Despite their price tag, these are not “fancy” headphones. They cleanly sidestep the customizability and boundary-pushing features of flagship products like the Sony WH-1000XM4. They’re comfortable, but the design is more or less forgettable. And while you can’t customize the sound, you also probably won’t want to: the spacious, well-balanced audio quality here is primarily what you’re paying for (though the sturdy case and huge battery don’t hurt anything, either).

Slightly awkwardly for Yamaha, at a time where very few people can go anywhere, they’ve built what might be the best travel headphones I’ve ever tested. If I was flying to another continent tomorrow, I’d be packing them. The catch is, that for less arduous work, the YH-E700A feels bulky and quite pricey, which is a challenge when the role for which they are really designed is going to be a pipedream for many of us for a while yet. However, if you can see a time where those long flights will feature in your life again, you need to hear these and for that reason the YH-E700A earns our Recommendation.

The Yamaha YH-E700A delivers consistent, high-quality sound, with or without active noise cancellation enabled.

In a busy and noisy environment, the Yamaha ANC and ambient features worked well both in a noisy living room in my house and on the street, surrounded by traffic and excitable pedestrians. In this world, I don’t really care if I can hear the last filigree of treble from cymbals: I’m just happy to hear the cymbals at all. The Yamahas provide that wish but, within that restricted frequency spectrum remit, they offer an excellent sonic performance that never grates, never irritates or annoys. These speciality tools do the job asked of them. For any tool, that’s all I ask.

If you’re looking for a well-made wireless headphone with excellent battery life and better than average isolation and ANC, these are definitely worth a look. They are not dead neutral and certainly not the most detailed sounding on the market.

The headphones are also comfortable to wear and it also offers good battery life. The ANC performance is also up to the mark.

For most listeners, the YH-E700A offers decent comfort, stable connectivity, and aptX Adaptive. Odd is the tendency for almost every function to alter the frequency response. The ANC is disappointing, especially for the price.

With the YH-E700A, Yamaha offers dynamic over-ear headphones with Bluetooth that pack a punch. The powerful bass tuning cannot be called neutral. These headphones are therefore aimed at listeners who like it lush and powerful. But even then, the tuning goes a step too far for me because the manufacturer’s app, and thus the electronics of the headphones, lack a correction option.

They can play loud, and they do it with a controlled bass and great tonal structure. The sound tends towards the warm and full, but without ever being slack or closed.