Bang & Olufsen H3 Review

Bang & Olufsen is known for there remarkable design when it comes to anything and everything they do. On top of this there speakers and headphones have a great mixture for sound and there television has realistic picture quality. Entering the room we have the H3, some of the nicest headphone they have put on the market. Unlike many other in-ear headphones on the market that all focus on sound, they have also focused on the design. Will the H3’s be your next headphone purchase? Keep reading to see our full thoughts on what just might be the classiest in-ear headphones on the market.

Design

As I have already stated, Bang & Olufsen is known for their product design. Luckily, they used their great designers on the H3 as well. For starters they use aluminum, on the buds of the headphones. When you see a product like this, with such a great looking design it makes you happy with what you have chosen. They are stylish in-ear headphones, which are not as common as I would like. The aluminum is not heavy, the headphones come in at a very light and ultra portable 13 grams. The H3 comes in Red, Black, and Aluminum three colors that look great and can fit in with your unique style choices. I have been testing out the Aluminum variants, which is a light grey mixed with silver, a really nice color.

There is a lot of attention to detail on the H3, for instance, the Bang & Olufsen or B&O logo is engraved on each ear bud, in a white color. You will notice there is a row of drilled hold tracing the inside of the earbud on the back. This is to help with bass and the noise isolating technologies. We will touch more on the many technologies and the rest of the hardware later in the review. While the cords are not tangle free on the H3, it does come with a very nice leather carrying case. It makes it super easy to bring the H3’s around with you and the design of the case compliments that of the headphones. Plus, for the price getting a well made and designed carrying case is great.  The inline control makes it easy to control the volume and skip to the next song. The headphone jack continues the aluminum coloring and adds a high end feel to the product.

Sound Quality & Noise Isolation

Sound is were it gets interesting, at times the H3’s perform really well, but other times they aren’t the greatest. With some bass heavy songs, the sounds become very tinny and when the bass hits, it leads to a very unbalanced listening experience. I was quite surprised, as with other Bang & Olufsen products, the sound level is extremely heavy. It seems that with bass and balancing they didn’t spend a lot of time with it on this product. Keep in mind that there is not a full powered bass driver inside, rather 10.8mm driver and Micro Bass Ports. It seems that the response system, sometimes works after the issue with bass happens. I hope in the future, that B&O will correct this, as they just need to fix the balance and it could work really well. For non bass heavy jams or songs, there is no issue and it sounds really well. When you get the heavy bass, you will see the problem. Another fix for this issue is to not keep the volume turned all the way up, as they can lead to some distortion. 

Bottom Line

Bang & Olufsen mostly got the H3’s right, but there are a few things were they could have done. Design wise is continues the path to design history, Bang & Olufsen have long been on this path. The attention to detail is huge and the fact that each ear bud is made out of aluminum is really great and makes for a sweet design. The design alone makes them the classiest in-ear headphones on the market, sound is were they are not the best. Which is something I was very surprised about, considering how good their sound usually is. Sound is not very good, when you get a little over half way and with bass the sound becomes very bad and full of static. Overall, if your looking for headphones purely on design, I would say go for the H3’s, but you aren’t gonna get the best sound quality out there. The Bang & Olufsen H3’s retail for $199 and Click Here To See The Bang & Olufsen H3’s On Their Site. We would like to thank Bang & Olufsen for providing us with a copy of the “Bang & Olufsen H3”.