[DoKaTSuYa]

BT-W4

 

[DoKaTSuYa]

"... I'm afraid that the ability to widen the soundstage in ToneTouch has been removed from some of our products. This was due to the fact that it caused an imbalance between the left and right audio channels. Feel free to reach out to us at: https://www.bang-olufsen.com/en/support Best regards, Bang & Olufsen support."

This above is a quote of a B&O's reply that I found in other forum. It was a reply (8/2019) to a H9 user that was complaining for the lack of that option (the ability to modify the soundstage enlarging or reducing the circle in ToneTouch "equalizer").
In another forum (I don't remember which one) I read that the above option was removed in all B&O headphone. And until the last app update I think there wasn't.
I also noticed the change in sound signature and, above all, the slight shift to the left channel and then I saved a new profile with the small circle at the center (named for me "Neutral"). Anyway, I'm not completely sure that the previous Optimal profile had the same sound signature as the my actual Neutral.

I have also a B&O wireless speaker, and that option there was always in app, but I didn't use it much more. For this reason I didn't noticed her presence or not in B&O app when I started using H95, about a month ago.

Too bad there is no more soundstage EQ...

 

[DoKaTSuYa]

It depends on what you mean by comparable. These may have a fairly neutral sound, but they are still Bluetooth headphones and as such will never compete with a half decent pair of wired headphones with a decent source and amplifier. Don’t get me wrong, they sound good for what they are, but they are still Bluetooth headphones.

I might as well add a mini review:

The negatives of the H95 are:

• The compressed treble, leaving cymbals and other similar sounds with digital processing artefacts, these can be fairly audible depending on the recording.
• The metallic timbre, this leaves an overly metallic tone to some instruments and voices, especially in acoustic music.
• The microphonics, while you get used to them fairly quickly, you can often hear the impact of your own footsteps of walking quickly and with a heavy step like I do.
• Can’t compete on sound quality with a decent wired headphone at two thirds or even half the price.

On the positive side:

• Beautiful build quality!
• Very comfortable
• Best B&O bluetooth headphones I’ve heard and I’ve had everything in the H9 series as well as the H7.
• Limited edition to celebrate 95 years was a cool extra (I have no32)
• Enjoyable and fairly neutral sound signature, better controlled bass with more slam than previous versions (H9 series) and slightly wider soundstage.

My summary thoughts after six plus weeks:
A beautifully built pair of headphones which will be handy when I get to travel again and they sound good for a pair of Bluetooth headphones. You should only purchas these if you are after mobile or wireless listening, assuming you are absolutely in love with the design/build and have £700 burning a hole in your pocket.

The B&O cannot compete with decent wired headphones, it isn’t even close. Using the same source, my Meze 99s amplified by my audiolab mini, sound better than the H95s with most music , and that combo is £230 cheaper.

If this comes of as negative I do apologise; I do very much like the H95s and am a happy customer who will keep them until B&O release something even better. But I think anyone who buys them need to do so with open eyes, and buy them for the right use case. If you’re just stuck at a desk in a fairly quiet environment there are better options. And you are paying a premium for the brand and build. This is not a £700 headphone from a sound quality perspective, maybe £300-£400. But they are beautifully built and a luxury pair of Bluetooth headphones.

This combo is much bigger too. H95 doesn't need DAC, powered by itself, can be wired or wireless, looking good, sound good, ANC, transparency mode. The box cost itself 200 bucks

https://www.bang-olufsen.com/fr/fr/...95-case?variant=beoplay-h95-hardcase-greymist

 

[davidmolliere]

I am not in the camp of audiophiles who discount BT/wireless products but rather in one that thinks cables (for all their glory and joy and frustration of cable rolling) will be a thing of the past in the near future. Product like iFi Audio Go Pod certainly are giving me hope that I can use my totl customs on the go

So I got myself the H95 (and incidentally was so happy I just got EX too )... I long debated between the B&W Px8 (McLaren edition, those look sharp) and this. I haven't heard the Px8 but the fact H95 folds and packs nicely into my Bellroy Venture Sling 9L is a definitely plus (wondering if third party compact pouch exist...). I suspect Px8 is more comfortable with the larger headband and maybe their pads are a bit softer (H95 feels a bit firm especially since I have quite the pair of big ears...). Still curious to hear Px8 but from memories of B&W headphones I think the tuning will probably lean towards fuller, bassier sound. Not that H95 is lacking in the bass department but it's an accurate bass rather than a crowd pleaser. Mainstream audience will want more quantity and that's what the EQ is there for but I feel that EQ'ing I have tried kind of breaks the balance a bit.

Esthetically speaking, I chose chestnut for a change (almost went dark blue) but there is something about that color that is quite classy and natural as well. Yes, H95 is also a statement product itself and well bragging rights are not my focus at all but my they look the part

But more importantly they sound significantly better than I expected and I expect things to settle down nicely as a titanium driver is bound to need some to fully reach its potential. Yet out of the box (and with no EQ tweaks) they sound so very good and accurate. I am quite impressed on how resolving and refined the H95 is and the stage is fairly impressive as well for a closed back. This is all the more enjoyable that I find H95 to feature excellent imaging which makes for a very articulate presentation even on complex tracks. Yes, it's not DCA Stealth plugged on the RS8 or better yet on the Pro iCAN Sig. But for a portable form factor they pretty much nail both.

This is my first contact with the Bang & Olufsen brand and I am not disappointed... those blow away the AirPods Max both in comfort and SQ. The H95 does not feature a mainstream crowd pleaser sound but rather a mature audiophile take on BT headphones. The agility of this driver is quite something and its speed while not matching planar capabilities is mighty fine. This blows all the mainstream BT tuned headphones including the WH1000xm4 out of the water as it should given its pricing. AirPods Max are still my movie/TV headphones for all the glory of Dolby Atmos implementation.

The only thing that they can't really compete with the Sony, Apple, Bose offering is ANC but it works well enough that I am willing to sacrifice a bit of noise cancellation for a much better SQ. Only criticism I have is comfort, I wished the headband had been wider like Px8 looks and maybe my head is too big but clamping force is a bit on the too much side.

I liked the H95 so much that I got myself the EX (graphite & blue) and check if they could shake my AirPods Pro 2 and Sony WF1000XM4 and be somewhat of a mini H95 and... they do fit the bill (impression coming up on their thread).

 

[Law87]

I am not in the camp of audiophiles who discount BT/wireless products but rather in one that thinks cables (for all their glory and joy and frustration of cable rolling) will be a thing of the past in the near future. Product like iFi Audio Go Pod certainly are giving me hope that I can use my totl customs on the go

So I got myself the H95 (and incidentally was so happy I just got EX too )... I long debated between the B&W Px8 (McLaren edition, those look sharp) and this. I haven't heard the Px8 but the fact H95 folds and packs nicely into my Bellroy Venture Sling 9L is a definitely plus (wondering if third party compact pouch exist...). I suspect Px8 is more comfortable with the larger headband and maybe their pads are a bit softer (H95 feels a bit firm especially since I have quite the pair of big ears...). Still curious to hear Px8 but from memories of B&W headphones I think the tuning will probably lean towards fuller, bassier sound. Not that H95 is lacking in the bass department but it's an accurate bass rather than a crowd pleaser. Mainstream audience will want more quantity and that's what the EQ is there for but I feel that EQ'ing I have tried kind of breaks the balance a bit.

Esthetically speaking, I chose chestnut for a change (almost went dark blue) but there is something about that color that is quite classy and natural as well. Yes, H95 is also a statement product itself and well bragging rights are not my focus at all but my they look the part

But more importantly they sound significantly better than I expected and I expect things to settle down nicely as a titanium driver is bound to need some to fully reach its potential. Yet out of the box (and with no EQ tweaks) they sound so very good and accurate. I am quite impressed on how resolving and refined the H95 is and the stage is fairly impressive as well for a closed back. This is all the more enjoyable that I find H95 to feature excellent imaging which makes for a very articulate presentation even on complex tracks. Yes, it's not DCA Stealth plugged on the RS8 or better yet on the Pro iCAN Sig. But for a portable form factor they pretty much nail both.

This is my first contact with the Bang & Olufsen brand and I am not disappointed... those blow away the AirPods Max both in comfort and SQ. The H95 does not feature a mainstream crowd pleaser sound but rather a mature audiophile take on BT headphones. The agility of this driver is quite something and its speed while not matching planar capabilities is mighty fine. This blows all the mainstream BT tuned headphones including the WH1000xm4 out of the water as it should given its pricing. AirPods Max are still my movie/TV headphones for all the glory of Dolby Atmos implementation.

The only thing that they can't really compete with the Sony, Apple, Bose offering is ANC but it works well enough that I am willing to sacrifice a bit of noise cancellation for a much better SQ. Only criticism I have is comfort, I wished the headband had been wider like Px8 looks and maybe my head is too big but clamping force is a bit on the too much side.

I liked the H95 so much that I got myself the EX (graphite & blue) and check if they could shake my AirPods Pro 2 and Sony WF1000XM4 and be somewhat of a mini H95 and... they do fit the bill (impression coming up on their thread).

the EX is really nice, I got them since launch, love it, but the sound is not the same...need tuning on H95

 

[Andricop]

I am not in the camp of audiophiles who discount BT/wireless products but rather in one that thinks cables (for all their glory and joy and frustration of cable rolling) will be a thing of the past in the near future. Product like iFi Audio Go Pod certainly are giving me hope that I can use my totl customs on the go

So I got myself the H95 (and incidentally was so happy I just got EX too )... I long debated between the B&W Px8 (McLaren edition, those look sharp) and this. I haven't heard the Px8 but the fact H95 folds and packs nicely into my Bellroy Venture Sling 9L is a definitely plus (wondering if third party compact pouch exist...). I suspect Px8 is more comfortable with the larger headband and maybe their pads are a bit softer (H95 feels a bit firm especially since I have quite the pair of big ears...). Still curious to hear Px8 but from memories of B&W headphones I think the tuning will probably lean towards fuller, bassier sound. Not that H95 is lacking in the bass department but it's an accurate bass rather than a crowd pleaser. Mainstream audience will want more quantity and that's what the EQ is there for but I feel that EQ'ing I have tried kind of breaks the balance a bit.

Esthetically speaking, I chose chestnut for a change (almost went dark blue) but there is something about that color that is quite classy and natural as well. Yes, H95 is also a statement product itself and well bragging rights are not my focus at all but my they look the part

But more importantly they sound significantly better than I expected and I expect things to settle down nicely as a titanium driver is bound to need some to fully reach its potential. Yet out of the box (and with no EQ tweaks) they sound so very good and accurate. I am quite impressed on how resolving and refined the H95 is and the stage is fairly impressive as well for a closed back. This is all the more enjoyable that I find H95 to feature excellent imaging which makes for a very articulate presentation even on complex tracks. Yes, it's not DCA Stealth plugged on the RS8 or better yet on the Pro iCAN Sig. But for a portable form factor they pretty much nail both.

This is my first contact with the Bang & Olufsen brand and I am not disappointed... those blow away the AirPods Max both in comfort and SQ. The H95 does not feature a mainstream crowd pleaser sound but rather a mature audiophile take on BT headphones. The agility of this driver is quite something and its speed while not matching planar capabilities is mighty fine. This blows all the mainstream BT tuned headphones including the WH1000xm4 out of the water as it should given its pricing. AirPods Max are still my movie/TV headphones for all the glory of Dolby Atmos implementation.

The only thing that they can't really compete with the Sony, Apple, Bose offering is ANC but it works well enough that I am willing to sacrifice a bit of noise cancellation for a much better SQ. Only criticism I have is comfort, I wished the headband had been wider like Px8 looks and maybe my head is too big but clamping force is a bit on the too much side.

I liked the H95 so much that I got myself the EX (graphite & blue) and check if they could shake my AirPods Pro 2 and Sony WF1000XM4 and be somewhat of a mini H95 and... they do fit the bill (impression coming up on their thread).

Welcome to the club David!
I am still happily using mine after more than 2 years
Last week I added a companion to it : the Creative BT-W4 AptX Adaptive dongle

Works very well on my Mac to listen to Hi-Res music and on my PC to have a stable connection for my Teams and Zoom calls

I just noticed that Creative has also released a BT-W5 dongle which is BT 5.3 and compatible with more BT codecs but not with aptX Adaptive so not sure if it's compatible with H95

 

[matteventu]

Welcome to the club David!
I am still happily using mine after more than 2 years
Last week I added a companion to it : the Creative BT-W4 AptX Adaptive dongle



Works very well on my Mac to listen to Hi-Res music and on my PC to have a stable connection for my Teams and Zoom calls

I just noticed that Creative has also released a BT-W5 dongle which is BT 5.3 and compatible with more BT codecs but not with aptX Adaptive so not sure if it's compatible with H95

Yes BT-W5 is also compatible with aptX Adaptive (BT-W4 only supports aptX Adaptive at 48kHz/24bit, while BT-W5 also supports a more recent profile of aptX Adaptive at 96kHz/24bit).

And in addition to what BT-W4 does, BT-W5 also allows to manually force what mode to run aptX Adaptive in, such as max quality (max bitrate) or lower latency (variable bitrate that aims at keeping a low latency).

For those using H95 for gaming or video media consumption, BT-W5 may be worth it for this last reason (not for the first reason, as I'm quite sure H95 don't support the 96kHz/24bit profile of aptX Adaptive).

BT-W4 is otherwise still an excellent choice

 

[davidmolliere]

Thanks @Andricop for the Creative dongle pointer and @matteventu for the BT-W5 confirmation of compatibility.
Wonders if it would work with an adapter with the iPhone

Certainly will look into it!

Edit looks like it can : https://community.roonlabs.com/t/iphone-and-aptx-hd-finally-works-with-extra-peripherals/115704

 

[iskender299]

The creative dongle looks interesting but I hate the color coding I'm a bit colorblind and it's always difficult to see these

 

[matteventu]

The creative dongle looks interesting but I hate the color coding I'm a bit colorblind and it's always difficult to see these

Same, I hate these things haha like LEDs turning from green to amber/yellow to red to indicate the battery status... Unless it's a huge ass LED with a clear bright screen-like red/yellow/green, then the LED will always look the same to me

 

[pbarclay]

Same, I hate these things haha like LEDs turning from green to amber/yellow to red to indicate the battery status... Unless it's a huge ass LED with a clear bright screen-like red/yellow/green, then the LED will always look the same to me

The BT-W5 (and BT-W4) have a companion app from Creative which works really well on my MacBook. They also do a Windows version. It’s perfect if you are colour blind as it spells out in black and white what is happening to the dongle rather than trying to work out what colour is being displayed on the little LED.

The low latency works really well with movies whilst the high quality setting works well when playing high resolution lossless files from Apple Music.

So far, I have purchased the BT-W3, BT-W4 and now the BT-W5, which does feel a little self indulgent but has helped me make the most out of my H95 and the Creative App.

 

[Andricop]

The low latency works really well with movies whilst the high quality setting works well when playing high resolution lossless files from Apple Music.

So there is really an audible difference between BT-W4 and BT-W5 for hi-res and lossless files ?

 

[pbarclay]

So there is really an audible difference between BT-W4 and BT-W5 for hi-res and lossless files ?

It’s more about functionality!

they recently updated the Creative App and I found that the output from my BT-W4 to the H95 was rated as Low Latency, with no option to change this.

I upgraded to the W5 and found that the app now gives me the option to change latency.

 

[natalieann]

Dear lord, I just got these! Unbelievable. The clarity is the best out of any BT headphone. The make is beautiful , comfortable and the bass straight slams. I have never been much of a bass head but the bass sounds exactly right to me

 

[davidmolliere]

I got the W5 and indeed, running on my Mac it's a significant SQ jump...