Austrian Audio Hi-X15 Professional Closed-Back Over-Ear Headphones
Hi-X15 Headphones
Professional Over-Ear Headphones
The Hi-X15 closed-back headphones are the workhorse of the award-winning Austrian Audio Hi-X series, bringing the crystal-clear and precise listening experience of High Excursion technology to everyday use.
Hi-X
High Excursion Technology
All Austrian Audio Hi-X headphones feature a 44 mm driver and a ring magnet system. This design allows for improved airflow and includes the strongest magnetic field in its class. It ensures professional performance in the Hi-X, moves a lot of air, and eliminates ‘wobbling’ of the diaphragm.
From the Austrian Audio Hi-X Series
Reliable Sound & Sophisticated Design
Reach for Hi-X15 headphones when you need reliable sound and know things might get a little rough. Their sophisticated folding design means they’re easy to store and carry, and their durable all-metal hinge and bow mean they’re extremely robust.
Austrian Audio
Making Passion Heard
Founded in 2017, Austrian Audio has assembled a team of experts with 350+ years of cumulative engineering experience to create the most exquisitely engineered audio products available today. With skill and dedication, we are taking on the industry giants to create products that Make Passion Heard.
| Weight: | 807 g |
| Size: | Einheitsgröße |
| Dimensions: | 15 x 15 x 4 cm; 807 Grams |
| Model: | HI-X15 |
| Colour: | Red/black |
| Colour: | Red/black |
| Size: | Einheitsgröße |
I used Grados as my daily drivers for the last 10 years. All closed backs have disappointed me in one shape or form, with an overemphasis on sub-bass, muddy mids and boring treble. Austrian Audio’s cheapest offering is surprisingly fantastic pair of cans. For the price it sounds better than most of the 300-400$ mainstream BT headphones. If you are an open-back main, the X15 offer good mids, non-peaky but smooth treble with a nice, not overly aggressive V shaped presentation, as to give the bass a chance to shine. Very efficient, you don’t need an AMP for these.
The cushions are super comfortable, and very loose 3 knuckle, tight 4 knuckle deep cups. Breathable, but the faux leather will make you sweaty on a hot summers day. The clamp is not too tight, and if you wear spectacles it would not be an issue
Its a single, detachable, 3.5 to 3.5mm cable. The one that goes into the left cup is keyed, so be careful not to break it, otherwise you’ll need a replacement from AA themselves. Cable feels cheap and is serviceable for the price. Definitely not as bad as Hifiman. Cable is not microphonic, no issues when rubbing against surfaces.
Unlike their other higher end offerings, this is made in China, with a mainly plastic build. The headband feels sturdy with the yokes holding the cups made of metal. Feels cheap, but more importantly not squeaky.
Overall;
Subjective Sound 8/10
Objective Sound 7/10 (Good technicals, but not great. Surprisingly spacious for closed backs)
Value For Money 10/10
I hope this can displace the AT M50x as the de-facto closed back
Sturdy build quality, comfortable around the ears . Have to Jack up the volume on the amp to get a reasonable level of volume. Having said that it’s only a gripe not a fault nice headphones good value for money giving good sound quality, worth the investment.
I’m not going to blind you with science here. I’ve loved my music now for around 50 years. As the planet spins out of control, I can finally listen comfortably in private. Not just comfortably but quite the best spund quality I’ve ever experienced with headphones. For the price, these are amazing. If you want to split hairs over fine detail, please do spend another 50-1000. The irrational consumer judges quality by price. Thank you for making a content 63 year old man feel like it’s time to dance again.
Anyway, what the heck. Ordered them. No feedback whistle! The sound is astonishing (forget about their relative cheapness), they’re just bloomin’ good. They sound like I remember from before 8 years ago. Crystal clear vocals, lively bass. Great highs.
I’m happier than a pig in a field of daisies.
I love wired headphones and find they all deliver sound and comfort in a slightly different way. I have Sennheiser, VModa, Jabra and B and O but read a review of these in What HiFi and was impressed. Put simply, they are stunning.
The presentation is superb. Top quality box and open it up and the first impression is wow. I love the colouring; it’s a statement alone. The headband is really sturdy but lightweight and flexible. Pads are comfortable even when worn for some time.
I’m not a sound expert so driver size and technical details don’t mean much to me. I use Blue Savannah by Erasure as a test track. It has distinct vocals, bass and the arrangement allows you to judge Mids and trebles too. I haven’t worn these in, just plugged and played and the sound is stunning. Everything is clean, crisp and clear. Great bass, without it being overpowering and the vocals are really fresh. I really can’t fault them and at sub 90, these seem to deliver well above that price range. Just love them and they’re easy to carry folded up. Very happy to recommend.
These headphones are amazing the sound is well up there with some of the pricier brands. I use them for work and being closed cup they don’t disturb people I share an office with even when the volume is high. Nice mid range and the bass is good enough.
They also fold away nice and snuggly
The headphones out of the box sounds very sharp and clear distinction between each instrument and vocals. You will need to use an EQ on your mobile phone, laptop or CD player to get the right sound out of these headphones to stop them sounding a bit muddy. Once you got the EQ settings right then there are sound amazing especially with my moderate hearing (bones not connecting properly in ear).
A simple DAC can convert signals to high res audio is a advisible for mobile phone use high res audio especially like apple music to make them sound amazing. I got one for about 40 pounds.
Oh and they’re very comfy on the ears with the memory foam.
Bad thing is it may be not for everybody the sound of the sharpness of Music, vocals and speech. I have moderate hearing loss this is not a problem for me as I can hear everything perfectly. Your mileage may be different.
Thank you What Hi-Fi? For awarding them the best wired headphones under 100.
Bonus there are foldable headphones good for storing. Update: sound quality has improved after 3 weeks especially on my CD player (running in,:burn in, settling of headphone parts).
I never write reviews but I had to for these. After owning them for a couple of months and being used nearly everyday I feel like I can give an honest review.
When used just out of the box the sound is good but after you break them you can notice the difference in sound. They seem to like you play your music as loud as you can lol. Don’t get me wrong the speakers hold up well. They don’t distort when played loud and they have a good deep tone to them. I will say they don’t seem to be built for deep bass but that doesn’t bother me as most of what I listen to they hold up amazingly.
It’s a no brainer for me and the price. I’m in no way a expert or anything but I have had a few headphones in my day and these especially for the price are worth it all day. I would say they would give more expensive headphones with big brand names a run for their money.
These are excellent headphones and can be used straight out of the well-packaged box.
Pros (in my opinion):
No faffing around pairing,
Useable on all devices, – in my case cd/amplifier, tv (I deliberately purchased one last year with a headphone socket), radio, phone and tablet,
No headphones turning off because you take them off your head for a moment – (my too too Smart tv promptly switches to tv speaker so my neighbours get treated to a burst of sound),
I’ve checked and the devices have to be turned up to nearly the highest volume before there is even a slight leakage of sound, [PS additional note: Just be extra careful when the music gets high and loud].
The memory foam earpads are the comfiest I have ever experienced
Cons (for me)
As usual with headphones these days there is too much emphasis on the bass, though I have known worse than these in that respect.
Overall these headphones are a great purchase for those of us who live too near our neighbours.
After about 10 hours use I can confirm that the soundstage is getting better even though they are a bit light on bass at the moment!
I do have high hopes for these, especially after one month of use, but we will have to see!
So far so good, did I say I’m impressed so far!
I got some useful cable ties that we’re used for the packaging which can be up-cycled and the warranty is 3 years if you buy these through an accredited supplier, which I did.
Well the latest is, as you use them they get better. I was surprised at the sound stage – I can place the instruments. But the bass blew me away – I took them off my head and looked at them hard – trying to figure how Austrian Audio manage to get such bass out of relatively small cans. All I can say is that I’m pleasantly surprised, the sound coming out of these is still improving – not that it was bad in the first place!
Highly recommended, but you have to persevere with them! I’ve been using them for at least 3 hours every day since I got them!
The one down side is the 1.2m length cable. The longer Austrian Audio cable is expensive for what it is – so I ordered an extension from KabelDirekt instead which seems to be good quality.
So onto the headphones. First off one thing must be made extremely clear these things will RUIN bad recordings. They have ruined some songs for me because their mix was done on non reference headphones.
Everyone describes these as flat or more aptly mid heavy. However, using my music benchmarks I describe these as well balanced if a tiny bit recessed in certain areas.
Austrian audio hi-x15 with a fiio e10k Olympus C.
Breathe into me by Marian Hill:
The sub bass is clearly represented with tight and aggressive thumps. The vocals feel a little forward but well exposed and the claps sounds extremely clear and are extremely immersive with not a lot of shine.
Hang my head in shame by Pete molinari:
A great song for exposing sound stage harmony and timing. I found the staging of these headphones to be excellent with reverberation appearing clear and atmospheric. However the harmony of these headphones is slightly exposed in this song due to the slightly recessed high and mid bass the song lacks the punchy constant thump to tie everything together. I found myself having to use the bass switch on this song to feel enjoyment.
Here we go by norman:
The vocals are extremely immersive and they have a clear defined and enjoyable texture. However the drums lose their definition and texture due to their flatter resonance. The kick has a clear and atmospheric thump to it. With the high hat and ride having a clear respresentation. A little disappointed that the bell loses its clear and sharp overtone.
American funeral by Joseph angels:
The guitar treble and synth are extremely well defined showing their ryhtm and expression very well. The vocals are a little hidden but nicely textured during their lonesome. The bass has very nice tone and maintains its dominance.
In conclusion: These headphones are gorgeous with vocals and defining trebles they have power and texture on levels much higher than my hd599. The problems comes from rythm and harmonisation because of its slightly inconsistent response tones the higher mids feel over the top of the lower mids. If the bass has no sub then it has no feeling and it becomes slightly hollow and unrythmic. I feel like my fiio e10k is way too undefined especially with harmonic parts of music. Which is slightly concerning because the e10k and k3 are budget staples. If they can’t pull out the definition then I seriously question these headphones affordability for the sound. I suspect using something like the ifi can Dac will be more than enough to seperate the tones.
I will update this post once properly ran in.
I love the feeling that these headphones have in terms of adjustability. They are amazing especially in terms of comfort and adjustment. These are the first headphones I have had that can successfully move the weight from the upper scalp, upper ear and then to the lower ear depending on preference and headband length.
Their cups are extremely comfortable new and feel almost invisible once you have the weight set up properly.
These are actually better to me than the comfort legends my hd599s. However over extremely long periods nothing can beat a speaker setup.
In comparison to my hd 599s the bass of hi-x15 is much punchier with clear and well defined sub bass. Strangely the hi-x15s scoop out slightly more stage than my open back hd 599s. The textures are much more clearly defined especially on acoustics like guitar. Which I found extremely surprising for headphones costing half the price.
Edit:
So after about a week of run in at about 4 hours of music a day. I can perfectly describe these headphones.
These headphones are a scalpel they are clean, cold and accurate. They represent precision and reality. They are NOT good at being your audio backbone because I found their precision extremely fatiguing after an hour of play. These are for the songs that you sit down and you listen you can feel the atmosphere and the studio. I found my previous comments about rythm and harmony premature as I can now explain that these lack any warmth. They have zero warmth to their tones they are completely uncoloured and because of this most musics bass doesn’t mould with the song.
I found that with these headphones I stopped listening to the music and instead felt like I could focus on individual stems. Like the vocals or the drums would feel like I was there.
Changing it up from my benchmarks before I thought I would give a list of music where you can really feel the detail and atmosphere.
White Flag by Bishop Briggs: listen for the guitar plucks and harmony vocals.
Asylum by Desi Valentine: listen for the really high pitched riff almost coming from behing your eyes it’s weird.
Awaken by Valerie Broussard: the synth like sound on most undetailed headphones suddenly becomes refined oboe and violin.
The Preacher by Jamie N Commons: There’s a shaker that is just hidden behind the drums
Berta Berta by Thomas Vent:
The lyrics actually move from the left to behind you.
Bulletin by lazy habits: there’s a cello just behind you.
I like everything about these earphones, I use them when watching films on my TV.
I’m taming the good sound.
The sound that’s getting better.
If you love BASS these aren’t for you but hang on do you need it?
I was bought these purely to relax and listen to CD’s. At the time I couldn’t decide between these and the Sennheiser HD 599’s as they were both similar price at the time.
For me these destroyed the Sennheisers in Sound quality and detail you could hear, Comfort around the ears, spring pressure againt the head and surprisingly my ears got hot in the Sennheisers but not with these. Only thing they weren’t better in was the Bass.
I tested side by side (admittedly the Sennheisers may have been faulty they sounded foggy and just not nice) however when listening i naturally found myself not wanting to take these Austrian audios off as i was really enjoying the music which my wife pointed out to me. (‘Thought you were testing them not just listening to music’) where as the Sennheisers I didn’t enjoy and found the Bass was too much to and was good taking them off.
Now i thought I loved Bass always had Subs etc but for pure enjoyment the relaxation to music these are amazing especially with syth stuff takes you away.
Very happy. only one criticism wish it came with the longer lead. Bought a KabelDirekt Pro Series extension which works well with them for the time being.
Extremely comfortable headphones with great sound and brilliant build quality
Has taken ac while to ‘run’ these headphones in, but the quality of the sound reproduction continues to improve. They are fairly neutral so if you like a lot of bass these are not for you. They can sound a bit harsh at the top end with certain cymbals but this could be down to the quality of the recordings. TBH I would say if you like a neutral sound these should be in your shortlist.
Now if you like deafening your family and neighbours or being line attached to a static stand alone Home amp, that’s all good. But on the go here meaning Personal Audio.
Overall comfortable, well made and an excellent on the go choice Home or travelling.
I pair mine to a Headphone DAC amp, (ifi Go Blu), with my Sony Xperia phone. The closed back soft ear cups seal the ears with very little leakage. They don’t have active noise cancellation or really need it. Just add Prime Amazon HD Music with Hi Res, (there are other streaming services unlike SPOTIFY), and you have a superior listen.
I compared these to several Beyerdynamic models with closed and open back and higher Ohm impedance. These were incredibly loud but even lowering the volume, compared to the Austrian, not as clear or dynamic.
There are better qualified people, (What Hi Fi. etc) for a full techy review but IMHO for the price, build and comfort, these Austrian Audio Hi-X15 are currently a terrific buy. Their next model up is over 200 but I’m on a budget and got the DAC instead.
Very, very happy with these.
Give them a couple of days also running in, This will soften that hard edge sufficiently to let these beauties shine. So let’s take a look at the build quality. These headphones are partially plastic but they do have some good strong metal where it counts and they do look and feel as if they would survive reasonable daily use quite well. The headband is very comfortable and the ear pads are also comfortable (as far as I’m concerned). There is another reviewer on here who states he has trouble with the ear pads in that they seem to create a vacuum? I personally have not experienced this. Maybe I have an alien shaped head, or maybe the other reviewer does? Either way, the headphones are very comfortable for me to wear for both short and long periods of time.
Now for the important stuff, the sound quality. These headphones sound very clear and are extremely open and revealing. Naturally, being so revealing they will shine with a good source. It does very much seem a case of garbage in — garbage out. Personally I listen to these with a Digital audio player which has a powerful output stage. I also listen to my minidisc player using these headphones. As I hinted at in the title, the bass is rather tight, which wouldn’t normally be a problem, but it is a touch light and could do with a little boost. When I am using my high res DAP, I pop the 62hz bass a notch or two up (leaving everything else neutral) And for me the sound is then perfectly balanced. When listening to my Sony minidisc I use the low Megabass setting (it just has off, low or high) and to me it all sounds spot on.
The treble sounds perfectly crisp and clear without sounding at all harsh (unless of course the source recording is harsh). The mid range is also exceptionally clear but doesn’t venture too far into the foreground, and for me this is how music should be heard. As I have already said, the bass is tight and can go very deep but only about 80 to 90% as deep as I would personally like, hence for my ears I prefer to give it a little boost.
To summarise, they are not perfect, largely to do with that bass, but as far as the whole package goes they are a good 90% or so perfect to my ears. They are certainly very analytical headphones, but they don’t sound boring, on the contrary they are rather exciting to listen to.
As for buying them, if you know what you want and you are looking for revealing, exciting and clear sound then these are definitely a hit and good value for money. If you like bassy party booming sounds then you are looking in the wrong place.
As the title suggests it depends what you require these headphones for as to whether you will like them or not.
The upside is that they are very revealing, you can hear every instrument within a recording and where they have been placed, the width of the soundstage is excellent for a headphone.
The potential downside is that due to their revealing nature the treble can be harsh and quite strident, they are also bass light.
For an extended comfortable listen on a night in listening to your favourite tracks, these are not the headphones to choose. For mixing a track and hearing every instrument and where you want to place them, they are excellent and as good as a 250 pair of headphones I use.
As I intend to use for mixing I will definitely be keeping them.
Solidly built, analytical but still musical. Get every bit of detail out of the sound source, without being tiring. Good bass, but not a particularly wide soundstage, as you’d expect with closed back headphones, good mid, and decent treble. Even better with an external DAC if you’re listening to digital music. Dolby ATMOS tracks work well. I’ve got headphones that cost 3 or 4 times the price of these, and they’re not as well built and they don’t sound as good. Comfortable enough to listen for hours. Amazing value for money.
Bought these on strength of review and really please bought headphone amp as well so I can listen in peace and drown out next doors out of control dogs! Very comfortable but you’ll need an extension lead if you want to sit any distance from your stereo.
Fantastic, having read the What HiFi review, I decided to buy the most expensive headphones I had ever bought. You definitely get what you pay for. Brilliant in every which way, better than my Sennheisers (although only a quarter of the price granted). Can’t praise them enough, even on these 72 year old ears.
Bought as a Xmas gift, so no personal experience to base a review on.
Really impressed. I am hearing sounds that I didn’t even know exists. I have to listen again to all my favorite music now.
I bought these headphones as my hearing has changed and they were to be used to highlight mids and trebles. They are absolutely brilliant but, as suggested by the many positive reviews, need a bit of running in. They have brought sounds out in my most known tracks that I never knew where there.
They are studio headphones and will highlight any bum recordings you may have – but don’t let that stop you buying them as the clarity is second to none.
Highly recommended and fantastic for the price!