October 28, 2024

I’m currently (im)patiently waiting on a new pair of wireless headphone to arrive. I’ve ordered a set of the new Bang & Olufson H100 earphones.

Over the last few years I’ve been happily using Apple’s premium AirPods Max as my daily headphones and they are fantastic but two things recently took the shine off them:

1. After three years the mesh ‘cushion’ collapsed and lost their springiness and this meant the metal headbands were sitting directly on my skull. Ouch!

2. When up dates to the AirPods Max were announced this year they only amounted to a switch to a USB-C charging port, while other Apple earphones take advantage of later variants of the ‘H’ processor hardware.

The first problem (I’m not alone here) suggests that this premium design is not as durable as it should be. When I enquired about a replacement band, I was told it would costs over half the price of a new pair! I decide that was not worth the investment on a device that’s been used regularly and may already have ageing batteries.

Some users have solved this problem by using a hairband wrapped around the headband to stretch the mesh again but I opted for a £10 silicone ‘wrapper’ that replaces the mesh — not a perfect solution but better.

I think the limited scope of the changes to the Airpods Max design may mean they are something of an evolutionary dead-end in Apple’s hardware portfolio. Time will tell.

For these reasons I was already in the market for a replacement headphone and not looking at Apple’s design with much affection. A colleague recommended Bang and Olufson to me from his own experience and I learned the new H100 model comes with a 5-year warranty is designed with ‘cradle-to-cradle’ principles, with user-replaceable parts including the inner headband and batteries. I will undoubtedly miss how well Apple products integrate with each other but this more sustainable aspect of the design really appeals to me.

The new headphones are expensive but I listen to a lot of music and podcasts, and sound quality matters to me plus the purchase coincided with back pay coming into my bank account, softening the blow. I’m looking forward to switching to these very soon.

design


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