somehow at the perfect angle to pick up the resonant frequency (or something) and the rumble is persistent in the music. With the PX and PSB they *always* cut out these deep frequencies for me.


SOUND

I’m still trying to decide if I like the H9i sound signature. Like others have mentioned, it very much accents the highs, but doesn’t sacrifice the low end which offers a fairly rich sound. It has better sub-bass than the PSB’s (some frequencies the H9i’s can handle that I don’t even hear on the PSB’s). I need to do more A/B testing but the H9i feels like it could be classified as a sibilant headphone. “s” sounds are noticeably hisssssy. That said, the PX does this too, but the PX just isn’t as bright as the H9i so it’s not as noticeable (the PX has a different problem of treble being veiled, in my opinion, but that’s a separate post). In essence these cans hit hard with the bass *and* treble. Of course, you can go into the Beoplay app and tweak all of this but then it’s impossible to have a reference comparison. They are certainly a fun headphone to listen to - when I’m not trying to be analytical I do very much enjoy using them. And no, I haven’t burned them in yet.

The max volume on these things is high-ish but not as high as I want. For most songs it’s fine, but when I want to crank some older songs that haven’t been normalized to 98% or what have you, I find myself maxing out the volume and wanting more.

I’m sad to say the distortion already mentioned previously is real. I was up late the other night and cranked up Joe Satriani - Flying in a Blue Dream as high as the H9i’s could go (which probably wasn’t great for my ears). During the intro in the first 30 seconds there are two times when the guitars are doing some funky oscillating thing and the H9i’s “poop” the bed. Tried the same listening test with the PX’s and PSB’s - they passed with flying colours. I’m probably not going to be listening at such high volumes for this to really be an issue, but why am I paying so much for a headphone that can’t handle distortion?


SUMMARY

There’s no such thing as the perfect headphone but I really thought these H9i’s were going to be close. Man was I wrong. The gesture controls are a complete dumpster fire train wreck - and that description is going easy on them. I hope someone can confirm that 5.0.3 is better. Comfort for me and my head is not a slam dunk based on the smaller ear cup opening. ANC has some oddities that leave the feature not feeling rock solid and does affect the sound. If I can’t resolve the control issues these things are definitely going back.

According to Beoplay themselves, their headphones do not go under burn in period whatsoever. What you’re hearing is what you’re gonna be hearing. Maybe burn in for your brain and familiarity does exist though.

The H9i is completely different to the H9 so my previous ToneTouch tunings for V-MODA CF2W, FMW, Focal Spark Wireless, and others have gone useless lol. I’m frankly too lazy to do it again because each could take up hours.

 

[ducatiti]

Thanks to everyone for their comments here, I really love this community!

The hype on the H9i from early reviews and posts and members here got me excited to give these a try so I ordered a pair. The combination of sonic improvements over the H9 (which I have never tried), gesture improvements, and USB-C really intrigued me. This is my very first B&O product ever purchased.

Currently I have a pair of B&W PX and PSB M4U 8’s for comparison. I’m planning on doing a write-up but it’s taking a lot of time. I wanted to get some first impressions out here first since I’ve found comments from so many of you invaluable.

All of my listening is done through Bluetooth paired to an iPhone X. I use Apple Music for music and Overcast for podcasts.


COMFORT

The pictures are deceiving. The ear cups are a lot smaller than I was hoping - they don’t completely surround my ears, which means they’re an over/on-ear hybrid for me which is unfortunate. I’ve had them on for 2 hours at the time of writing this and need to keep adjusting because of the pressure they place on my ears.

But man, for short listening sessions these things are like pillows. The pads are soooo soft compared to the PX’s, but I personally find the PX ear cups to be more comfortable because they completely surround my ear without touching them.

As for weight, like other people have experienced, the PX’s are very heavy. They’re so heavy that they make the top of my head hurt after 30 minutes of listening. They’re also so heavy that looking down to zip up my coat causes them to fall forward. The H9i’s perform much better here. They’re not perfect, mind you, as there is some top headband pressure that forms as well, but it’s not very significant.


CONTROLS

I don’t even know where to start. A string of expletives might be a good idea. I can’t update the firmware to the latest version so I’m on 5.0.1. B&O support told me to delete/reinstall the app, which I did, but I get an “Internal error (1)” after waiting 10 minutes and watching the progress number go from 0% to 99.9%.

I’m riding the train as I write this, and the music is randomly starting / stopping on me. I’m not touching the controls just to see what happens, and so far it’s stopped and started maybe 10 times. Music will play for a few minutes or seconds, then stop for a few minutes or seconds. Sometimes turning my head makes the music stop. Sometimes doing absolutely nothing makes the music stop. Sitting at my desk in the office earlier today while at the computer, the headphones just stopped playing music after 6 songs of the album I was listening to. While walking to the train station and standing at a traffic light my podcast just stopped playing. I got it playing again and wanted to skip forward, so I swiped forward to advance 30 seconds, and it worked. Swiped again, worked again. Swiped a third time, and it worked, but then one second later the podcast stops playing. This is literally the most frustrated experience I’ve ever had with a tech product. I seriously hope these issues are resolved in 5.0.3, but I wouldn’t know because I can’t update.

Holy. F’ing. $4!7 - where’s the cursing emoji?

And I haven’t even touched on the proximity sensor that automatically pauses the music when you take the headphones off, and plays when you put them back on. This works so unreliably that I want to shut the feature off, but you can’t. When I was doing listening tests in my quiet basement, in a controlled environment, carefully and completely putting the H9i’s on or off, the feature worked very well. In fact, it was really nice not having to tap to play each time I put them on. But when you’re out walking, or in the office with people coming to talk to you, or you lift an ear cup to hear the train announcer - behaviour is unpredictable when it counts. At least B&W give you the option to shut it off in the app if you don’t want to use the feature.

Swiping down to toggle ANC generally works reliably, but will often be followed up by pausing what I’m listening to. Then I tap to resume playing and one second later it pauses. I tap again, rinse and repeat; the only way to fix this loop is by hitting resume on my phone.

The circular volume gesture is interesting. I thought I would like this but in practice I don’t. Often I want a quick one-step-up or down adjustment. Doing a circle with my finger takes a moment for it to realize I’m doing the volume gesture (assuming I did it right and it doesn’t think I want to toggle ANC or something else instead) and thus by the time it kicks in I have to leave my finger on the ear cup and continue to adjust where I want the volume to be. It’s non-deterministic. Most of the time I just want a simple step function.


ANC

For the most part, ANC is decent. In my opinion, music with ANC turned on is better on the H9i than on the PX, but it’s not a slam dunk. ANC definitely impacts the sound quality and is not as good as listening with it turned off, in my opinion - the H9i feels like it has a more V shaped sound signature with ANC on (the already pronounced highs get higher). If you’re not doing an A/B comparison though it does sound good, and does cut out quite a bit when it’s working properly which is 99% of the time when stationary, (but pretty bad when walking). For what it’s worth I choose to leave ANC turned on while on the train, making sure to not tilt my head. With the PX I only use ANC when on the bus and there’s a persistent deep loud rumble.

That said, overall the execution of ANC is done better on the PX. For example, listening to headphones while walking always causes you to hear some muffled vibration of your heel making contact with the ground with each step. When ANC is on with the H9i’s, that muffled step sound gets amplified and therefore makes each step sound like you’ve actually got transparency mode turned on and someone is tapping the external mic with their hand. I have hard heels on my winter boots making contact with the concrete sidewalk, so you may not have this issue, but that never happens to me with the PX or PSB. Often times I’m running for the train and this makes it even worse - I can’t use ANC when “on the go”.

Here’s another example. On the train, the H9i’s sometimes pick up the deep rumble of the track and pass that through with the music. In fact, if I tilt my head sideways a bit, it’s somehow at the perfect angle to pick up the resonant frequency (or something) and the rumble is persistent in the music. With the PX and PSB they *always* cut out these deep frequencies for me.


SOUND

I’m still trying to decide if I like the H9i sound signature. Like others have mentioned, it very much accents the highs, but doesn’t sacrifice the low end which offers a fairly rich sound. It has better sub-bass than the PSB’s (some frequencies the H9i’s can handle that I don’t even hear on the PSB’s). I need to do more A/B testing but the H9i feels like it could be classified as a sibilant headphone. “s” sounds are noticeably hisssssy. That said, the PX does this too, but the PX just isn’t as bright as the H9i so it’s not as noticeable (the PX has a different problem of treble being veiled, in my opinion, but that’s a separate post). In essence these cans hit hard with the bass *and* treble. Of course, you can go into the Beoplay app and tweak all of this but then it’s impossible to have a reference comparison. They are certainly a fun headphone to listen to - when I’m not trying to be analytical I do very much enjoy using them. And no, I haven’t burned them in yet.

The max volume on these things is high-ish but not as high as I want. For most songs it’s fine, but when I want to crank some older songs that haven’t been normalized to 98% or what have you, I find myself maxing out the volume and wanting more.

I’m sad to say the distortion already mentioned previously is real. I was up late the other night and cranked up Joe Satriani - Flying in a Blue Dream as high as the H9i’s could go (which probably wasn’t great for my ears). During the intro in the first 30 seconds there are two times when the guitars are doing some funky oscillating thing and the H9i’s “poop” the bed. Tried the same listening test with the PX’s and PSB’s - they passed with flying colours. I’m probably not going to be listening at such high volumes for this to really be an issue, but why am I paying so much for a headphone that can’t handle distortion?


SUMMARY

There’s no such thing as the perfect headphone but I really thought these H9i’s were going to be close. Man was I wrong. The gesture controls are a complete dumpster fire train wreck - and that description is going easy on them. I hope someone can confirm that 5.0.3 is better. Comfort for me and my head is not a slam dunk based on the smaller ear cup opening. ANC has some oddities that leave the feature not feeling rock solid and does affect the sound. If I can’t resolve the control issues these things are definitely going back.

Great review. Yours and the one before are probably the best review I’ve read about the h9i’s so far.

How does the max volume compare to the PX?

Also, please confirm that the h9i has more deeper bass than the PX.

 

[bedlamite]

The H9i has firmed up bass and higher mids, according to reports in this thread, no? Still, thread opinions on sound have quite a bit of variance to them so I'll be popping by my local showroom to have a listen soon.

Unfortunate how the tech in the H9i has become a total clusterfck, the PXes don't exactly nail it either but at least you can turn all that stuff off.

 

[Chip B]

Since you mentioned it - I noticed that the update to 5.0.3 is available but I chose not to install it. Anyone know what the benefits are? Should I install the update?

Just got my H9i today, 1/31, and I did the update before using them, and remember seeing that one of the main benefits were to "improve" stability issues. Without doing a full review, would only add, that at fairly healthy listening volumes for myself, I don't here any distortion; they are not bass heavy IMHO, on some songs the vocals sound recessed, while on most they seem forward. Depends on the recording, but I thought the mids and Highs could be thin /bright; but also that seems more recording dependent. On most recordings, they have excellent clarity, detail, air and soundstage, and some bass heavy tracks have a visceral quality, but this is the exception. Bluetooth has been fairly stable, just a few gaps at the start of an occasional song. Overall, so far, I am enjoying them, but its' early. I do like the idea of the BT 4.2 AAC for iPhone, user replaceable battery, ear pads, and durable build, and they seem fairly comfortable after wearing over 4 hours.

 

[Demis013]

Ok guys so I went on the impulsive tour and got a pair of H9i's as well. Went to the B&O store here in Amsterdam to check them out, and decided to go for it. Promised a friend of mine he'd get my H9's. Did the software update right away and succeeded with that without any problems. I've had them on for a few hours now and I must say I am very happy. Didn't have any unintended pause/play moments unlike others here, sound is way more balanced than the H9's, they're lighter than the H9's which feels nice. Sound wise I must say this is an improvement. I've had the H9's for a year and I believe that for 70% of the time I'd have them on with the ANC on because the sound with the ANC off was just too muddy for me. The H9i is just what I was looking for soundwise, really enjoying them. Was listening to this instrumental guitar track and at one point the slightly bassy percussion would kick in and it was the most pleasant thing i've heard in a while, the bass was tight and subtile, just exactly how it was supposed to be. About the ANC: I haven't had the chance yet to test it outside or in a train, so I can't really tell if and how much the ANC is improved, it is clear however that the sound gets narrower when you put the ANC. I will report back about the ANC. So first impressions are very positive from my side, I am impressed with the tightened bass and the more open character of the sound overall.

 

[keniutek]

Still can't find these at a store here (Poland). The smaller ear cups and crappy gesture controls got me worried
Maybe i'll just grab the hated here Studio 3's and be done with it...

 

[Demis013]

Still can't find these at a store here (Poland). The smaller ear cups and crappy gesture controls got me worried
Maybe i'll just grab the hated here Studio 3's and be done with it...

Smaller cups didn't lead to any discomfort for me! And the gestures so far have been very similar with the H9, which I didn't have any issues with to be honest except for the dialing function (which has been disabled with the H9i). So far really happy.

 

[Agentred]

I’m riding the train as I write this, and the music is randomly starting / stopping on me. I’m not touching the controls just to see what happens, and so far it’s stopped and started maybe 10 times. Music will play for a few minutes or seconds, then stop for a few minutes or seconds. Sometimes turning my head makes the music stop. Sometimes doing absolutely nothing makes the music stop. Sitting at my desk in the office earlier today while at the computer, the headphones just stopped playing music after 6 songs of the album I was listening to. While walking to the train station and standing at a traffic light my podcast just stopped playing.

Exactly this!!! I got the h9i's a few days ago and the random pauses are incessant. It keeps randomly pausing even after I updated them to the latest version.

It seems to calm down after I've had them on for 5 minutes, but there are times when it stops two or three times during the course of a 3 minute song. It probably has something to do with the proximity sensor, so there should be an option to turn this on/off.

The other big issue is wind noise. Coming from the Sony MDR-1000X, walking outside with the h9i's picks up so much more wind whistling.

The headphones are great in general, even the wind I could learn to live with, but these random pauses need to be fixed ASAP.

 

[Plantsversuszombies]

Today I had the chance to listen round about 30 minutes to the H9i in a local B&O store.
As an owner of the H8/H9 the improvement of the H9i is not enough to justify a new sale.
The sound is nice and different to the H9 but not better and still miles behind the PX which I got 2 weeks ago!