Just did a bit of a comparison of the Aedle VK1 vs the H8. Both were plugged in via wire to the NW-ZX1.
The H8 is good, but the VK1 is better to my ears. The soundstage is a bit wider on the VK1 (I prefer a wider soundstage) and sounds much more natural. I use "Have You Met Miss Jones" by the Great Jazz Trio (July 5th album) as my first litmus test. I have it encoded in ATRAC3+ at 352k. The VK1 has been a great pairing with the ZX1 and always makes for an enjoyable listen. I love the way John Patitucci's bass sounds on this, and the piano is just right. The H8 has a slightly narrower but still pretty wide soundstage. The piano is not as natural, and the bass is a bit more boomy here but still fairly accurate. The drums also are not as good - noticeable in the cymbals. By no means is this bad, and in context of a plane with NC on, quite frankly, the H8 would be arguably better. I do notice that volume wise the H8 is a bit lower, so it's a touch harder to drive from the ZX1. The comments so far about the H8 were done without NC on. Flipping the switch, the sound stays fairly close so I'd say the loss of sound due to engaging NC is relatively minimal compared to other NC headphones I've used. Kudos to B&O for keeping it that way.
Moving onto a rock track, I used Bryan Adams' "Kids Wanna Rock". I have the hi-rez 96/24 download of Reckless, so this a good test of a much fuller range of frequencies. The VK1 is noticeably a bit darker here in terms of coloring, and IMO not as good as on the jazz track. The guitar solos are a bit "honky". I can't say that the VK1 is great on this tune. It's certainly got good instrument separation overall and stereo width, but it's not "engaging". I would say that despite a bit narrower of a soundstage, the H8 is tuned better for this rock tune and much more involving as a whole. Bryan's vocals sound better here. Go figure. I do prefer the bass of the VK1 here - no comparison.
Last up is Phil Collins' "I Cannot Believe It's True" from Hello, I Must Be Going! This is also lossy, not lossless. This is tune that has good use of horns and has some groove to it. This just sounds great with the VK1 all around. Horns, bass, drums, vocals - all excellent. This is why the VK1 will remain in my possession - it's very musical and natural. The soundstage is what you want with a tune like this. The H8 on the other hand is OK - you don't get as much of a sense of groove and the overall sound at the same level is a bit meh. If you crank the volume you can get closer to the VK1, but the horns do not sound as natural, much more "digital" if you will, and Phil's voice is not as good either. Again, this is not a bad sounding headphone, but I don't feel the H8 is better than the VK1 here. It's perfectly good, just not great.
Sound is obviously not everything. The VK1 has OK isolation, but it is not the best set of cans for a plane ride, and long term due to the inflexibility of how to position the earpads, is definitely a love-it-or-hate-it proposition. I find them fine but after a few hours, I do need to take them off. In this thread I've seen where the H8 doesn't work for some, but having used it on a few plane flights already, I really do like them. MUCH more comfortable. The VK1 pads do not fold flat, and that's a bit problematic for portable use.
Also keep in mind your source hardware and how your music is encoded (if using files) will affect all of this - mine is just based on my setup.
If I never left the house, the H8 wouldn't really have entered the race. Seeing as how I travel a bit, the H8 is a really nice option but I would not use it as my main pair of headphones if I didn't want that right balance of musicality to noise reduction that others just don't deliver. I've had a lot of NC cans and B&O struck a pretty good balance.
