Bang & Olufsen Beoplay EQ earphones

The Beoplay EQs are undoubtedly the best sounding earphones I have ever used. The bass is deep, vocals are clear whether I am listening to music on the train, wandering around the park, or sitting on my turbo trainer dripping sweat. Their only noticeable downside is that they are not great if you want to hear what's going on around you with Transparency mode when you're outside on the bike, as opposed to on the turbo.

Transparency mode pics up ambient sounds via six microphones and mixes them into what you're listening to, and on the turbo it's great. What it can't handle on the roads, though, is wind noise. For real riding, you're forced to switch it off.

It's difficult to criticise earphones for blocking out traffic noise because there's a simple solution: don't wear them. Plus, the person who sent them to me from B&O stipulated very clearly that they don't recommend these outside bike use, but that they work well on a static bike. However, I do want to mention this because it is only fair when the other earphones I have looked at have been judged on this criterion.

If you're happy being totally isolated from the outside world as you ride outdoors, these earphones are great and, as I mentioned, the sound quality is awesome. Tech ed Mat uses them in this way a lot for non-urban rides (you don't approve? He's happy with that) and loves the performance.

When you're riding indoors, the transparency mode (adjustable via B&O's app) works very well. I can clearly hear everything that's around me when I'm riding. The noise cancelling also works fantastically well, almost entirely drowning out the sound of my turbo trainer.

Connectivity

Firstly the Bluetooth connection holds well, and I never had it drop on either my phone or my laptop even using it for hours at a time. Unlike some though, there's no automatic pause when you remove one or both earphones, and I found it unpredictable whether they would connect automatically or need manually adding.

This isn't exactly the end of the world, but compared to something like the AirPods Pro and Jabra Elite 75T, the connectivity is not quite as good.

The controls

There are touch panels on either earbud, with the right one controlling playback and volume, and the left cycling through the various audio setups. I found them fairly easy to use once I'd got used to them, but there were several times where I accidentally turned the volume up when I meant to pause, and vice versa.

Your options are Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), Transparency, and Neutral. ANC listens to what is around you and actively counteracts it so you can only hear what is playing; Transparency listens to what is around you and plays it through the earphones; and Neutral just has them working normally.

Each works well, and I found the ANC works particularly well, blocking out pretty much everything you can reasonably expect. For instance, I could ride on a turbo without hearing the constant whirring, but it wouldn't be able to keep out a police car coming past me (not that many cars drive through my house).

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Bang & Olufsen offer a simple but effective app with basic controls, such as switching the EQ between five presets (or to one of your own creation), and settings for calls and standby mode. It doesn't offer a huge amount of customisation, but in my opinion it's got what's needed without making it overly complex.

The Beoplays are relatively big and heavy at 8g per bud, and sit quite far out of the ear. It took me a couple of experiments to find the most comfortable tips from the five options provided, but once I did I had no issue with stability.

These are not sports headphones but offer IP54 water and dust proofing, which is more than enough for most workouts – even very sweaty indoor turbo sessions. I also had no issues with them in heavy rain.

Battery life

Detailed battery life percentages (left, right and the case) are shown in the app, while the aluminium case uses a three-stage LED (green, orange or red) for a quick readout. You can expect between 6-7 hours per charge, and the case can fully recharge them twice before it, too, needs recharging. That means around 20 hours of use before you have to find a wall socket.

On the mains, the USB C charging cable takes you to full charge in under one hour. You can charge them on wireless chargers too, but those vary in speed.

The case doesn't scratch easily and feels premium – even the sound of it shutting feels high quality.

Value

RRP on these is £349, which is steep for earbuds, but are about what I would expect for a set that sound this good. You could compare them to the AirPods Pro earbuds I tested recently, and at £239 those have superior connectivity and sports-specific functions. Despite sounding impressive though, they are not as impressive as these.

I also tested £179.99 Jabra Elite Active 75t earphones and, although they are better on a moving bike, once again the sound quality is not as good.

Overall

For turbo use, these are brilliant. Transparency mode works well when there's no wind noise to spoil things, the noise cancellation can even rid you of the turbo's whirring, and frankly these are some of the most beautiful-sounding earbuds I've used. They're also simple to operate.

If you're looking for earphones for indoor use on the turbo – or anywhere else besides on the road – you will be hard pressed to find any that sound better.

Verdict

The best sounding earbuds for turbo training, if not recommended for riding outside