These are $500 Xbox Headphones - Bang & Olufsen Xbox Portal
ShortCircuit
·ShortCircuit
·2021-05-05
·
1,880 words · ~9 min read
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- For most gamers, the XBox wireless headset is more than enough. It sounds pretty good.
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And the microphone quality is surprisingly good considering
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that it's only about a hundred dollars. But what if you're a premium gamer?
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Well, for you, we've got the Bang and Olufsen Portal.
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This my friends... Oh, hold on let's not open it too early.
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I don't want to get ahead of ourselves here. This is a wireless gaming, headphone, not a headset.
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Which doesn't mean of course, that it doesn't have a microphone. It boasts, crystal clear communication
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with its virtual boom ARM. What is a virtual boom ARM?
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And boasts an immersive soundscape and lasting comfort.
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And I have no reason to disbelieve them because Bang and Olufsen has a (coughs)
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so to say, been around, if you know what I mean.
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They're an almost a hundred year old company. Ooh. I do like the design that does look a little
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more premium than the X-Box...
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It weighs like nothing, that is both good,
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and also a little disconcerting. I mean, Brandon, when you pick
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up like a premium pair of headphones you expect it to kind of have some heft to it, right?
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- [Brandon] Yeah. - There's no heft. It's like a, it's more in line
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just like a Bose QuietComfort, like a travel headphone
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than something that I would expect to be like an everyday sit and wear this thing
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for six hours at a time while I'm vegetating in front of my television.
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282 grams, you say, and this must be vegan leather,
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or something. - [Brandon] Yeah, Vegan leather. - [Jono] No, it's a lamb skin.
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Lamb skin leather, and then this is veal skin?
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- [Jono] No, calf's skin. Calf's skin, that's the same thing, isn't it?
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- [Brandon] That's so much worse. I mean, veal just means baby cow, and calf means baby cow.
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So I'm calling it veal skin. You've got a USB type C charging cable.
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This is a wireless headset (cough), excuse me, headphone, for microphone. And then you've also got a
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three and a half millimeter adapter. If your still own any ancient technology that still connects
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with one of those, like my phone. Oh, now I feel like we have to go right back
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to materials choice now because I got to put this thing on and see how it feels, at least.
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Like, the reason I said that I thought it was vegan leather was cause it feels a little like crisp,
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but I think a lot of that is to do with how kind of stiff the memory foam is.
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I don't mean stiff in a bad way. I mean that it rebounds really quickly.
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Okay, it's an over the ear cup design.
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So I have kind of, I'd say medium sized ears, and they fit reasonably comfortably,
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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,
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but not if you just wear studs. And I'd say, I would describe this as an above
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average clamp strength. So a lot of the weight is being born by the clamping
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against her head, as opposed to by the headband which is probably a good thing because you can actually
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see particularly in the middle here, there's not a lot of padding there.
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They're going from more like a, a four point contact system with the two ear cups,
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and then these just kind of straight portions
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of the headband here. The fact that they're so light definitely contributes
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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.
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So you've got your game audio, and voice chat mix right here on the left ear cup,
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that's just like the X-Box first-party one. You've got a pairing button right here.
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This is truly an X-Box first, everything else, second headset.
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Volume rocker, right over here on the right ear cup. Power, as well as Bluetooth pairing.
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So that's a separate pairing button. You're three and a half millimeter jack, and your USB type C.
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So just, auto one press to turn on, that's unusual.
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I'm gonna hold the pair button and we're flashing. There we go.
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Hey, headset assign, look at that. Just like that. Dolby Access, Dolby Atmos for headphones is ready to use.
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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
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actually an app that you are going to need to download.
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That is a paid app, it's the Beale Play Portal app,
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and you can use it to fine tune the audio. So I guess I just have to buy that now?
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Sorry, the active noise cancellation on these is actually pretty darn in these.
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That's one thing that I didn't talk about on the outside here.
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So you've got one, two,
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three, four microphone ports that are
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on the outside of the headphones. That is how Bang and Olufsen is achieving two things.
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One, active noise cancellation, so you don't have to listen to,
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you know your mom calling you for dinner, or whatever. And number two, is what they're calling their
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Virtual Boom Night. So you can see there's no actual boom ARM,
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but by tuning these microphones so that their pickup patterns are kind of aimed
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in front of your mouth. The theory is that they can sound really great even though they're not actually right next to you.
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Hey, did you want to get going now? Okay, cool.
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Just have a quick question for you though. How's the the sound quality of what I'm saying right now?
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Like, would you describe it as average, above average, below average?
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Above average. (indistinct) Okay.
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What if I said it costs $500 for it to sound this good?
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Okay. She says it's unnecessary. So she doesn't feel like she deserves
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this kind of rich vocal quality,
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but you know what hon, you do, you deserve this and more.
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We got some fancy touch controls here. So you double tap on the right,
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or left side to play and pause, but that's Bluetooth only.
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You swipe the right side for volume.
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There's a touch bar here apparently. Hello?
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It's not a rocker. I said this was a rocker switches, totally not.
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How would you not mash that every time you take these off? I mean, I guess you'd get in the habit of just
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grabbing the cups. Okay, swipe the touch bar for volume, swipe to the left
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to switch between active noise cancellation, and transparency for Bluetooth only.
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And swipe the left to adjust between game, and chat balance for X-Box only. Double tap left to right.
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Double tap right or left, to mute or unmute. Oh my God, why is everything a double tap?
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You'll see a red status LED when you're muted, where?
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- [Jono] How do you see it? - Okay, well someone will see it.
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The ANC is very strong. There's a little bit of buzz.
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Little bit of pressure. It's not the worst that I felt in terms of like on ear pressure from active noise cancellation,
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but there is more buzz than I would like. I would probably leave it in kind of the medium-ish setting.
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I mean, yeah, they sound a lot better than the first-party X-Box one.
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And even with the active noise cancellation, like barely on, it's like halfway, I think.
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I cannot hear anything you guys are saying right now. And I don't even have it cranked up that high.
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Okay, let's try this touch sensitive volume control.
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Okay, fine control actually, a lot easier than I thought
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it would be with that. And then I think I just switched it to chat balance
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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.
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Oh, that's very unpleasant. It has kind of like a pop-pop-pop-pop-pop
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sound that it makes, but it also cuts out your audio.
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So it can make a sound, but don't cut out the end game audio
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when I like, max out the dial. Oh yeah, we have Dolby Access already.
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I am not that impressed with Dolby for headphones, then.
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This definitely redeems the Bang and Olufsen app though because it's not them charging you extra,
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it's that Dolby Access costs extra. That is an X-Box thing.
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And I do wish that Microsoft would just find it in their hearts to include that,
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but yeah, that's not on Bang and Olufsen.
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I got to face this, so that the directional sound is right.
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Okay, with me oriented correctly, it does sound a lot better
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but this is a game that has just really
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good surround sound support. Like it is so much more immersive with good surround sound,
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and even compared to like an affordable 5.1 soundbar setup
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like the one that we've got in the living room set behind me. It's just, it's not there.
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And that costs a fraction of what this does. If you have the space for it.
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I find the clamping force a little tighter than is my preference already.
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And I do prefer a larger ear cup personally like a more oval shaped ear cup,
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but I can understand if for style reasons
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they might've gone with, you know a more round minimalistic design here.
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In a world where very, very excellent headphones exist.
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Like the Massdrop Pandas. It's so hard to recommend something like this.
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But the flip side of it is, the Massdrop Pandas do not have integrated support
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for things like Xbox's, chat, end game volume, mixing,
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and they do not have an X-Box pairing button
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so that they can work wirelessly with the X-Box. So in a world where only the $100 option,
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and the $500 option exists, this is clearly better than this,
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But I don't know if I would describe it as five times better.
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Thanks for checking out ShortCircuit. Hope you guys enjoyed this video. Make sure you subscribe.
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