Sennheiser PXC 550 (2016) vs Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H8 (2018)

The Sennheiser PXC 550 (2016) makes for a good, if unremarkable, Closed-Back Headphone for people with a $220 budget.

The Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H8i (2018), however, is merely mediocre at its $258 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 $220 and $370 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 PXC 550 (2016) and Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H8i (2018), however, we wrote a summary of what we could find about them:

While the Sennheiser PXC 550 (2016) wasn't able to make it to the very top of any roundups from sources that perform quality hands-on testing, it still got featured in a large number of them. HomeTheaterReview.com, What Hi-Fi?, Techradar, Head-fi, CNET, Expert Reviews, PCmag, AVForums, Rtings, and Reviewed have all deemed it worthy of a place on their respective shortlists.

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.

Out of the sources that tested and rated both of these Closed-Back Headphones, Techradar preferred the Sennheiser PXC 550 (2016), whereas reviewers at Lifewire liked the Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H8i (2018) better. PCmag gave them identical review scores.

We also took a look at which sources liked these products best - the highest Sennheiser PXC 550 (2016) rating came from HomeTheaterReview.com, whereas the Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H8i (2018) most impressed reviewers at Lifewire; they earned scores of 10 and 9.4, respectively.

Lastly, we averaged out all of the reviews scores that we could find on these two products and compared them to other Closed-Back Headphones on the market. We learned that both of them performed far better than most of their competitors - the overall review average earned by Closed-Back Headphones being 7.4 out of 10, whereas the Sennheiser PXC 550 (2016) and Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H8i (2018) managed averages of 8.5 and 8.5 points, respectively.

Due to the difference in their prices, however, it's important to keep in mind that a direct Sennheiser PXC 550 (2016) vs. Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H8i (2018) comparison might not be entirely fair - some sources don't take value for money into account when assigning their scores and therefore have a tendency to rate more premium products better.