Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsLight weight, comfortable, excellent sound, beautiful design, quality construction, a pleasure to own.
Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2016
B&O have always made beautiful equipment. I still have my Beolit 800 Radio that was a prized possession some 50 years ago when I got it. The H6s continue the tradition of blending form and function. The packaging makes a statement of quality, and the headphones more than live up to it.
They are light in weight but solid in construction. For over ear headphones they are surprisingly small and easy to take around with you. Not only do they look very very stylish, but their small size makes them unobtrusive to wear out in public. Their light weight, multi axis adjustable earpieces and super soft ear pads make them very comfortable to wear.
The headband is finished in leather and well padded underneath.
I particularly like the yellow cloth inside the earcups, and the large L and R inside the cups, so much better than searching for some small symbol on the outside of the cups or on the cup bracket.
The connecting cable is removable, and can be plugged into either earpiece to suit the way you use them. For a headphone that is to be used on the go and carried around, I think that a replaceable cable is almost a sine qua non. The B&O one uses a standard connector so there is a choice of cables available. The B&O cable clicks into place and is very secure. If it were possible to award half stars, I would have gone with 4 and 1/2, deducting half a star for the shortness of the cable. The length might be just right for you, but I would be happier with another foot or so of flexibility of spacing between me and my phone or iPad.
I have the "i" version and the three button control works fine with my IOS devices. I haven't tried the microphone with the phone as this is not important to me.
At home I listen via Sennheiser HD 700s or Hifiman HE560s depending on what sort of music I am listening to. The H6s, not surprisingly don't have as wide a sound stage as these two open back headphones, but for closed back phones that you can use in public they are wonderfully open, with none of the "all the sound is inside your head" effect that a lot of closed phones have.
I'm not good at describing nuances of sound reproduction, but suffice it to say that while the accuracy of the H6s reproduction isn't as good as say the HD 700s, it is still very enjoyable when driven direct from my iPhone or iPad. Driving them from the iPhone with a TEAC Portable Headphone Amplifier USB/DAC HA-P50-R improved the base response and the overall quality slightly.
All in all, an excellent sounding pair of portable headphones. One of those things whose design and finish is so good that they are a pleasure to own.
