Sennheiser HD 280 Pro (2004) vs Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H8 (2018)

The Sennheiser HD 280 Pro (2004) makes for a good, if unremarkable, Closed-Back Headphone for people with a $120 budget.

The Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H8i (2018), however, is merely mediocre at its $303 asking price, when compared to similarly priced products, and won't satisfy the needs of most people.

In either case, we suggest that you first take a look at some other options at the $120 and $220 price points before committing to one of these - it's likely that you'll be able to find some better alternatives.

If you're still interested in learning more about the Sennheiser HD 280 Pro (2004) and Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H8i (2018), however, we wrote a summary of what we could find about them:

Two highly trusted sources that perform well-thought-out in-depth testing consider the Sennheiser HD 280 Pro (2004) to be a great product - it earned the "Best bang for your buck" title from SoundGuys and "Best for Inexpensive Mastering" from PCmag in their respective Closed-Back Headphone roundups, which is a good indication of it being a notable product.

As for the Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H8i (2018), it wasn't able to earn a top spot in any roundups from trusted sources that conduct their own hands-on testing. Nevertheless, it managed to impress reviewers at Techradar, PCmag, and Wirecutter (NYTimes) enough to make it onto their respective shortlists.

When we thoroughly analyzed their review scores, we learned that all of the sources that tested both Closed-Back Headphones, including PCmag, preferred the Sennheiser HD 280 Pro (2004) over the Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H8i (2018).

We also took a look at which sources they managed to impress the most. The Sennheiser HD 280 Pro (2004) was liked best by PCmag, which gave it a score of 9, while the Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H8i (2018) got its highest, 9.4, score from Lifewire.

Lastly, in order to better compare them to the rest of their competition, we averaged out their review scores. The Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H8i (2018) managed to get 8.5 out of 10 - considerably better than the 7.4 review average of Closed-Back Headphones in general - whereas the Sennheiser HD 280 Pro (2004) earned 7.2 points.

It should be said that doing a direct Sennheiser HD 280 Pro (2004) vs. Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H8i (2018) comparison might not be entirely fair due to the difference in their prices - some sources don't put much weight on value for money and thus tend to give better review scores to more expensive products.