- For most gamers, the XBox wireless headset is more than enough. It sounds pretty good.
And the microphone quality is surprisingly good considering
that it's only about a hundred dollars. But what if you're a premium gamer?
Well, for you, we've got the Bang and Olufsen Portal.
This my friends... Oh, hold on let's not open it too early.
I don't want to get ahead of ourselves here. This is a wireless gaming, headphone, not a headset.
Which doesn't mean of course, that it doesn't have a microphone. It boasts, crystal clear communication
with its virtual boom ARM. What is a virtual boom ARM?
And boasts an immersive soundscape and lasting comfort.
And I have no reason to disbelieve them because Bang and Olufsen has a (coughs)
so to say, been around, if you know what I mean.
They're an almost a hundred year old company. Ooh. I do like the design that does look a little
more premium than the X-Box...
It weighs like nothing, that is both good,
and also a little disconcerting. I mean, Brandon, when you pick
up like a premium pair of headphones you expect it to kind of have some heft to it, right?
- [Brandon] Yeah. - There's no heft. It's like a, it's more in line
just like a Bose QuietComfort, like a travel headphone
than something that I would expect to be like an everyday sit and wear this thing
for six hours at a time while I'm vegetating in front of my television.
282 grams, you say, and this must be vegan leather,
or something. - [Brandon] Yeah, Vegan leather. - [Jono] No, it's a lamb skin.
Lamb skin leather, and then this is veal skin?
- [Jono] No, calf's skin. Calf's skin, that's the same thing, isn't it?
- [Brandon] That's so much worse. I mean, veal just means baby cow, and calf means baby cow.
So I'm calling it veal skin. You've got a USB type C charging cable.
This is a wireless headset (cough), excuse me, headphone, for microphone. And then you've also got a
three and a half millimeter adapter. If your still own any ancient technology that still connects
with one of those, like my phone. Oh, now I feel like we have to go right back
to materials choice now because I got to put this thing on and see how it feels, at least.
Like, the reason I said that I thought it was vegan leather was cause it feels a little like crisp,
but I think a lot of that is to do with how kind of stiff the memory foam is.
I don't mean stiff in a bad way. I mean that it rebounds really quickly.
Okay, it's an over the ear cup design.
So I have kind of, I'd say medium sized ears, and they fit reasonably comfortably,
but it does press my earrings into my neck a little bit. So if you wear earrings, then it might be a factor for you,
but not if you just wear studs. And I'd say, I would describe this as an above
average clamp strength. So a lot of the weight is being born by the clamping
against her head, as opposed to by the headband which is probably a good thing because you can actually
see particularly in the middle here, there's not a lot of padding there.
They're going from more like a, a four point contact system with the two ear cups,
and then these just kind of straight portions
of the headband here. The fact that they're so light definitely contributes
to above average on your comfort though. This video is brought to you by Private Internet Access.
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Compatibility, wired, Bluetooth, and wireless with X-Box and PC.
So you've got your game audio, and voice chat mix right here on the left ear cup,
that's just like the X-Box first-party one. You've got a pairing button right here.
This is truly an X-Box first, everything else, second headset.
Volume rocker, right over here on the right ear cup. Power, as well as Bluetooth pairing.
So that's a separate pairing button. You're three and a half millimeter jack, and your USB type C.
So just, auto one press to turn on, that's unusual.
I'm gonna hold the pair button and we're flashing. There we go.
Hey, headset assign, look at that. Just like that. Dolby Access, Dolby Atmos for headphones is ready to use.
Ah, that's something to keep in mind. So if you want to use these on your phone, and you want the full functionality, there is
actually an app that you are going to need to download.
That is a paid app, it's the Beale Play Portal app,
and you can use it to fine tune the audio. So I guess I just have to buy that now?
Sorry, the active noise cancellation on these is actually pretty darn in these.
That's one thing that I didn't talk about on the outside here.
So you've got one, two,
three, four microphone ports that are
on the outside of the headphones. That is how Bang and Olufsen is achieving two things.
One, active noise cancellation, so you don't have to listen to,
you know your mom calling you for dinner, or whatever. And number two, is what they're calling their
Virtual Boom Night. So you can see there's no actual boom ARM,
but by tuning these microphones so that their pickup patterns are kind of aimed
in front of your mouth. The theory is that they can sound really great even though they're not actually right next to you.
Hey, did you want to get going now? Okay, cool.
Just have a quick question for you though. How's the the sound quality of what I'm saying right now?
Like, would you describe it as average, above average, below average?
Above average. (indistinct) Okay.
What if I said it costs $500 for it to sound this good?
Okay. She says it's unnecessary. So she doesn't feel like she deserves
this kind of rich vocal quality,
but you know what hon, you do, you deserve this and more.
We got some fancy touch controls here. So you double tap on the right,
or left side to play and pause, but that's Bluetooth only.
You swipe the right side for volume.
There's a touch bar here apparently. Hello?
It's not a rocker. I said this was a rocker switches, totally not.
How would you not mash that every time you take these off? I mean, I guess you'd get in the habit of just
grabbing the cups. Okay, swipe the touch bar for volume, swipe to the left
to switch between active noise cancellation, and transparency for Bluetooth only.
And swipe the left to adjust between game, and chat balance for X-Box only. Double tap left to right.
Double tap right or left, to mute or unmute. Oh my God, why is everything a double tap?
You'll see a red status LED when you're muted, where?
- [Jono] How do you see it? - Okay, well someone will see it.
The ANC is very strong. There's a little bit of buzz.
Little bit of pressure. It's not the worst that I felt in terms of like on ear pressure from active noise cancellation,
but there is more buzz than I would like. I would probably leave it in kind of the medium-ish setting.
I mean, yeah, they sound a lot better than the first-party X-Box one.
And even with the active noise cancellation, like barely on, it's like halfway, I think.
I cannot hear anything you guys are saying right now. And I don't even have it cranked up that high.
Okay, let's try this touch sensitive volume control.
Okay, fine control actually, a lot easier than I thought
it would be with that. And then I think I just switched it to chat balance
cause the game is a little bit quieter. Yeah. There we go. So let's go all game. Oh, it's telling me it's maxed out.
Oh, that's very unpleasant. It has kind of like a pop-pop-pop-pop-pop
sound that it makes, but it also cuts out your audio.
So it can make a sound, but don't cut out the end game audio
when I like, max out the dial. Oh yeah, we have Dolby Access already.
I am not that impressed with Dolby for headphones, then.
This definitely redeems the Bang and Olufsen app though because it's not them charging you extra,
it's that Dolby Access costs extra. That is an X-Box thing.
And I do wish that Microsoft would just find it in their hearts to include that,
but yeah, that's not on Bang and Olufsen.
I got to face this, so that the directional sound is right.
Okay, with me oriented correctly, it does sound a lot better
but this is a game that has just really
good surround sound support. Like it is so much more immersive with good surround sound,
and even compared to like an affordable 5.1 soundbar setup
like the one that we've got in the living room set behind me. It's just, it's not there.
And that costs a fraction of what this does. If you have the space for it.
I find the clamping force a little tighter than is my preference already.
And I do prefer a larger ear cup personally like a more oval shaped ear cup,
but I can understand if for style reasons
they might've gone with, you know a more round minimalistic design here.
In a world where very, very excellent headphones exist.
Like the Massdrop Pandas. It's so hard to recommend something like this.
But the flip side of it is, the Massdrop Pandas do not have integrated support
for things like Xbox's, chat, end game volume, mixing,
and they do not have an X-Box pairing button
so that they can work wirelessly with the X-Box. So in a world where only the $100 option,
and the $500 option exists, this is clearly better than this,
But I don't know if I would describe it as five times better.
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