[PluckinTones]

Anyone else enjoying them?

I missed your very detailed and informative posts! Thank you very much!

Do you happen to have any experience with the H4 gen. 2? I borrowed a pair for a few days to test them since noice canceling is not that important to me and would be interested to know how they compare with the H9 3rd gen.

Thank you again.

 

[matteventu]

Wait... you actually enjoyed them?

I actually like the less touchy/responsive touch controls, and at least in my case I've found very deliberate touches work quite well. However the loss of the swipe up sucks. I didn't even know the H9v3s had that.

That said, I just keep doing what I used to do with my H6s which is to place one ear cup behind my ear when I need to talk to someone. Low tech habitual solution from when I had low tech headphones.

When you mentioned the ear pads being the same connection as the previous H9v3s, you're only partially right. It looks identical but as far as I can tell after actually trying to put some H9v3 cushions on my HXs, the H9 cushions are actually like a mm or so less wide which makes the fit very difficult and of course the L and R doesn't actually line up correctly either even if you do manage to jam them on there.

I'm sorry to hear they're not committed to supporting these if that's indeed true (do you know something for sure?) because I do enjoy them and they're expensive enough I was hoping to get a good chunk of time out of them.

I looked at the Portals and I mostly game on Xbox so those features wold have been nice, but my Arctis 9xs work fine for that honestly and having my headphones connected to my Phone and Computer simultaneously is very convenient which the Portals don't seem to do. The portal drivers also look weirdly jammed into the ear cups (compared to the HXs) which made me wonder as well though most people seem to like how they sound.

I'm getting used to the touch controls, but the ones from H9v3 are so much smoother... and allow for a finer adjustment of the volume level.

Plus with the HX connected to my Windows laptops, I don't get the battery % while with the H9v3 no issues with that.

In regards to the ear cushions... I really don't know what to say about your experience because when I tried, they lined up perfectly

I missed your very detailed and informative posts! Thank you very much!

Do you happen to have any experience with the H4 gen. 2? I borrowed a pair for a few days to test them since noice canceling is not that important to me and would be interested to know how they compare with the H9 3rd gen.

Thank you again.

I can't remember how the H4 2nd Gen sounds, but what I do remember is that they're so light you can't feel them on your head at all, plus the ear cushions are larger and far more comfrortable than the H9 3rd Gen or HX ones.
If you don't need ANC and are not scared by the shorter battery life, then give them a try. Remember that the Beosonic feature in the B&O app will allow for a good level of customisation of the sound signature, so in case it doesn't fit 100% your tastes, you can always amend it with the app.

 

[stickertape]

Looks like things have gone quiet here - they don't appear to be very popular headphones but there's plenty about these that appeal to me.

My main reservation around purchasing is the sound cracking and the problematic gesture controls. I don't suppose there have been any recent firmware updates to address any of the issues? It's really hard to find info about firmwares etc. online about these.

 

[methnen]

Looks like things have gone quiet here - they don't appear to be very popular headphones but there's plenty about these that appeal to me.

My main reservation around purchasing is the sound cracking and the problematic gesture controls. I don't suppose there have been any recent firmware updates to address any of the issues? It's really hard to find info about firmwares etc. online about these.

 

[methnen]

The firmware has been at 1.2.9 since got mine. If you plan on messing with the EQ the crackling is definitely there. If you use the default then it’s not a problem. I don’t mind the touch controls but the only one I use regularly is the pause and play one honestly.

 

[matteventu]

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.

 

[methnen]

The update doesn't show for me at all so perhaps they've pulled it. You must not be the only person having issues.

 

[epaludo]

I have updated to 2.0.1 and now ANC stopped working altogether
There seems to be a bug when switching from ANC on/off as well, where a hiss is very noticeable until one toggle the new wind noise reduction button for instance. So some things to be addressed indeed. I think it is a software issue only knowing that ANC was totally fine until then. Unfortunately I cannot (or don't know how) downgrade to the previous firmware.
The wind noise reduction feature though is pretty sweet and it reduces drastically wind when outside.
I contacted support a few times and apparently there is a technician looking into the issue.
Does anyone else noticed ANC stopping to work after the upgrade?

 

[matteventu]

Mine still works (bad, as it used to do previously). Have you tried a factory reset (keeping power button pressed for more than 8 seconds)?

Does the "bar" in the app still move when you try to engage ANC via the button on the left earcup? Do you hear the ANC activation "beep" (that's different from the Transparency one and, since 2.0.1, even from the Own Voice one)?

 

[epaludo]

Mine still works (bad, as it used to do previously). Have you tried a factory reset (keeping power button pressed for more than 8 seconds)?

Does the "bar" in the app still move when you try to engage ANC via the button on the left earcup? Do you hear the ANC activation "beep" (that's different from the Transparency one and, since 2.0.1, even from the Own Voice one)?

I did multiple times. Also tried connecting with different devices. It used to block a decent amount of noise in my office, which has an open scheme. Now it only blocks whatever the closed headphone automatically blocks. Also transparency mode has a very loud strange hiss to it. I still think it is not hardware related though.
The bar still moves between ANC On / ANC off / MAX.

 

[matteventu]

Do you still hear a difference between ANC MAX and NEUTRAL, or do they sound exactly the same to you?

 

[epaludo]

Do you still hear a difference between ANC MAX and NEUTRAL, or do they sound exactly the same to you?

I have a hard time telling the difference, if there is any (I doubt). And previously it was noticeable straight away

 

[epaludo]

The update doesn't show for me at all so perhaps they've pulled it. You must not be the only person having issues.

Do you still don't see the update in the app? Or are you already running the latest firmware (2.0.1)?

 

[fumagalli]

Hi all, I just purchased these yesterday (I had too many issues with my Momentum 3 and PX7, mostly hissing and crackling in ANC).
So far I am happy but I have a couple of problems:
1. Somehow the ANC switch does not always work. I cant pinpoint what or when this occurs, I just noticed that today.
2. Some of the settings set through the app (activate anti-wind, or adaptive ANC) do not seem to save, I have to toggle these every now and then.
Has anyone encountered these pb as well? Any idea how to fix these?

Thanks!

edit: noticed the crackling at high volume, troubling to see how sound quality collapses...

 

[matteventu]

Never had those two issues.

However, in case you use a listening mode (Beosonic preset) different than the default one, from time to time it reverts back to the default one (especially of you charge the headphones or connect them to a computer via USB-C).

Adaptive ANC and anti-wind alway stick though.

RE crackling issues, are you on firmware 2.0.1 ? If so, then you have then reduced. Original firmwares had crackling issues FAR more pronounced, with the 2.0.1 they almost "solved" the problem (see my previous posts about fw 2.0.1).