Edifier may not have the household familiarity of Bose, Sony, Bang & Olufsen or Sennheiser, but based on my experience of the last couple of years trying out several of their products, I'd say they're worthy of being mentioned right alongside some of these top audiophile brands.
And the latest thing to grace my office from them should, in my mind, be listed among the most beautiful headphones in the world too.
The Edifier ES850NB headphones are over-ear cans equipped with hi-fidelity sound thanks to 40mm dynamic drivers, active noise cancellation and AI-boosted voice-call clarity tech for those weirdos among us who like actually talking to other humans on the phone.
My audio demands have become quite stringent in recent years, as both an audiophile and someone with audio-processing issues. Those, for example, mean that I struggle to easily make out and decipher speech in real-time, especially in noisy environments. Essentially, speech arrives in ears, remains garbled nonsense for a second or two and then lays itself out into words I understand. Anything that interrupts that process, such as environmental noise or unbalanced instrumentals in lyric-led music, will play havoc with my brain.
For both the Make Music Sound Real Nice purpose and the Make Words Make Sense To My Brain purpose, these Edifiers have passed with flying colours.
Priced at $169.99 in the US and £149.99 in the UK, I find that in the sound-quality department, they compete with many products twice their price, including the near-$300 Stax Spirit headphones from the same company. The bass is nice and filling without being overbearing and the mids and highs don't distort, even at higher volumes.
The ANC is really effective too, without creating a sound-bubble sensation either. It's not the strongest I've tested (that title still belongs to the mind-boggling ANC power of the Technics AZ-80 earbuds) so some sound will bleed through the -45db hybrid noise-cancelling tech on board, but not to a level where it really bothered me.
And on the clarity front, the Edifier ConneX app has preset EQ modes to help me make out speech, both in music and during calls. Again, not 100% perfect, but damn near close enough for the price.
And as someone who works from home, and thus needs to block out the world while remaining available should my family members really need me, there's a clever little help feature hidden in plain sight.
As I learned by accident (on account of never reading user guides thoroughly enough), I found out that by pressing the right-side earcup (instead of fumbling for buttons or keyboard commands on my connected computer), I can pause music and let in ambient sound. That way, I can tell my 9-year-old son that he really should have learned to make his own snacks by now without the inconvenience of having to physically remove the headphones AND manually pause my vital 103rd re-listening session of Simian Mobile Disco's seminal 2007 album, Attack Decay Sustain Release. Honestly, sometimes family members have no sense of prioritisation.
But most importantly, JUST LOOK AT THEM. Beautifully designed without being too flashy or garish, they have an impeccably padded adjustable steel headband attached to two memory-foam cups on each side, clad in skin-friendly leather (read: you won't be sweating within minutes). I'm currently spamming my colleague to include them among our most beautiful headphones in the world...
There's four colour options available to fit your personal fashion choices too, with black, ivory and pink choice alongside what I think is the most distinguished, the brown ones I received to test.
Price and availability
As I stated, the Edifier ES850NB are currently available for $169.99 to US buyers and £149.99 to those in the UK. Edifier is known for some attractive discounts during periods like Black Friday, so I will be keeping an eye on any changes as we inch closer to our favourite time of year (sales, I'm talking about sales).
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