I’ll just tell you a cool story: once I flew from London to Moscow in business class (sounds like fantasy in the current conditions), a man next to me sipped champagne beautifully and unpacked the first Bang & Olufsen TWS headphones in the meantime. Apparently, he bourgeoisly bought them in a store and decided to immediately try them out. I remember the man on his iPad had glass of incredible thickness – well, a couple of millimeters for sure, if not more. The zealous owner of Apple technology! And so, the headphones were unpacked, the case was removed, the neighbor took out the headphones, started to insert them – but they DO NOT INSERT.
Yes Yes. I’ve mentioned this in every Bang & Olufsen review: the cups tend to be huge. They don’t fit well in my ears. On whom it was tested, how, why – it is not at all clear. Here, take a look at several articles about TWS from different years, everywhere the conclusions are the same: ALWAYS TRY ON BEFORE BUYING IN THE STORE!
And now, for the first time in many years, B&O changed the design code and decided to make something similar to AirPods. Let’s see what happens together!
Design
As always, Bang & Olufsen knows how to pack the product very beautifully – it’s clearly not recycled cardboard, but ordinary cool cardboard. Beautiful box, beautiful fonts, everything is very premium and magical. The magic continues when you take the EX in your hands – a case made of metal, it clicks just as nicely as the lid of the AirPods case.
The cups are very different from previous B&O headphones. First, they have become smaller and fit better in the ears – at least in mine. Secondly, legs appeared, like those of AirPods – it is convenient to pull the headphones out of the case for them, and, apparently, it was easier to place the microphones this way. Thirdly, a protrusion has appeared around the touch pads and it is easier to control touches.
But in terms of size, it’s still not AirPods – my wife couldn’t wear the EX.
Headphones are available in three colors: black with blue, black with black and gold. It seems to me that black with blue sensors are the most beautiful.
And all this is so beautiful, so bourgeois, so cool – until the dancing with a tambourine begins, associated with pairing headphones. Look, the instructions indicate that if you hold your fingers on the sensors while the headphones are in the case, the pairing mode will be activated. No matter how I tried to do this, the indicator did not blink in a special way, the process did not start.
Then I tried to open the application – it told me that the headphones were nearby, MAGIC was about to happen. And an empty device selection window opened. I waited five minutes, nothing happened. Then I rebooted everything, put it back in place, prayed well and repeated the process again – surprisingly, the headphones appeared in the application and everything worked out.
However, even without this, there is enough fun. When trying to update the software, the headphones lose connection with the smartphone (iPhone 13 Pro Max), it is suggested to restart the EX, but nowhere is it written how to do this. This is a little annoying.
By the way, the application will be useful to you in any case – only with its help you can establish the authenticity of the device, update the firmware (maybe later?). Believe me, this is important. There are also optional features like equalizers – games with sound are fun, but nothing more. And why didn’t they add Internet radio here, as in the case of Beosound Level?
The claimed battery life is 6 hours with the noise reduction system turned on, in fact, the headphones live for about five hours. It uses USB-C for charging and comes with a USB-A to USB-C cable.
Management is standard, from the interesting – volume control is supported with the help of long presses. Modes, answering a call, switching tracks – it’s not difficult to figure it out.
And finally, about convenience: after an hour of wearing, discomfort appears. Personally, AirPods or AirPods Pro are much more convenient for me.
Noise suppression
Neither I nor my colleagues could notice the difference between noise reduction on and off. That’s all you need to know about ANC in these headphones. The transparency mode is also very strange – in the same AirPods Pro, you immediately understand that the microphones are working at full capacity, you can hear a low voice from the next room, like a person nearby. It’s not even close here.
In general, it would be better if B&O didn’t start all this noise reduction – in Europe or in the USA, the company could generally be sued for misrepresentation. That is, how is it possible that in different modes the sound of finger strikes on the keyboard does not change at all?
Sound
If you don’t have enough oddities in the behavior of the application and software updates, then there are oddities with sound. Firstly, if you have a beta, then there may be troubles in different applications – well, as if not the whole driver is playing, but half. I don’t know how to explain better. Secondly, even if the beta is not worth it, then the sound quality changes from program to program. In the case of the iPhone 13 Pro Max, the best sound was in Apple Music and, oddly enough, in MixCloud.
Now I’ve been listening to EX for like a week and, as they say, love and hate. The new custom driver is great – both in size and quality. In some tracks, goosebumps run, and the impression is like from big headphones, only positive vibrations. And you turn on something familiar for a long time – one disorder: yes, but not so. It seems to me that TWS still needs to be configured for a wider audience – on the other hand, an enthusiast will find something interesting in EX. Let me remind you again, after all, aptX is here, so you can listen to FLAC from androids and get high.
Verdict
Headphones retail for 400 euros (well, or $ 400, depending on the country). They are not officially sold in Russia yet – in general, Bang & Olufsen is not even allowed to enter their website from our country, which is rather strange.
Naturally, parallel imports will help us, but this is an open question – do I need to buy EX? It seems to me, no.
Look, for this money you can buy AirPods Pro (I remind you, this is $ 250) and get all the functions of the ecosystem, excellent noise reduction, good sound quality, convenient control, comfort, happiness, STABILITY.
As for the Bang & Olufsen Beoplay EX, I would like to see how a person without my experience connects or updates (it worked out the tenth time). Most likely, you will spit and take them back to the store. Well, okay, this is disgusting, but where is the sweetness?
Sweetness – B&O’s magical design, cool sound with a number of tracks and services, interesting experiments with Android smartphones, and, in general, this is something new. Noise canceling would also work, but alas.
It seems to me that B&O just hasn’t found a manager yet who would honestly say: guys, having reduced the noise with our shit, let’s focus on design and sound – in fact, B&O has always been about design and sound.
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