We found they offer a fairly balanced bass and treble range, making them ideal for daily commuters and casual listeners, though perhaps not the audiophiles who want to hear every minute detail (they can see our round up of more premium headphones). Hër headphones aren’t particularly cheap but are they worth the price?
Price & Availability
Hër headphones are available directly from the Hër website for £99/around US$111/€99,00 and will soon be available at Selfridges in the UK. If you’re buying online, the company offers free delivery if you’re within Europe. At this price range, it’s on the higher end of budget headphones.
Design & Build
The design is an immediate strength for the Hër headphones – they’re compact, gorgeous and comfortable. The leather headband adds a premium feel against the matt metal finish on the housing and slider. They’re also lightweight and sit comfortably without clamping onto your head with unnecessary pressure. Though there’s no noise cancellation, they do have decent noise isolation when in use, making them ideal for commuters. The ear-pads also swivel 90 degrees, so you can adjust to an angle that suits you.
The headphones come with an audio jack cable which you could use if you run out of juice. It’s a thin plastic cable though, which doesn’t quite match the high-end look of the headphones themselves. We would expect a weightier nylon braided cable at this price point. Though they are ‘sweat resistant’, they’re not the most suitable if you’re particularly active – while they stay put during jogs, we did find them to occasionally slide off during floor exercises. You can control the volume using buttons on the right earphone housing – the buttons are quite close together, so it might take some getting used to.
Sound Quality & Features
Now for the most important part. Hër headphones deliver a clear sound that handles bass well and does a fair job with treble too. Overall, you can expect a balanced audio quality without tinniness or flatness. Bass beats also come through with a nice, satisfying richness. We did find the audio quality sounded fuller when connected to Bluetooth – though this might have just been due to the quality of the cable provided. The headphones have an impedance of 64ohms, which sets it above the standard of low-impedance headphone, which are usually between 25 -50ohms. This means you can easily run them from various devices without issues. Hër promises a wireless range greater than 10m. We paired the headphones with our phone and the sound did cut out or stutter when we stepped away more than 8m. When worn on the streets, the sound occasionally cut out when the phone was placed in our pocket which isn’t what we expect. This could be a problem if you’re streaming music while focusing on other things (like walking while not bumping into strangers), but if you often just watch videos on the train or browse Instagram while streaming Spotify in the background, we don’t think this should be an issue, as your phone would be out and in very close range. Hër also promises 21 hours of playback and should take 2 to 3 hours to charge. There’s an included micro-USB cable, again made of the same cheap plastic as the audio cable. We used the headphones with and without the cable and did not need to charge it in three to four weeks of use (having not charged it at all out of the box!). Hër promises 840 hours of battery life in standby mode. Somrata researches and writes about the best tech deals to help readers make smart, informed buying decisions. She’s an expert on accessories and also reviews laptops, phones, audio and other devices.
