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NEW Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H95 ANC Headphones - Reviews & Impressions
Sep 5, 2020 at 7:48 AM Post #76 of 2,078
obsidyen said:
No analogue connection? That sucks...
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Slight nuance .. there is one .. but it's not passive. Instead it seems to go through the H95's internal circuits (Similar to B&W's PX and PX7)
 
Sep 5, 2020 at 8:21 AM Post #77 of 2,078
Earpads measurements:

Screenshot 2020-09-05 at 13.36.34.png
 
Sep 5, 2020 at 11:27 AM Post #78 of 2,078
plakat said:
... which lets one think they used a mediocre driver and just corrected it via DSP. No that I’d expect at €800
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You might be right given B&O's varied track record, but if I may play the devil's advocate, just like with optical lenses that these days may deliberately not try to correct aberrations that can be corrected in software and focus on the ones that software still can't correct, perhaps it might make sense to design a driver / ear cup combination that might not reach on its own the targeted FR curve but reaches other targets (such as low distortion across the spectrum, low resonances, few difficult to EQ significant peaks and dips), and then reach the target via EQ.
In the end however headphones reach their performance targets is the manufacturer's problem, not really us. Measurements will come soon enough I guess to see where these exactly land.
 
Sep 5, 2020 at 1:53 PM Post #84 of 2,078
Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H95 (my opinion):

Positive aspects:
- Beautifully made headphones
- Very comfortable to use

Negative aspects:
- Too muddy bass and lacking clarity (worst sound from B&O)
- Bluetooth APTX connection problems
- Volume EU Max limit too low
- Too expensive (for 800€ there are much better headphones)
 
Sep 5, 2020 at 2:13 PM Post #85 of 2,078
MayaTlab said:
You might be right given B&O's varied track record, but if I may play the devil's advocate, just like with optical lenses that these days may deliberately not try to correct aberrations that can be corrected in software and focus on the ones that software still can't correct, perhaps it might make sense to design a driver / ear cup combination that might not reach on its own the targeted FR curve but reaches other targets (such as low distortion across the spectrum, low resonances, few difficult to EQ significant peaks and dips), and then reach the target via EQ.
In the end however headphones reach their performance targets is the manufacturer's problem, not really us. Measurements will come soon enough I guess to see where these exactly land.
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Your point is definitely interesting... seeing the headphone as a complete (black box) system, only considering input vs. output, one should not care how the output is accomplished. I still prefer headphones that are tuned as a normal headphone without any electronics, adding the wireless features only thereafter. Which has the benefit of being usable without battery... yet I have to admit that I never actually had the need to use a Bluetooth headphone without power, so one might consider this point moot.

Moreover I use mainly in-ears on the go (where battery might actually die), and would not have a wired option anyway... but taking the Shure SE846 as an example: would that in-ear not be an acoustically tuned system, I would not have been able to augment it with Shures new Bluetooth hinges. Which are not tuned to one specific driver but can serve all their MMCX in-ears just as well. And that is a benefit (though this does not map 1:1 on a headphone like the H95).
 
Sep 5, 2020 at 3:42 PM Post #86 of 2,078
plakat said:
seeing the headphone as a complete (black box) system, only considering input vs. output, one should not care how the output is accomplished. I still prefer headphones that are tuned as a normal headphone without any electronics, adding the wireless features only thereafter.
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To be frank I was rather making a theoretical point as a lot of the usual suspects BT ANC headphones still have completely wonky FR curves even though they all feature a DSP, and most of them still struggle to match the much less wiggly curves of some passive headphones that were designed in the 90s, so... lack of care probably is the main culprit here as a general matter rather than good passive design vs bad driver using DSPs to mask its flaws as they don't even seem bothered by them in the first place.

That said purely passive headphones are unlikely to ever be able to achieve FR curves that land within 2dB of a particular target curve across the whole FR range, and even less to perform real-time adjustments tailored to each specific user based on that user's morphology (real time personalised HRTFs), something powered and smart headphones could theoretically do in the future.

going back to the H95, personally I wouldn't read too much in B&O's decision to only allow powered operations in regards to the quality of the driver. Let's wait and see how they measure first.
 
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