Speak of the devil... an update has just been released
(new version: 2.0.1):
- fixed issue with high bass and high volume causing distorsion
- improvements in handling of TikTok
- USB volume improvemenrs (and volume improvement handling in general)
- lowered the sound on audio prompts
- fixed a bug where the voice recognition features weren't working properly
- improved multipoint handling, less delay
- fixed issue where, in some headsets, distorsion was on the right side on power on
SO... let's talk about the elephant in the room.
Yes and no. The
high volume high bass distorion issue is
partially fixed.
I believe what they did was lowering the maximum volume, and adding a sort of DSP change where even if you raise the volume, the bass will not raise by the same proportion.
I'm saying this because the issue still occurs with some songs, but at a higher volume threshold (i.e. if before it was happening with volume at 75%, now it's happening with volume at 90%, partially IMHO also because of a slight decrease of volume, so the old 75% loudness more or less equals the current 90% volume level).
About the "
generic volume improvements", the touch controls are still subpar and not as good as the H9 3rd Gen ones, but I believe now they have increased the number of volume steps that you could set via the touch panel (which previously was much inferior to the number of steps the H9 3rd Gen had - see my posts in page 1). However, at least, now we have a higher range of volume steps, for a more refined control. I appreciate this.
I haven't tried them yet via USB-C to see what the changes are there compared to fw version 1.2.9, but I'll report back once I get a chace to try it.
I haven't noticed the
audio cues to be of any lower volume, and actually I'd like to have them to be LOUDER together with the music volume level i.e. they follow the music volume (so you can hear them also when the music is at high volume, which now you can't unless you listen to silent music lol). They shouldn't be fixed at the same volume level, it's such a stupid choice.
If with "
voice recognition" they mean the voice assistant trigger button (long press the round button), it's still crap as it was with fw 1.2.9. The proper Google Assistant integration the H9 3rd Gen had it's miles ahead, that was actually useful. The voice assistant trigger of the HX is in my opinion barely usable.
I haven't had any
multipoint issuess, so can't comment on that.
There was a slighly audible static/
distorsion noise coming from the right driver when switching them on (only noticeable if you had them on your head while switching them on, which anyway is not recommended as it could prevent a proper calibration of the wear sensor), it never bothered me, but now it's gone. Good, I guess.
There are two other changes I've noticed and that aren't mentioned in the changelog:
- new "
battery health" section in the product settings page, which shows the current battery level in % (same as the product page) and an estimate of the remaining battery life in minutes (always in minutes lol, it doesn't switch to hours when minutes are more than 60)
- new "
reduce wind noise" toggle below the ANC settings, I won't be able to try its effectiveness as I don't take these headphones for a walk that frequently, but you can feedback on this
Changelog picture and battery health/wind noise setting here:
https://imgur.com/a/lTuEgEK
Disappointing that they haven't added the swipe-up gesture to trigger max transparency and simultaneously pause the music (as the H9 3rd Gen had it), and that the plugin in the app still doesn't show the source of the music the headphones are playing from (Bluetooth, USB-C, or aux-in, which the Beoplay Portal have).
Also, the volume bar in the app now looks even buggier than it already was with fw 1.2.9.
The delay in the B&O app opening/connecting to the HX is still there as it was before.
The ANC hasn't got any better (in H9 3rd Gen it's much better, and in H95 it's waaaaaay better).
The Google Fast Pair wrong app link has not been fixed.
The battery level is still bugged and not visible in Windows (it is with H9 3rd Gen).
To be noted is that B&O are also releasing, at the same time as this update for HX, an update for the Portal, numbered 2.0.9, and that is 80% shared with the HX 2.0.1 changelog, except a couple of fixes related to the Xbox connectivity feature which is exclusive of the Portal. This further corraborates the hypothesis that the two headphones share the same base platform and are managed, for what concerns software support, in parallel by the same team.
because when I tried, they lined up perfectly 
