Austrian Audio Hi-X25BT

Amazing headphones

Fabulous beginner headphones from Austrian Audio. Build quality is decent for the price. It's made of plastic but durable. They have Bluetooth so you can connect wirelessly to your mobile. The headphones sound excellent and very balanced (depending on the source occasionally they sound brighter and open like Beyerdynamic). If you're a heavy basshead and enjoy the sound profile of ATH M50x or beats, these might disappoint the bass department, but they have very smooth highs. At lower volumes, I feel the bass is a little lacking but turning up the volume dial a little does the job for me. Overall great headphones. Definitely recommended.

Surprisingly good but a few drawbacks

- Sound is surprisingly good: ample, clear, bass present but not overwhelming, trebles are not sybillant, good sound stage. However, the mids are too emphasized for my taste.

- Very disappointed with the bluetooth codec though (not even aptx).

- Comfort is quite good, earpads are excellent and deep. A bit sweaty after a while though.

- Touch controls on the right cup are terrible. Difficult to control the volume (you have to touch the cup to locate the volume slider, but then touching the cup stops playback or skips to the next track). Unreliable too: at times an accidental touch would mess things up, at others a voluntary touch would not respond at all. Buttons are a much much better option in my opinion.

- I would have liked a hard case for transport rather than a soft pouch.