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When I hear the phrase ‘Bang and Olufsen headphones’, I imagine a well designed, high quality, crisp sounding but pricey pair of headphones. Today I’m trying out the Beoplay h5 Bluetooth sports headphones.
These are the Beoplay h5s from Danish brand Bang and Olufsen, these are advertised as sports headphones, so along with that, you get the expected features of them being splash proof and a bit more rugged to handle the rough and tumble that comes along with physical activity.
I’ve never tested B and O headphones before so this is a new experience for me. I know they make beautiful looking hi-fi equipment and they are known for the clarity of their audio so this was an interesting one.
B&O Beoplay H5 Wireless Headphone Review
Beoplay H5 – The design
These are designed really well, just as you would expect from Bang and Olufsen. Quite minimalistic, very light cable which doesn’t have any extra length to get in the way. The cable is a rope/string material instead of the usual latex/rubber that headphone cables usually are. They also have a clever magnetic feature, which enables you to link them together and wear them around your neck when not in use so as not to lose them.
The Beoplay h5 headphones have an in-line remote which works really well. no problems with that, the remote is light and doesn’t weigh the left side earpiece down at all.
Do They Stay In Your Ears?
The short answer is no. They fell out of my ears numerous times while I was working out, this is problem number one with these, they just do not stay secure in my ears, I couldn’t so much as turn my head to the left or right too much for fear of them falling out, no matter what size ear-tips I used. I changed the ear tips several times in case it was down to me not using the best size ear-tips, but it was the same story every time. I maintain my opinion that the ear hook style of headphone is by far the best shape for sports headphones to me because they are kept a lot more secure and there is less chance they will fall out with any rigorous movement.
How Do The Beoplay H5 Headphones Sound?
The audio sounds very clear, mainly thanks to the AptX codec which reduces the amount of compression and gives you a much clearer cd quality level sound.
But I feel your enjoyment of the sound quality will greatly depend on what sort of music you workout to.
in order to get the best performance out of them, you have to use the Beoplay app which enables you to tweak the eq settings. the Beoplay app works really well but in terms of practicality I didn’t like this – I like to just put my headphones on and start working out, instead of having to adjust the eq whenever I listen to a different style of music.
Beoplay H5 – My Verdict
These are a nice pair of headphones to look at, they are beautiful as expected and I really like the magnetic idea which keeps them clinging together when around your neck but after actually using them, the problems are easy to spot.
They kept falling out of my ears which got very annoying very quickly
They’re just too expensive – at the time of doing this review these came in at £180 or 229 dollars on some American sites, there are more practical sports headphones out there that do a much better job than these do for a lot less money.
That was my review of the B&O Beoplay H5s, great sound engineering but fell short on practicality.
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