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These headphones are meant to deliver top of the range sound and ultimate noise cancellation to create a premium audio experience.
"Hello everyone, and welcome to another Gamereactor Quick Look.
We have a Bang & Olufsen product here again, which is lovely.
After a long break, they're back."
"And what better way to kick off this renewed collaboration than with the H100, which once again drew the ire of the internet by demanding €1,700 for this headset.
And we have debated this in videos and in reviews before, time and time again, where people say, how can a headset be worth more than €1,000, more than €1,200, more than €1,500, and now €1,700."
"And it's a bit of a non-starter discussion, I feel.
There obviously is not going to be a single argument that I can make that says that it is worth that money.
It is as much worth as people are willing to pay."
"I will say that when Bang & Olufsen designs these headsets that costs that much, they don't slouch.
There's a lot of particular, I think, fashion where you come and you look at the white t-shirt with the logo, Balenciaga is one for instance, where it's not immediately apparent to the eye why something is worth what they say it's worth."
"So when you buy the white Balenciaga t-shirt with the black logo on it, and it is, let's say €400, you don't really necessarily see the quality of the stitching, the people that made it, the factories in which these people are employed.
It might be made with all of the right intentions and with the right materials, but it's not immediately noticeable to the naked eye."
"The cool thing about something like this with technology, and I think with Bang & Olufsen in general, is that they really do their utmost to show the complexity and the quality of the materials and the skill necessitated to make it up front.
Meaning that when you look at it for the first time, you can feel with your hands and you can see with your eyes why it costs as much as it does."
"Does that mean that it is justified?
No, not at all.
But it means that there is a straight connection between you and what they're asking.
So how does that come into, how does that become apparent to you?
Well, material choice for one."
"So it's lambskin leather throughout the headband here.
There is this, these are actually fantastic.
So aluminum speaker grilles inside here and this frosted metallic plate here, which is absolutely gorgeous."
"With these, these aren't touch anymore.
Meaning that ANC dial and volume dial are now physical.
Where each and every click is like, and I just set this on another one where they had it similarly, with like an escapement tick anywhere over the teeth of a gear, it is very mechanical and you get that feedback even when it's turned off."
"Meaning that it doesn't need the haptic dial.
These are haptic, meaning that when they're on there is increased feedback when you dial in these controls.
These are glass resistant and with glass touch here as well."
"But just having this, it was actually something that was used on the original Microsoft Surface headphones many years ago, five, six years ago.
And people loved it and Microsoft chose not to build any more of these headsets.
But still to see it back here is fantastic."
"Also when you combine that with the best memory foam cups that I think I've ever seen and just the overall fit and finish, it becomes very clear why it costs as much as it does.
Now in terms of how they function, that is a different story.
These have Dolby Atmos sound, there are titanium drivers in here with Hi-Res sound which is tuned by Bang & Olufsen themselves and they have a lot of good experience doing so."
"They call what's inside next level noise cancellation.
There are 10 studio grade microphones mounted on this headset, meaning that it should both have the best microphone quality when you're talking but it should also have the most finely grained and tuned capture in order to eliminate the noise that comes in because that's obviously how noise cancellation works."
"It records to eliminate and it should be better than anything else on the market in that particular regard.
Again, €1,700 is crazy.
If there's one thing that I can immediately point to, I think this is pretty dumb."
"That's just me.
I know that this is probably also made with the finest materials available and it's certainly luxurious in the way that it looks and feels.
This came with the headset, don't mind that."
"But it's also, forgive me for saying, just a bag and it makes carrying the headset I think more or less space saving than it should and I would have loved to see these materials materialize in something which could be a little bit more compact kit to carry because one thing it's like big backpacks that men carry around on tech expos that loves Bang and Olufsen but your regular like splurging school student like girl for instance to sacrifice this much space on your headset, I don't see it and it seems like that with Bang and Olufsen's tendency to really go for these really lovely physical dimensions, they should have been able to create a headset that could fold in a way so that could be squeezed into less space."
"So, are they good when you actually listen to them?
We're going to have to see.
Stay tuned for more.
See you on the next one."
