Bang & Olufsen Beoplay E8 Sports Headphones.

Bang & Olufsen have released an addition to their wireless lines up, the Beoplay E8 Sports.  These are in effect the exact same headphones as the Beoplay E8, just with additional water and dust proofing, and a differently designed charging case.

Unfortunately, as these are in effect the same headphone as the Beoplay E8, once again, Bang & Olufsen are putting out yet another set of premium earbuds without active noise cancellation.  In a crowded marketplace, and retailing for £50 more than the Apple AirPods Pro, which do have this and other features, they are going to be a hard sell for £300.

We feel Bang & Olufsen have lost their way a little on the headphone game.  They were very much ahead of the game in their over ear luxury ones, and when they first started releasing luxury earbuds they were a must have.  Since active noice cancelling has come to be expected however, they have not been able to create a product which marries all the technologies, and the design chops they are known for, and so they appear to have panicked, and they seem like they are trying to cover their shortcomings by releasing lots of different products, all with a couple of additional features and flashy marketing campaigns. but all falling short of the mark.

We feel this a sad place for Bang & Olufsen to have gotten to.  They were known for a few simple elegant products, and to see one of their product lines getting bloated with lots of products, all of which are fairly mediocre, is disappointing.  We hope they take some of their clearly impressive marketing budget and place it back into R&D.