Ok then, a few comments: First, these sound awesome. I can't get enough. I might still be biased, and I wish I had the opportunity for a side-by-side comparison (or blinded comparison!) with the H9, but I don't. But I did listen to the H9 quite a lot for a week recently, and I do believe that the H9i is even more transparent, but with even deeper and tighter bass. Best bass I've heard in headphones, not that I've tried every pair out there. I'm looking forward to reading the first reviews.

They are similar to the H9 to operate. The slider button works in the same way. However, touch gestures function slightly different to accomodate transparancy mode. If I remember correctly you would swipe up to engage ANC on the H9, and swipe down to turn it off. On the H9, swiping down toggles the ANC on and off whereas swiping up toggles transparancy mode on and off. Transparancy mode is quite cool. It's like not having headphones on at all. I have trouble thinking of a user scenario where just sliding the headphones off the ears wouldn't be just as good an option, but I still appreciate the tech factor. If it is really cold outside, and you don't want to freeze your ears but still need to hear what's going on around you, I suppose.

I can also tell that the ANC works better now. I can't compare with Sony or Bose as I haven't tried theirs, but this is way better than the H9, especially in midtones. The H9 did ok with low monotone sounds I thought, like the sound when sitting on a bus, but the H9i removes more of the spectrum. I'm travelling on monday, so I get to try them on a plane then.

I like to listen to music loud, and I thought the H9 was a dissapointment compared with my old H6 in that respect. With the H9 I would always wish for the music to be just a little bit louder. Not with the H9i. These, as far as i can tell, play considerably louder than the H9. I've had a few magical moments listening to music really loud with the ANC on, right when the music stops. I've been unable to tell what's more impressive, the awesome loud but clear music, or the instant and complete silence that follows.

The proximity sensor works well too. It takes a second to register that you have taken the headphones off, so you leak sound for a second of two after taking them off, then it stops. Resuming when you put them on seems instantaneous, though.

That's it for now, I suppose. I'll be looking forward to reading what others think about theirs as well. It would be incredibly cool to read about if anyone is in a position to do a blind test on the sound quality of the H9 vs H9i.

-h.

Thanks so much for taking the time and effort to share some lovely pics and your impressions of these lovely headphones.

I'm most certainly interested in them, as I think for a stylish, very well featured and lovely sounding headphone for travel purposes they would sit at or near the top of any B&O owners or even audiophiles list.

As you also own a pair of H6's I was wondering if you are able to comment on the different sonic signatures between the H6 & H9?

Many thanks again.. :-)

Cheers

John.  

Why does the battery on the H8i last longer than on the H9i?

Fatandre wrote:

Why does the battery on the H8i last longer than on the H9i?

No, it’s just because the H8i battery is 1100mAh non-replaceable vs replaceable 770 mAh on the H9i.

mbee wrote:

No, it’s just because the H8i battery is 1100mAh non-replaceable vs replaceable 770 mAh on the H9i.

diisign.com

Super. This is what I wanted to hear

So, just upgraded my 13 month old H9’s to the new H9i.

First thoughts, cups are thinner but still very confortable. My guess is this was done to keep dimensions as the electronics and drivers housing is thicker on the H9i’s.

As things have been described quite a bit, I’ll concentrate in sound and performance differences.

Bass is much more tightly controlled and has better clarity on the H9i’s, The same goes for the mid and high frequencies. 

The best thing about the H9i’s is that they have a much improved sound stage, cleanly defined, with fantastic separation and instruments location. That, together with NC and the somewhat muddled sound performance, was always a weakness on the H9’s. 

Sound isolation has been massively improved and, it is now not too far from the industry leading Bose 35’s. 

I don’t find them particularly launder than the H9’s, they seem louder but,  I think the much improved noise canceling performance creates that ilusión. 

I have noticed, transparency mode pauses music, I wish it didn’t and hope the next firmware release implements transparency mode without pausing whatever I am listening too. I have not tried dual paring.

The Beoplay app had new firmware for them right out of the box.

Will report back on battery performance in a few weeks time.

All considered the H9i’s are a huge improvement on the H9’s and a worthy upgrade. 

Fatandre wrote:

Super. This is what I wanted to hear

Igadiz wrote:

So, just upgraded my 13 month old H9’s to the new H9i.

(...)

Will report back on battery performance in a few weeks time.

Congratulations! I agree on everything you write about sound.

A quick note on battery from my part. Not exactly a formal test with stringent methodology, but still. I've been away for work all week, and have used mine a lot. Just got back today. Started out with charging them to 100% sunday evening. Three or four hours of travel monday and back again today. In addition I have been using them to and from every morning and afternoon, around two to three hours every day. Sometimes with music on, sometimes just with ANC or transparancy mode. Haven't charged them once. Today, when I got back, the battery was at 60%. So far, at least, I'm really impressed with the battery capacity. Seems like it will take some effort to use them so much that you'll have to charge more often than once per week.

On the negative side, I've been having some trouble with what I first thought was dropouts of the bluetooth connection, but now believe is really unintended pause/play. I don't know the reason, but I suspect it has to do with the touch sensitive surface. Sometimes, the music will just stop. It might start again a second later, or it might not, but it always starts if I press play. However, then it might stop again shortly after. Sometimes this will happen extremely often, more than ten times per minute, for a period of maybe ten-fifteen minutes. And other times I can go hours without it happening. It seems likely that this is due to some oversensitivity of the touch interface and may be related to some external condition like temperature or humidity. It seems to happen most often when I'm outside, but not exclusively. It might also just be that my particular H9i is faulty. Does anybody else have experiences like these?

-h.