Best Buys – Audio & AV – July 2019

Best Buys Audio & AV 2019-#2

HEADPHONES

81

WIRELESS NOISE-CANCELLING HEADPHONES

PIONEER SE-MS9BN

There’s no shortage of travel-savvy wireless noise-cancelling

headphones on the market to choose from. But Pioneer has

managed to load up on functionality – at an attractive price.

S

ometimes we know the price of

equipment coming in for review,

sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we

check it before we start, so we can judge

the product in its context, but occasion-

ally we do much of our listening in the dark as to

pricing, which gives us the fun of guessing. With

Pioneer’s SE-MS9BN wireless noise-cancelling

headphones (S9 for short, though not to be

confused with the company’s popular DJM-S9

mixer) we’d used them for several days before we

checked the price, and were surprised to find they

are $279.95, significantly below the sweet-spot for

wireless noise-cancellers, which has settled around

$399-$499 (and, of course, up) — and that was

where we had guessed the S9 would be priced.

So a potential bargain then. But where has

Pioneer saved the money?

It doesn’t seem to have been on construction,

as these are substantial and well-built headphones,

using aluminium for the housings, a comfortable

and deep leatherette for the earcups, and a wide

and thick polyurethane cushion across the full

headband, which is connected and adjusted

using aviator-style metal sliding rods rather than

internal stainless steel. That does prevent them

pivoting for storage, and their size makes them a

little over-large when they hang around the neck.

But this does allow full-size 40mm drivers to be

used, here with rare-earth magnets and CCAW

(Copper-Clad Aluminum Wire) voice coils.

They’re surprisingly light despite this, weighing

300g and feeling light and extremely comfortable,

even over long periods.

The buttonry is fairly basic (see right), with

a recessed power button, volume and play/pause

on a rocker with a central press point, and that’s

about it, except for the most prominent button

of all, which is a dedicated Google Assistant

button. If you do as we first did, simply pairing

via Bluetooth and heading off to work, you’ll be

fine playing music, but you’ll have no control

over noise-cancelling, which is on by default,

while the Google button says it’s not connected.

THERE’S AN APP FOR THIS

For full functionality, then, you need to download

the Pioneer Headphone App, which might

be considered another surprise here, given

such smarts usually add to the price-tag. The

Headphone App then lets you switch noise-cancel-

ling on and off (nothing inbetween), or to select

‘Ambient awareness mode’, which adds sound

from the external noise-cancelling mikes while you

listen. Given the need to open the app to turn this

on, this will be less useful for the ‘beef or chicken’

moment where you want to quickly talk with

someone — just taking off the headphones will be

quicker. But it’s handy for, say, sitting in an airport

lounge listening to music but not missing your

gate call announcement.

The App also acts as your instruction manual,

which is good as there’s only a quick start guide

in the box and nothing we could find online, so

that the app is the only place you can find the