New Bee NB-9 on-ear headphones

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Slightly weak bass but a good package for the price

I was sent these New Bee on-ear headphones for review and I think they're pretty good. They are very well made, they are reasonably comfortable, they are well accessorized for the price and they have pretty good sound quality.

The headphones are decently packaged and come with a very nice protective carry-case with standard mini-USB charging lead and jack-to-jack lead, and a decent User Manual in comprehensible English, but which is printed very small.  They also come with a good armband to hold your phone (up to about 5.5" size) so they'd be very suitable for exercise use.   (There is also a built in pedometer for counting steps which works via a phone app.)

The headphones look very nice, I think; they have a nice retro-look and fold up for easy transport and storage.  They have both Bluetooth and wired connection, and I noticed no difference in sound quality between the two modes.  They are light and although they're not the most comfortable headphones I've ever worn, they're perfectly OK for pretty long periods. The controls are the usual you would expect: on/off and volume + and - buttons which also serve for pause/play, skip forward and back and standard phone controls, and there's a perfectly decent microphone.  Bluetooth pairing is simple with both standard pairing and NFC, and it's impressive to find NFC included at this price. Battery life seems very good; I haven't tested it to exhaustion, but it's still going strong after 10 hours use or so.

Sound quality is pretty good.  The bass is a little weak to my ears, but tops and middles are excellent and the clarity of articulation is good.  I test all headphones and speakers using a playlist of test tracks which give all aspects of the sound a thorough trial. It starts with 16th Century choral music, it ends with London Grammar and it has most things in between - orchestral, choral, vocal and chamber music, classic rock, acoustic music and so on.  They perform pretty consistently throughout and a good bass boost on my player's equalizer helps a lot, but they don't have a real punch in the bass which may be a problem for some listeners – certainly the deep bass is missing on a theorbo or viola da gamba and in London Grammar's Hey Now, for example.

However, overall I find them good as budget, everyday headphones, and they are very well equipped. They seem solid and durable and if you're looking for a set of Bluetooth and wired headphones, I can recommend these.