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Edifier H840 Review
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Review

Edifier H840 Review

by April 3, 2015
Positives

+ Low pricing
+ Long cable for use with PCs with no front panel jacks
+ Comfortable pleather earcups
+ Elegant design

Negatives

- Cable too long for use on-the-go
- Headband has too little padding
- Non-removable cable
- No in-line microphone

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Pokde Rating
Appearance
8.0
Features
7.0
Materials
8.0
Performance
8.0
Portability
4.0
Value
8.0
Bottom Line

Sounds great for its price, but may not be the best in its price range.

7.2
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After a very nice year of enjoying music with my Xiaomi Pistons iF edition, I dropped them somewhere accidentally and never managed to find them again. A moment of silence for my treasured earphones. Forced to move on, I started searching for a new pair of headphones since I already have another pair of common Piston 2.0 in storage at home. Browsing through Lazada, I stumbled upon a pair of Edifier H840 going for RM73 with a 10% discount, thus putting it at only RM65.70. Seeing that it retails for about RM80-100 elsewhere, I snapped it up in a moment’s thought. After a ridiculous delivery experience which I will not go into detail here, I finally received it today. And here is a review of the Edifier H840.

Unboxing and Appearance

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Simple plastic packaging. Front has a large window for a clear view of the headphone. The sides do not have any information printed, while the back has some technical specifications. Personally technical specifications of headphones and earphones never meant anything to me since I have tried headphones with exactly similar specifications but totally different characteristics.

After unboxing the simple packaging, which was a very simple procedure thanks to easy-open seals, I finally got to touch my purchase. It appears quite sturdily built with matte plastics used.

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For anyone who has owned a H850 (which I have), it looks really similar, except that the H850 has metal plates on the sides instead of plastic. The H840 is also slightly smaller.

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The headphones can swivel flat for easy storage, and Edifier has done well to add a touch of class by using a concentric circle pattern for the swivel tops. Compared to my H850, the mechanism is very smooth and doesn’t creak like the one in the H850.

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The headphone band is made of aluminium, and has proven plenty durable in my old pair of H850. The top of the headband is wrapped in pleather but the padding is very minimal and it took some time for me to get used to having something pressing on the top of my head.

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The ear cups are made of soft pleather cushions. Really comfortable to wear even for extended periods of time.

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Here is a look at the 40mm Neodymium magnet drivers behind the grille. Note that although it is easy to remove the ear cups, it is quite a pain in the behind to put them back on.

Sound Quality and Comfort

As audio quality is very subjective, I will start with a disclaimer that this is just a simple test with my pair of (not so sharp) ears and not an empirical test with graphs and so on.

When I first put it on, the bass masks a lot of the music. Quite a stark difference from the H850 which was a little weak in the bass department. After a little meddling with equalizer I managed to find a much more comfortable level of bass. It’s quite nice to listen to with a little tweaking lowering the bass frequencies and boosting the higher end frequencies a bit. After about a week the lower frequencies seemed to simmer down and allowed the higher end to shine through a little more. I find the vocals in almost every song will sound a lot more obvious than the musical instruments in the song. It will also sound a lot better connected to a PC output instead of a phone output. I guess the phone just can’t power the headphone adequately.

As I listen to a large variety of music, I found acoustic music sounds really nice on these headphones. The vocals and instruments sound very clear. My samples of acoustic music are songs by Boyce Avenue which sounds absolutely heavenly on these. However if you listen to electronic music or pop music, you may find that the headphones are unable to cope with the speed and sounds a little muddy with bad separation of instruments. Vocals will still stand out, however.

About comfort, they are over-ears, so they will cup your ears in a cocoon of pleather and foam. Depending on your ambient temperature, that could be either torture or heaven for your ears. For me, it was quite comfortable in air-conditioned environments and in my hostel room which of course lacks air-conditioning. The small amount of padding used for the top of the headband is rather uncomfortable and I had to move it around a bit to find a sweet spot where it doesn’t hurt the top of my head. The adjustable headband is also very useful to allow the headphone to fit a larger spectrum of differently sized heads. Mine is on the larger side of the spectrum and I had to use the third notch on the headband. The cable is a very long 2m so you might not want to take it out for a walk in town. It is more at home at home.

Conclusion

Would I recommend this headphone? Yes, if your output device supports equalizer adjustments, and you are short on change and want an affordable over-ear headphone that gives you a sound worthy of the price. For RM70+, you would be quite hard-pressed to find a better deal. If you don’t mind IEMs,, I would point you towards the Xiaomi In Ear Headphones, or better known as Xiaomi Pistons 2.0. Now if only it has an inline mic… Edifier could tap the gamer market as well.

About The Author
Vyncent Chan
Technology enthusiast, casual gamer, pharmacy graduate. Strongly opposes proprietary standards and always on the look out for incredible bang-for-buck.
12 Comments
  • Guilherme Taffarel Bergamin
    June 13, 2015 at 12:54 am

    Hello, Vyncent

    I’m about to buy this very same headphones. You have been wearing them for a bit more than 2 months by now and probably have much more experience with headphones than me as this one will be my first over ears phones.

    How about the comfort after this a bit longer period of usage? What about possible noises cause by the plastic or sound distortions?

    How about the fake leather? I’ve seen a few headphones that the fake leather started to crumble and fall to show it was just a really thin layer of paint over the cushion. I have a beard, so I’m kind of afraid it could make this happen even faster. What your experience with this kind of materials tells you about it’s durability?

    After the first impression already using it for longer with different music, is your impression over it still good? Like… I listen basically to Classic Rock, Heavy Metal, Classical Music and Regional Folk Music (accordeon, guitar and voice). Do you think it is suitable?

    It seems to be a really good product for the price, but I’ve never heard of this brand. You said you have an H850. Are the materials the same? The same fake leather, for example? do you have it for a long time already? What about the overall finishing durability?

    Thank you very much!

    • Vyncent Chan
      June 13, 2015 at 2:58 am

      Hello!
      I have been using them every now and then and they seem to be holding up quite well.
      Comfort is quite good especially in colder environments. In hotter climates (around 27 degrees Celsius) it can get quite hot around your ears after about 45 minutes. The plastic doesn’t creak or anything which is good. Sound distortion hasn’t been experienced yet in my usage. Should be fine.

      With my previous H850,there was a small nick in the leather wrapping, and everything went South from then onwards. Just be careful not to nick the leather and I think it will last for quite some time. And yeah the leather on the H850 was thin but it isn’t just paint. The H840 seems to have pretty much the same material.

      My impression of it is still generally good. I think the drivers are a little slow, thus have a problem reproducing complex and fast music like electronic music. I really enjoy listening to classical music and unplugged music on these. The other genres you listen to, I haven’t tried. Guitar and vocal sounds really nice on these to me.

      Edifier is better known for their speakers. You should look them up
      The H850 held up well except for the fake leather crumbling. It still produces good sound if you can bear with the fake leather crumbs all over your ears. But as I said above, it was partly my fault for cutting the leather accidentally. Moisture from sweat got under the leather. Yea it is quite a bargain for the price. Try it for yourself! It is quite a good starter headphone.

      Hope I helped you!

      • Guilherme Taffarel Bergamin
        June 15, 2015 at 8:24 pm

        I plan to use it every day, but only at work. As we have a full-time air conditioning here, I guess the heat won’t be a problem, so no perspiration, which means longer life for the leather. I guess after some time I may be able to find new ones if needed… Well, it is just a guess, but it is possible…

        Thank you very much, Vyncent! I’ll buy it today!

        • Guilherme Taffarel Bergamin
          February 24, 2017 at 5:26 am

          UPDATE

          I’m still using it to this day in a daily basis at work and it sounds and looks like new.

          My overall impressions:

          – Comfort: it is pretty comfortable. It doesn’t hurt your ears no matter for how long you keep wearing it. Sometimes it can get a bit uncomfortable when used in hot places, but I guess that’s inherent to headphones.
          – Audio quality: I’m no expert, but the quality is really good. It doesn’t have to be a professional equipment. I just want to isolate myself from the rest of the company, so I can do my job hehehe
          – Internal sound isolation: people around you won’t hear you listening to music, unless you remove your headphones while still playing the music in a loud volume. But while it is on your head, nobody can hear it.
          – External sound isolation: it doesn’t isolate annoying loud people, but if you volume up you won’t hear anything other than your music, knowing nobody will hear it. But still, it do isolate most of the normal office conversation and noise with a relatively low volume. Without playing anything on them you already can feel the difference. I have tried to listen to people chatting 2 cubicles next to mine. I could hear them, but not understand. It is my first headphone, so I’m calling this a good isolation. Maybe when I win the lottery, I’ll buy one of that fancy $500 headphones that create an isolating vacuum around your head, have microphone and make coffee… But for now, this one is doing a great job. I can’t even hear myself typing on the keyboard this very moment.

          BTW, I have to disagree about three of your negatives:

          – The cable could be actually a little bit longer for reaching a PC under the table more easily. I don’t see the point in using headphones on the street. You need more attention on the environment and attract less attention to robbers.
          – The headband doesn’t hurt or press the head too much, so the amount of padding is actually really good.
          – Adding a microphone to this headphone would make it more expensive and/or more susceptible to some kind of failure with it. Same goes for those play/pause buttons they put in mobile phone earbuds nowadays. Or you buy a really expensive one, or they break really easily.

          • Guilherme Taffarel Bergamin
            February 24, 2017 at 5:35 am

            Just a conclusion: if your objective is to just listen to music with clear sounds and not have external noise influencing in it or like me that just wants something to help concentrating on your job, this is a great product for the price.

          • Vyncent Chan
            February 24, 2017 at 4:14 pm

            Great feedback! Very interesting points but I would like to defend my opinion too.

            1. I usually do use IEMs when out and about, and I got the Edifier H840 to replace my missing pair of Piston iF Edition, so yeah I do find the cable a little too long for that purpose. If you are looking for a longer cable, the H850 comes with a 2m long one.
            2. Regarding the headband, glad you like it. I personally found the padding lacking, as I am used to much thicker padding in my other headphones.
            3. I have used plenty of earphones with microphones and buttons, and none of them had problems with the microphone and controls.

            Enjoy your new headphones!

  • Abraham Galih
    June 20, 2015 at 6:21 pm

    Hi, Vyncent.

    I have the same headphone but considering to get a H850. Is it a great upgrade or a minimal one?

    • Vyncent Chan
      June 20, 2015 at 6:53 pm

      I actually prefer the H840’s sound. But YMMV

      • Tahir
        September 7, 2016 at 9:13 pm

        Why you prefer to choose h840 than 850 ? For price h850 is more expensive than h840 ! It doesn’t mean there is improve for the new one or the expensive one?

        • Vyncent Chan
          September 7, 2016 at 9:19 pm

          Hi Tahir, everyone has their own tastes in audio equipment. It just so happens that I prefer the H840’s sound signature a bit more than the H850’s.

  • Bogdan
    November 14, 2017 at 4:06 am

    Are the H840 more bassy than H850?

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