The Esquire Verdict on the Bang & Olufsen H100 Headphones
There isn’t really a way to begin this review without acknowledging the elephant in the room. To be frank, £1,299 is a seriously significant amount of cash to drop on any pair of wireless headphones.
You’re essentially looking at spending twice or three times as much as you would on other premium cans like the Bowers & Wilkins PX8, Focal Bathys or Apple AirPods Max.
For this steep price, we wouldn’t blame you for expecting headphones that sound otherworldly, with unmatched materials and construction, and more high-end features than all challengers. Do the Bang & Olufsen H100s live up to the hype and deliver? That’s what we’re here to find out. To do so, we’ve been using them as some of our main headphones for the last month, paired with an iPhone 15 Pro Max, Google Pixel 9 Pro, MacBook Air and more.
With a glance at the spec sheet, they certainly don’t disappoint. On board, you’ll find upgraded active noise-cancelling (ANC), precise titanium drivers, spatial audio support with head tracking, plus Bluetooth multipoint connectivity. And it’s all wrapped up in a high-end modular design for easier repairs and longevity.
Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H100: Design and Comfort
It’s B&O, so of course we’d expect luxurious materials and build quality. We’re not disappointed. The H100s feature lambskin leather ear cushions, a knitted textile inner headband (which adjusts to fit with just the right amount of resistance), and scratch-resistant hardened glass on the outer ear cups, housing the touch control interface. They’re made to be personal and customisable, with touch controls and rotating dials on both sides that can be set just as you like via the app. Because of this customisability, these might be some of the best headphones ever made for left-handers.
We absolutely love these controls. Carefully turning the sides of the headphones precisely adjust the volume levels and the amount of active noise cancellation just feels right. However, while these feature some of the best touch control surfaces we’ve encountered on headphones, we’re still inclined to think that nothing beats good old-fashioned tactile buttons for playback control. On models like the Bowers & Wilkins PX8 or Sonos Ace, we don’t find ourselves having to try twice to pause or skip tracks like we sometimes have to with the taps and swipes on the H100s.
What about comfort then? Well, we’re happy to report that we can wear these for the entire day without tiring of them. Next to the Sonos Ace and Bose QuietComfort Ultra, these might be the most comfortable headphones we’ve tried. Vegans may not be fans, but there’s no denying that the leather build here is seriously nice to wear for hours and hours at a time. The ear pads feel plush, while the fabric headband is well-made and breathable. At 375g, they’re not what you’d call lightweight, but it’s not an amount of weight you’ll feel once they’re on your head – and they’re still lighter than the Dyson OnTrac and Apple AirPods Max.
Oh, and before we’re done with design, we’ve got to mention the luxe leather carrying case. It may look like a simple pouch (a notable change from the chunky aluminium case of the H95 headphones) but it’s a “smart” case that’ll automatically turn the headphones off when they’re inside and on when removed and put back on your head. It’s very clever. If you keep them out of the case, they’ll slip into a low-power mode to increase their standby time. Also, while we like a lot about this case, and find it slips well into a holdall or backpack, it is worth mentioning that it’s not exactly small. In use, we’ve found it makes them a little less than ideal for travel and portability.
Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H100: Longevity and Repair
Something we appreciate about these cans, though, is that they’re more modular than so much of what we’ve seen in the headphone market. For many years, you’ve had to accept a sad truth: one day, your headphones will eventually break or wear out, or the battery will run dry. With the H100s, though, the most used parts of the construction – the headband and the leather cushions – are removable and replaceable.
But it goes further. B&O can swap out and service the battery, the drivers, and even the processor and Bluetooth tech should be able to be upgraded. You get a five-year warranty with “Beocare” too. If you start to think of these beauties as the last wireless headphones you’ll need to buy – the price tag might feel a little less outrageous.
Additional ear cushions for the Beoplay H95 cost £129 per pair, so we’d anticipate a similar situation when buying new pads for the H100. While B&O wasn’t able to confirm an exact price – and it’s not a question we’d typically ask – it looks like an out-of-warranty battery replacement after the five-year warranty would be in a similar ballpark of around 10-15% of the cost of the headphones.
It’s still a hefty chunk of cash, but much less than buying a new pair of premium headphones and probably just a bit more than a battery replacement for your phone. One thing we do know for sure, though, is the firmware upgrades are on the way – Bang & Olufsen can confirm that support for high-resolution Bluetooth codecs will come in 2025, and we’d guess the response would be similar if we asked about multipoint upgrades or next-level Auracast functions too. If a full chipset upgrade is needed for a new version of Bluetooth, the headphones are modular and ready for such a change in the future.
Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H100: Sound Quality
Let’s move on to a different material: titanium. On each side, the Bang & Olufsen H100s feature 40mm titanium drivers promising the reproduction of frequencies ranging from 10 to 20,000Hz when used wirelessly (or 10 to 40,000Hz when in a wired high-resolution mode). What does this mean for sound quality? Well, it’s excellent.
They’re tuned to be dynamic and engaging while offering a lot of clarity and a smoothness that makes them perfect for long listening sessions. Unsurprisingly, you can also tweak things to your liking. B&O’s app gives you the ability to focus the sound signature for your preferences and save your work – so you can happily add a subtly bass-boosted preset for your favourite headbangers.
Is it an “audiophile-grade” experience? That’s a harder question to answer. We reckon music lovers will be delighted by the H100s, but certain audiophiles can be more focused on frequency response graphs than listening to actual albums, and it is true that these lack certain codecs and abilities that you might find from models that cater to that crowd. Is it a big issue for us? No, not at all. These sound as good as much of what we’ve heard in the high-end tier.
You can get more comprehensive high-resolution support when you use them with a cable, too. As mentioned, they’re capable of pumping out frequencies between 10 to 40,000Hz when used wired. They come with a pair of lovely fabric cables (with little leather cable tidies - the details!) that you can store in a pocket within the pouch. One is a USB-C to USB-C and the other has a USB-C connector on one end and a 3.5mm headphone jack on the other.
Once plugged in at the right earcup, we hooked them up to the Activo P1 digital audio player for the playback of some detailed audio files, before connecting them via USB-C to play music from Qobuz on our iPhone 15 Pro. The H100s handle everything well and sound fantastic of course. Our only downside is they still need to be powered on in these wired modes and don’t work passively. While it’s rare, models like the Mark Levinson No 5909 and the Noble FoKus Apollo work even when the battery is completely shut off. We think it would’ve been beneficial for B&O to support this, and it would extend the lifespan of the cans into the future.
They pack in a few fun extras that you’ll actually use too – whether that’s the custom controls in the app or the sound personalisations. But the best among them is support for Dolby Atmos spatial audio with head tracking. Much like you can get on AirPods Max, this enhances tracks specifically mixed for Dolby Atmos or movies and shows made for the format. It then subtly tracks your head movements to make it feel like the sound is coming from all around you rather than a typical stereo impression.
It works very well and we tested it by rewatching the climax of Avatar: The Way of Water, a sequence with a lot of different characters and sound effects, and found it much more cinematic than what it’s like without this effect turned on. It’s hard to say if it’s better than Apple’s version without doing a side-by-side comparison, but it feels closely matched.
Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H100: Noise Cancellation
This is another area where there are significant upgrades – B&O claims to have doubled the effectiveness of its noise-cancelling system compared to the H95, and it has definitely packed a lot of microphones into the setup to do it. The H95 headphones use four dedicated microphones for noise-cancelling, whereas the H100 increase this to 10 “studio-grade” mics for the noise-cancellation and transparency tech.
We appreciate the experience of gradually rotating the external ear cup dials to move between levels of awareness with a twist. It feels both quite manual and high-tech, with a satisfying “pop” sound to alert you when you reach either full ANC or full transparency. You can also hold your hand over either side (or both) for a “Quick listen” and instant transparency of your surroundings.
How does the noise-cancelling stack up to rivals? We’re still not sure if it beats Bose and Sony but it’s also not that far behind anymore, and doesn’t leave us with an annoying overly pressurised sensation when it’s turned on. It’s incredibly powerful for silencing the annoying noise of our morning train journey, the bustling sounds of a busy cafe, or our colleagues chatting away in the office.
Overall, we’re highly impressed and this is definitely right up there with the best ANC systems – it’s not lost on us that Bose also uses an array of five microphones on either side for its class-leading ANC in the QuietComfort Ultras too.
Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H100: Verdict
If you’ve got this far, we’re sure you’ve gathered that the Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H100 headphones are excellent, maybe even exceptional. They are simply lovely to wear and use. They’re a pair that feels elegant, considered and well thought out, with detailed touches around the timeless design, the smooth and intuitive controls, the feature-packed app, the captivating sound quality and impressive noise cancellation.
If they were the still expensive £699 of a special edition pair of Bowers & Wilkins PX8, or even the £879 of the Beoplay H95, they’d probably be an easy recommendation. At £1,299, though, the price is going to be top of mind. While we recommend them, you’re really going to have to know you want them.
Considering how well they perform with sound quality, comfort and convenience, they’re among our favourites. But, if you asked us whether we’d spend our hard-earned cash on these, we’d have a far harder time answering.
On the one hand, these are stunning headphones that seem to cater only for the luxury crowd. On the other, they’re built to last and to be repaired so that they could potentially be that one investment that’ll stay with you for years into the future. Are we delusional? Are we trying to convince ourselves? Are these really worth £1,299? Well, we’ll leave you with some of our mental gymnastics: if you used these every day for five years, the price works out as under a quid per day. Does that make them seem more palatable? Quite possibly, but you’ll have to decide that for yourself.
Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H100: Rival Models to Consider
We tend to use the Bowers & Wilkins PX8 as the benchmark against which we test everything else – some audiophiles might prefer the more neutral sound of the Mark Levinson No 5909 or Focal Bathys, but for us, the B&W pair is as close to perfection as we’ve heard from cans without wires. So, of course, we did side-by-side comparisons with the Beoplay H100 and the PX8.
There’s a massive price difference, but the £599 PX8s are so good that we’d frankly recommend them ahead of the H100s unless spatial audio, touch controls and repairability matter more to you than anything else. We slightly prefer the PX8’s sound signature (although, to be fair, they’re not far off each other) but we vastly prefer the lighter weight of the B&W, the tactile button controls, and we find the leather used in the headband beats B&O’s fabric headband for long listening sessions.
The style of the Bowers & Wilkins model is sophisticated too, and comes in an enticing range of colours. In short, they’re the number one challenger we’d recommend you consider. And, don’t discount that the British brand also makes the Px7 S2e for £379, a slightly more “affordable” take on the PX8 that is just as appealing in its design and versatility. The differences between the two pairs and more minor than you might think.
Prefer to stick with Bang & Olufsen? The Beoplay H95 – made to commemorate 95 years of B&O when they launched in 2020 – remain a tremendous pair of headphones now at the still expensive but more attainable price of £879 compared to the new H100 set. They come in a stunning aluminium case with all the cables and accessories, in addition to having a sleek design and excellent sound quality.
If you use Apple products all the time, it’s worth considering the £499 AirPods Max (which now comes in some new colours and with a USB-C connector for charging). And, finally, we’d highly recommend considering the Bose QuietComfort Ultra (£449.95) for the brand’s class-leading noise-cancelling.
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