JUNE 2019 MACWORLD 121removable, so you can purchase an
additional battery for $50 from B&O’s
website and pop it in for added flexibility.
I used the Beoplay H9i during a
transatlantic round-trip flight and didn’t
have any problems with the battery life on
either leg of the trip.
B&O’S MOBILE APP
B&O developed a companion app for the
Beoplay H9i, which is available for
Android and iOS devices. The app
requires you to register before you can
access its features. Once you do, it will
display your headphones’ battery life and
allow you to apply DSP filters for different
sound environments: commute, clear,
workout, or podcast. It’s unclear at first
glance what each of these modes do.
There’s no EQ graph
with the name that
shows you the impact,
but cycle through
them and you’ll pick
up the differences
quite easily.
The Beoplay H9i’s
“ToneTouch” option is
slick, allowing you to
tailor the headphones’
sound to be warm,
bright, excited, or
relaxed. It does so with
a simple interface,
eschewing any complicated manual EQ
curves that might confuse novice users.
The app also gives you easy access to
enable or disable the headphones’ active
noise cancellation and its transparency
mode (a feature that lets environmental
sounds mix with the music to aid in your
situational awareness. I’ll get deeper into
this in a bit.)ACCESSORIES INCLUDED
The Beoplay H9i come with a soft, supple,
two-layer cinch sack.The inner layer gives the
headphones a velvety-soft surface that won’t
subject them to friction, but the sack easily
turns inside out when you pull out the
headphones. Also included in the package is
a USB-A to USB-C charging cable, a 3.5mm
cable, and a two-prong airplane adapter.A close-up of the gesture pad on the Beoplay H9i’s right ear cup.