Macworld (2019-06)

122 MACWORLD JUNE 2019

PLAYLIST REVIEW: BANG & OLUFSEN BEOPLAY H9I

A SMART TOUCH INTERFACE
There’s a touch-sensitive gesture pad on
the right ear cup. Tap on the aluminum
disc for play/pause, swipe forward to fast
forward the song your listening to, and
swipe to the back to rewind. Moving your
finger clockwise around the disc increases
the volume, while turning it counter
clockwise lowers the volume. Swipe from
top to bottom to turn on ANC, and make
the same gesture to turn it off. Turning
transparency mode on and off is the
opposite: You swipe from bottom to top to
turn it on, and again from the bottom to top
to turn transparency mode off.
Unlike smartphone surfaces that only
work with your skin or a special material,
the aluminum plate’s gesture surface is

mechanical and pressure sensitive. It

works if your hands are moist and even if

you’re wearing gloves. I can’t tell you how

much I appreciated that feature during the

fall and winter months.

But I do wish B&O had a different alert

sound for turning modes on and off—the

headphones produce the same knocking

tone for all of them.

EXCELLENT ACTIVE NOISE-

CANCELLING PERFORMANCE

One of the main goals of noise-cancelling

headphones is to reduce the likelihood of

noise-induced hearing loss. The noisier

the environment, the louder you’ll want to

play your music, which increases the risks

of hearing damage. According to the

National Institute of Health,

long or repeated exposure

to sounds above 85

decibels can cause

hearing loss (go.macworld.

com/hlos). The louder the

sound, the shorter the

amount of time it takes for

hearing loss to happen. An

airplane cabin, for

example, can often reach

sound pressure levels

(SPL) of 94dB. That’s

almost equivalent to the

sound of a motorcycle and

can result in permanent

B&O’s touch interface worked extremely well and even worked
with gloves or moist fingers.