Edifier H850 Closed Back Headphone Review

The Edifier H850 Headphones offer excellent sound quality for the modest price of £39.99, offering a clean and clear, well balanced sound.

Pros:

• Build quality
• Balanced sound

Cons:

• Not the most natural timbre
• Lacks some high end refinement

Aesthetics, Build Quality and Accessories

The Edifier H850 are a fairly standard looking headphone, nothing stands out with a mainly matt black design and brushed aluminium faceplates. The H850 won’t win any beauty competitions, but they look stylish for a headphone at this price.

The build quality is perfectly acceptable for the price, with plastic cups, metal reinforced headband and metal faceplates. The cups swivel flat, the earpads are replaceable and a big plus point is the cable is user replaceable with a standard 3.5mm jack (however the stock one has a locking mechanism).

The H850 accessories are kept to a minimum, only a 6.3mm jack adaptor is supplied as extra, however this means that costs are kept to a minimum, leaving you with better sound quality for the price over luxurious accessories.

Comfort and Isolation

The Edifier H850 are very light, but the cups are not the most spacious, however I find them to be comfortable for long periods of time. The headband is well padded and again the weight comes into play here not creating a hot spot on the top of your head.

Isolation is good, this is a closed back headphone but there are vents in the cups that do leak a minimal amount of sound. If you listen at moderate volumes you are unlikely to bother people around you.

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READ MORE: Shanling H1 Portable Headphone Amplifier Review

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Sound Quality

• Bass

The bass on the H850 is surprisingly punchy and well in line with the rest of the frequency range. It is articulate and well layered, bass guitar lines are easy to follow. They do roll off around 50hz, and there is a bit of a mid bass hump but, overall the bass is well controlled and does not shadow the rest of the frequency range. The lows are quick in attack and recovery making them handle heavy rock music very well, yet they can still offer some body in acoustic and electronic tracks.

• Mids

The midrange is quite clean and clear, there is a slight dip in the lower mids making male vocals not as prominent as female vocals. However they do not suffer from bleed from the lows, being well separated. Finer details are not the H850’s strong point, but they are well balanced and there is good space and air. For the price the midrange is very good, there is a slight peak in the upper midrange which does highlight some sibilance in certain recordings. Electric guitars fair well with good energy and crunch when called for, and acoustic guitars come across with good body but perhaps a little cold in tonality.

• Highs

The highs are well presented but do lack extension and air, I find them to roll off too early and lack refinement. They are a bit one toned with lack of distinct definition, but then again they are present and at this price point I don’t think any headphone can match these in the treble range. The highs do have good placement and directionality being able to pinpoint where they are coming from in the recording.

• Separation and Soundstage

The instrument separation is good on these, during faster tracks they do have a tendency to become a little congested but for the most part everything is well separated and easy to pick out in the recording.
The soundstage is not huge, it is just outside the headphones in terms of width, so they won’t be the best for large orchestral pieces.

Conclusion

Now for the price, the Edifier H850 is possibly best in class, most headphones around this range have boosted bass, or non-existent highs, these do not. These actually have good balance across the board, yes they won’t have the natural tone of high end models, or the effortless high end extension, but they do offer a very pleasant listening experience for an excellent price.