Bang & Olufsen have unveiled its new flagship headphones, building on the success of the superb Beoplay H95 headphones. The new Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H100 headphones are made from premium materials and promise significant noise cancellation upgrades, and they’re more sustainable too thanks to their user-replaceable parts.
As you can see, they’re gorgeous – but there’s substance to match the style. The drivers are 40mm custom-made titanium drivers, tuned by B&O’s “tonmeisters” and inspired by the firm’s legendary Beolab 90 speaker. According to Bang & Olufsen’s director of technology Neo Kaplanis, these are “the best pair of headphones we have ever created”.
They support hi-res audio at up to 96kHz/24 bits via the firm’s new adaptive audio processing system, which it calls EarSense and which tailors the sound to your particular head and ear shape. There’s Dolby Atmos spatial audio for what promises to be a superb surround-sound experience too, and you can expect 34 hours of listening from a single charge with five hours of playtime from just five minutes of charging.
Impressive ANC, premium materials and user-replaceable parts
There are 10 “studio-grade” microphones in the headphones for what Bang & Olufsen says is its most advanced noise cancellation and transparency mode yet, and the transparency is adjustable via a haptic dial, which sounds like a pleasingly tactile feature you don’t get on any other of the other best noise cancelling headphones. You can also switch from fully closed and immersed to an open mode by lifting one earcup or covering it with your palm, which is a really useful feature you’ll find on the Sony WH-1000XM5 too.
The touch interface on the side of the headphones is made from scratch-resistant hardened glass and there’s a new detachable inner headband wrapped in knitted fabric that B&O says will aid breathability and comfort. The earpad cushions are covered in soft lambskin leather and there are three color options: Infinite Black, Hourglass Sand and Sunset Apricot.
Many of the parts here are designed with sustainability in mind, with the inner headband and earpad cushions designed to be easily replaceable and key components made to be easily repairable. The software is going to be upgradeable too for longer life: the new software platform will bring additional features in the near future such as wireless hi-res audio and three-device multipoint pairing, which is still incredibly rare (except for our beloved Technics EAH-AZ80 earbuds).
The new Beoplay H100 headphones are available now from Bang & Olufsen stores and online with a list price of $1,549 / £1,299 (about AU$2,500). That is quite a lot higher than the other options in our best wireless headphones list, so we’ll see if all these fancy features and luxurious finishes can justify the price when we review them.
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