This means that for a little bit more than you’d pay for any number of extremely capable alternatives, you can get a pair of Bang & Olufsen active noise-cancelling wireless over-ear headphones that are designed to compete and built to make you happy. The specification is up to par, performance is almost entirely impressive, and intangibles like ‘pride of ownership’ are sky-high as well. Bang & Olufsen has clearly backed itself into a corner. The company’s significant reputation has been built on a distinct and opulent design vocabulary, which is the last thing anyone wants in their wireless over-ear headphones. With products like this, function absolutely trumps form, and who among us wants an overwrought or otherwise odd-looking pair of headphones? Exactly. So, in a move uncharacteristic of Bang & Olufsen, the company did the sensible thing and delivered a recognisable pair of headphones. They are made of a variety of luxurious and expensive materials, but these materials are used to serve a design. As a result, no matter which of the available finishes ‘dark maroon,”sand,’ ‘black anthracite,’ or ‘timber’ you choose, the Beoplay HX look like a reasonably upmarket pair of wireless over-ear headphones. Of course, all of these expensive materials aren’t just for show. Bang & Olufsen has combined lambskin, aluminium, memory foam, and high-quality plastics to create a pair of headphones that are easy to position and stay in place for hours on end. The clamping force is well-balanced, and unlike many other models, the HX does not swamp the smaller-headed among us. The earcups are slow to absorb your body heat and even slower to return it to you, which is not always the case with over-ear headphones. The bottom line is that if you can’t get the Beoplay HX to do exactly what you want it to do, quickly and predictably, the problem is almost certainly with you, not the headphones. The headphones themselves have some physical controls. A touch-surface on the outside of the right earcup controls ‘volume up/down,’ ‘play/pause,’ and’skip forwards/backwards,’ while a push/push button on the same side controls ‘power on/off/Bluetooth pairing. On the left, there’s a button for cycling through your active noise-cancellation options on’/’off’/’transparency,’ and another for summoning your favourite voice-assistant.
