B&O Beoplay E8
"The Overrated"
Product page: https://www.bang-olufsen.com/en/earphones/beoplay-e8
MSRP: $350
Right off the bat, there’s channel imbalance. A heavy blow to both Bang and Olufsen but hey, at least they look fancy. For this test, I managed to get them matched via basic DSP so there is no issue after that at least.
I don’t get why these have been so highly praised. They sound wonky, tonally wrong and don’t even have the technical chops to compensate. B&O attempted for the E8 to be neutral but pretty much fell flat in every regard, following no scientific measure of neutral nor sounding anything close to “flat” to my ears. I could name a few sub-$50 wired IEMs that could wipe the floor with the Beoplay E8s (but I won’t for the sake of word count, just take a look at “The List“), so consider these an absolute embarrassment in both absolute sound quality and relative value.