I just got myself the B&O BeoPlay H9i.... As a sucker for these BeoPlay headphones I couldn't resist even-though I have sold my BeoPlay H7's, H8's and H9's and "settled" for the Beats Studio3 Wireless. I was never all that convinced by the H9's as I felt they had the exact same audio as the H7 rev2 and the ANC was so poor that it didn't really give me anything other than lower battery life. I didn't really enjoy the H8's as all due to the on-ear design that made my ears hurt in no time and the sound signature was way too warm. The H7 on the other hand was my favourite, great sound, great looks and everything. My only complaint was horrible microphones and sub-par bluetooth with limited range and zero multi-device support. The new BeoPlay H9i's seems to fix most of what I felt was missing as they now support multi-device, it has better bluetooth range, the microphone has been greatly improved and the ANC is actually doing something this time around.
I just got them so its too early to say much about them, but the sound stage is definitively wider and the audio is crisper. Whereas the H7 rev2 and H9's felt wide but somewhat warm, these feels super-wide and bright and the ANC is actually decent this time around. Sadly they aren't as comfortable due to the thinner ear-pads so my ears are actually touching the drivers inside which isn't all that nice but hopefully I'll get used to it. If I still had my H7 or H9's I would just swap the pads as they are interchangeable.
The app felt somewhat stupid as it told me to update from 5.0.1 to 5.0.3 and the process took forever and in the end it just tossed a error in my face. Tried once more, it still took forever and then it suddenly told me that this update was only available using the updater on Windows or Mac. That's fine, but why did the app tell me about the update and had me waiting for like 20 minutes totalt for something that requires me to use the desktop updater anyways??
I love the fact that it uses USB-C instead of Micro-USB. My headphones is the only thing requiring me to have Micro-USB around so its nice to finally be able to ditch it.
Will I keep them or go back to the Beats Studio3 Wireless? It depends on how good the bluetooth connection and the multi-device actually works. There was no doubt about my BeoPlay H7 and H9's having better audio compared to the Beats Studio3 Wireless but what made me decide on the Beats was due to bluetooth connectivity, how easily it was to move between devices thanks to the Apple W1-chip, the fact that it had decent ANC and a good microphone. The audio wasn't all that bad either, but it was rather mediocre compared to the H7 and H9's. But the limited bluetooth connectivity and how horribly the H7 and H9's behaved in terms of moving between devices forcing me to re-sync the headphones all the time was made it insufferable in the end. Hopefully the H9i's and its multi-device support will be much better.