My H9is arrived today and I think it’s safe to say B&O nailed it with these.
They sound brilliant (even better than the H9s, which to me sounded better than all of the competition in their class), the new ANC is brilliant and it’s about time they managed to make ANC that’s as good as the competition (I think it’s pretty close to Sony + Bose now and just like the H9, it still doesn’t have too big of an impact on the sound quality).
On the note of good sound, I’m really happy with the tweaks they’ve made - to me the H9s sounded very muddy when used in quiet places (when ANC isn’t even needed) and these are amazing. I’m 99% sure they sound better than the H6s to me when used with a cable (again, finally!).
The additional battery life is bound to come in helpful, and I’m glad the battery is still user replaceable unlike all of the competition - glad they’re finally letting us switch between devices (with just an extra flick of the on switch) too.
They’re very comfortable to wear, just like the H9 (I think the original H9s are slightly more comfortable, but IIRC I had to wear them in a bit first so I’m sure these will improve over time).
Transparency mode and the proximity sensors for auto-pausing/auto-resuming are also very welcome features.
100% recommend these now and I honestly can’t think of any downsides - they fixed the 3 downsides I had with the H9 (muddy sound in quiet environments, weak ANC, and the ability to only connect 1 Bluetooth device at a time) and if you’re good with the price, I’d give these a solid 10/10 compared to the 8/10 for the H9.