Review: Yamaha YH-E700B

In the ongoing cage match of premium travel headphones, Sony is the reigning champ. The company’s WH-1000XM3 splashed onto the scene in 2018 with fantastic noise canceling, plush comfort, tons of features, and great sound, and the company never looked back. The latest models, including the WH-1000XM4 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) and the newer XM5 (9/10, WIRED Recommends), have each improved on the formula, forcing Bose, Sennheiser, and even Apple to raise their game.

Within this fierce market, Yamaha’s new YH-E700B wireless headphones arrive feeling underpowered. A revamp of 2020’s YH-E700A, the YH-E700B look the part and offer very good sound quality, but their features and overall execution are outmatched by others at their price–especially when it comes to their so-so noise cancellation.

The YH-E700B are still solid enough office or travel headphones, and at $200 to $250, they’d be worth considering. But at their current $350 retail price, it’s hard to find good reason to choose these over competitors that are at the top of their game.

Photograph: Yamaha

The YH-E700B arrive in a package befitting their premium price point. A stout travel case unzips to reveal speckled ear cups in black or tan, folded in on adjustable hinges in the headphone fetal position. Like Sony’s WH-1000XM5, Yamaha’s new cans feature longer, more oval-shaped cups than their predecessor. That makes their travel case bulkier than my favorites, but it's still compact enough to fit in most bags.

The hefty ear cups adjust to fit on dual hinges, including wand-like arms that stretch down from the padded band to the middle of each cup for a distinctive touch of style. Spray-on speckles along the matte finish and a glossy Yamaha logo are the only other real aesthetic markers in what are otherwise fairly nondescript headphones. Then again, that can be said for nearly every major rival these days.

On the interior of each cup, you’ll find heaping memory foam pads covered in soft leatherette with long, narrow openings at the center for the 40-mm drivers beneath. My first experience with the fit was one of confusion; my ears aren’t huge, but they’re too large to fit within the pads’ elliptical holes. Instead, the earphones sit in a sort of hybrid position between on-ear and over-ear that feels pretty awkward at first.

It’s this odd design that apparently causes one of the E700B’s most notable performance issues: completely erratic auto-pause. Like others in its class, Yamaha’s pair have built-in sensors to pause and unpause audio as you remove them, but it rarely worked as advertised.

I had some listening sessions where auto-pause worked fairly regularly, others when sound would pause but fail to unpause, and still others when it flat-out didn’t work at all. Wondering if it was just my ears, I asked my wife to have a go, and she had the same results. After a week or so, I realized if I jammed my ear into the right pad, the sensor would pick it up consistently, but that was more awkward than simply clicking the physical multi-button to pause.

Is this a big deal in the grand scheme? Not really. But the inconsistency made me increasingly frustrated when it failed. It’s not an issue with any of the other models I’ve tried, while Sony’s XM4 and XM5 go further, adding conveniences like Speak-to-Chat to pause sound with your voice and Quick Attention, which turns on transparency mode when you hold your hand over the right cup.

I don’t mind the use of real buttons over touch controls, but the E700B’s large plastic keys feel a little cheap. Skipping tracks is also less intuitive than with other such systems, requiring you to hold down the volume keys rather than tapping the multi-button key. The nimble buttons aboard Master & Dynamics’ new MH40 are both fancier and easier to use, not to mention the breezy swipe controls on models from Sennheiser and Sony.

On the bright side, as the E700B’s ear pads wore in over a week or two they became much comfier, seeming to hug my ears like oversized pillows, even if they never quite fit around them. The E700B’s substantial, 335-gram weight tends to bore into the top of my head over time more than lighter competitors like Bose’s QC45 or Sony’s XM4, but I was able to wear them for at least a couple of hours before any notable discomfort set in.

Photograph: Yamaha

The sound is actually awesome. I adore the YH-E700B’s default sound signature, especially when using the headphones wired into a source device, which works well without power. They feature excellent balance across frequencies, impressive dynamic expression, and brilliant instrumental definition. There’s clear and lush treble up top, a full-bodied midrange, and a wide-open soundstage that lets instruments expand and spread out with pinpoint accuracy.

Unlike many headphones in their class, including Sony’s repeatedly referenced XM4 and XM5, I didn’t have to track down the EQ to lower the bass response or even use EQ at all. I simply enjoyed the headphones’ penchant for pulling out the best in my music, from the breathy flute attacks in Van Morrison’s “Moondance” to the creamy piano in Josh Ritter's “The Curse.”

The sound takes an unsurprising step down via wireless connection for iPhone, even with the included AAC codec for improved Bluetooth transfer over the more basic SBC. If you’ve got an Android phone with aptX Adaptive, you’ll likely hear less of a difference, thanks to the improved wireless transmission that strives for lossless sound quality.

With either device, you’re bound to notice a decrease in clarity and definition when you engage the active noise canceling, which is weaker than top rivals and creates a layer of white noise that’s among the loudest I’ve heard in their class. It’s particularly notable given that Yamaha touts its Advanced ANC for leaving your music “pure and untouched.” Yamaha’s Listening Optimizer didn’t seem to make much of a difference here or in other modes either.

I was able to give the headphones a real torture test on a recent cross-country flight that coincided with my evaluation. I compared them to the (you guessed it) WH-1000XM4 on the trip, and it was a clear Sony victory on all fronts. The XM4 were quieter on both ends, squashing more noise and creating less ambient sound inside the ear cups in the process. They’re so good you almost forget you’re in the air, bringing intimacy to quieter music and movie dialog, and offering luxurious comfort in the process.

In comparison, Yamaha’s pair did a passable job cutting airplane noise, and it’s certainly better to have midrange ANC than none at all. Along with low-end drone sounds, they were relatively effective for high-register noises, though voices cut through more readily than with Sony’s pair, and I was always aware of the cloud of white noise. I found myself constantly relieved whenever I switched back to the easy tranquility of the Sonys.

There are some other cool E700B features to call out, including a low-lag Gaming mode, Google Fast Pair for Android devices, and a stout 32 hours of battery life. But issues like mediocre ANC, an odd fit, and inconsistent auto-pausing are unfortunate design stumbles in a category this competitive.

If you can find the YH-E700B on a good sale, they could be worth grabbing, especially if you’re interested in some plugged-in listening and using noise canceling sparingly. But if you’re aiming for the best noise-canceling headphones, you can find better features, design, and performance elsewhere at the same price or less.