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Technics, the venerable high-end Japanese audio brand, came out of retirement in 2014 and rebuilt with new designs of iconic turntables like the legendary DJ SL-1200 model. Lately, the company has branched out into new categories, with a handful of full-featured headphones joining the lineup.

The EAH-A800 is the company’s entry into the on-ear Bluetooth flagship arena, offering features similar to Sony, Apple, Bose and others, at a slightly lower price. Out of the box, the EAH-A800 seems more basshead-friendly than some of its rivals, although Technics adds an impressive and comprehensive app that lets you customize nearly everything about the headphones to your liking, as well as truly impressive battery life, which makes the EAH-A800 a compelling choice for everyone thanks to its unique sound and design

The EAH-A800’s default voice is decidedly bass-heavy, and while the mids and highs sound great, they’re overwhelmed by the amount of low-end energy, making everything much too low too cloudy, especially in the low top – somewhat reminiscent of early Beats models. Massive Attack’s menacing “Angel,” for example, was too soft, losing its low-end punch and midrange slap in a murky boom.

This was before I installed the Technics Audio Connect app (which lets you tweak things a bit). First, the app gives you a fully user-programmable 5-band EQ that lets you tweak things to your liking. Beyond that, it lets you adjust the built-in buffer to minimize latency (for watching videos) or interruptions (for music or calls), offers variable and precise control over ANC strength and voice setting. transparency (including an option to boost vocals while using ambient passthrough mode). That’s a lot of control – more granular, and just more than most competitors.

When tuned to suit (largely a matter of cutting the EQ’s low band a few dBs), we found the EAH-A800 to be much more pleasant to listen to, though still bass-rich (if you’re looking for a overall a shiniest helmet in this category, you’ll want to check out the Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2). The EAH-A800 is so low you may find yourself dragging the low EQ slider down, regardless.

ANC is also very effective, reducing steady-state air conditioner and fan noise enough (we used a high-output commercial-style range hood fan) that it drifts into the background and doesn’t not be noticeable with the music. It’s not as efficient as the Sony XM5s or Bose, but nearly on par, and the amount of fine-tuning (100-step variable, plus an optimization sequence that lets you tailor the overall response to your environment) is very nice to have access to if you don’t need the full effect and are sensitive to the slight coloration and artifacts that noise cancellation typically introduces into the material it’s not filtering out.

Call quality is also good, and as with the listen mode, there are a ton of settings available. A listening test lets you determine whether you’ll need to use the 4-mic-driven noise-canceling mode or not (nice to be Apple to check before jumping into a meeting from a remote location); you can also choose between strong and soft noise cancellation mode. Voice quality is of course much better without noise cancellation, but speech is very intelligible when enabled, although artifacts are audible – that’s about on par with the competition.

The wear sensor works well; play and pause whatever we were listening to almost as quickly as the Apple AirPods Max when putting the headphones on and taking them off – overall Technics really did a great job on the software/firmware part of these headphones. It’s a more comprehensive set of useful features than most of the competition’s offerings, and lets you customize your listening quickly and fairly easily (although if you’re anything like us, you’ll find yourself using the app more than you would with other headphones in this class).

Battery life is best in class, even compared to other more power-efficient Bluetooth 5.2 models. Technics claims 50 hours of playback with ANC on (i.e. AAC playback via Bluetooth, battery life drops to 40 hours when playing via LDAC, Sony’s hi-res codec, from a Sony or Samsung phone). Indeed, we listened for several days in a row before the voice assistant told us anything other than “Battery High” when stopped; Eventually, after a few days, we were informed that we had reached “Battery Medium”, but it seems unlikely that you’ll end up with a dead battery as long as you remember to recharge occasionally. If you forget, like all headphones in this class, there’s a quick charge routine here, as expected these days as well, giving you a claimed 10 hours of listening after a 15 minute charge (a full charge takes 3 hours)

You can also run them wired, via the 3.5mm analog jack. It works even if you turn off the headphones, which obviously bypasses the amplifier and internal controls (meaning no microphone or volume and track controls – they sound pretty good used that way). But if you do manage to drain the battery (or want to save battery for later), the option is there, and you get a cable and airplane adapter in the box.

While you can tame the EAH-A800s with the EQ, the fact that you have to tune it based on what you’re listening to makes them a bit more fiddly than some high-end competitors, which simply sound better. of the box. There’s a lot to these headphones, but you have to work for it.

The EQ interacts relatively strongly with ANC and Ambient modes (especially if you’re using the Voice Enhancement feature with the latter, which boosts the upper mids), so you might find yourself playing even more when switching between fashion. While the EAH-A800 can rival its peers sonically if you take the time, it’s just not for everyone, and some will want more immediate gratification.

While this is clearly a premium headset, the overall industrial design isn’t as polished and/or as understated as the Sony XM5 or Boxe 700, with old-school plastic arches to mount the ear cups, and the overall fit and finish. of these connections isn’t quite as smooth as the AirPods Max or Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2 – there are some rough edges here in the molding, and the plastic frame is a bit squeaky compared to more expensive models. That said, the flexibility and hinged ear cup attachments mean that the EAH-A800s fold up quite nicely into a very small travel case, and the case itself has nifty embossed instructions if you forget which way to fold it. .

More importantly – and with the understanding that this is subjective – we didn’t find the EAH-A800s as comfortable as the competition. The memory foam ear pads and band are very soft and conform to the shape of your ears, just like a memory foam pillow to your noggin. In practice, this means that even with a gentle clamping force, the padding is so plush that the pads tend to collapse flat on your earlobes, and in our case this meant they got hot and uncomfortable when worn for long periods (something we didn’t experience with the superficially similar pads on the Jabra Elite 85hs, Sony XM5 and Bose 700). Counterintuitively, firmer cushions like those used on the AirPods Max and deeper ear cups with thicker, firmer cushions like those used by Bowers & Wilkins avoided this problem for us. That said, if you like the feel of memory foam pillows, you might like these pads a lot.

The EAH-A800 are a compelling pair of headphones, especially since they’re Technics’ first major product in this category. That said, it might not be for everyone: if you want lots of bass, or if you’re a discerning listener who likes to tinker and appreciate having access to much finer tuning than most headphones similar, these are worth your time and money.

If you’re just looking for great out-of-the-box sound and a more refined design, the EAH-A800s aren’t quite on par with the Sony XM5, Bose 700, Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2 or Apple AirPods Max. They’re a few bucks cheaper than some direct competitors, but if you’re just looking to save some money and aren’t a serious optimizer, you might want to look at the Jabra Elite 85h. What you get with the EAH-A800 is unrivaled battery life and adjustability, so if you think you’re going to use those features (road audiophiles take note), this might just be your next pair of headphones.