Sony MDR-Z1R vs Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H8 (2018)

The Sony MDR-Z1R is a great Closed-Back Headphone for its $1798 asking price.

The Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H8i (2018), however, is merely passable at its $303 price point. If you're considering buying a Closed-Back Headphone in the $220 range, you might want to check out some of its competitors.

The Sony MDR-Z1R was well-received by reviewers at What Hi-Fi?, a trustworthy source that performs unbiased hands-on testing. It did great in their "Best headphones 2020" roundup - they named it their "With the right source, these are the best closed-back headphones we’ve heard.", which, by itself, suggests that it's a noteworthy 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.

We couldn't find any sources that tested both of these Closed-Back Headphones, so we only analyzed how they performed in reviews from different sites.

We first examined which sources rated each of these best and found that the Sony MDR-Z1R got its highest, 10, rating from What Hi-Fi?, while the Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H8i (2018) earned its best, 9.4, score from Lifewire.

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 Sony MDR-Z1R and Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H8i (2018) managed averages of 9.3 and 8.5 points, respectively.

Due to the difference in their prices, however, it's important to keep in mind that a direct Sony MDR-Z1R 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.