7. Creative CB8100

These are the largest and heaviest of all the headphones we looked at, with a wide, padded adjustable headband and large padded cams that fit right over the ear to block out a fair amount of external noise. If you like the Creative headphones enough to want to use them on a plane, there’s a headphone cable you can plug in (and a pocket in the case to keep it coiled up neatly until you need it). That means these and the Plantronics Pulsars are the only headphones you can use in flight (make sure you turn Bluetooth off before takeoff). There’s also an adapter that plugs into the headphone socket of any media player, with a Œ” adapter to plug into your hi-fi. This isn’t pre-paired with the headphones but pairing is very simple; you just turn the headphones on and they look for other Bluetooth devices. If you’re using the adapter, press and hold the power button on it to start pairing.

The large case has plenty of room for your media player, the adapter and the power supply. You can also charge the CB8100s or the adapter over USB.

The Creative CB8100s don’t work as a Bluetooth headset, but the small adapter plugs into any headphone socket. The power switch is on the left headphone, with the power connector, and two jog wheels for navigating between tracks and controlling the volume are on the right cam. Press the navigation jog wheel to pause and restart your music; press the volume wheel to mute it, although if the device has AVRCP this actually pauses it anyway. The navigation jog wheel protrudes a little farther than the volume control so you can tell them apart by touch but they’re both quite far back on the ear-piece. There are no phone controls; you can use the headphones with your mobile phone to listen to music and skip tracks, but there’s no microphone so you can’t use it to make and receive calls.

The CB8100s are a little quieter than some headphones. The audio quality is only fair, which is disappointing at this price. There’s a reasonable amount of bass even at low volumes but music sounds generally flat and slightly colored unless you push the volume up. Stereo separation isn’t as clear as on the Plantronics Pulsars 590As. We had occasional momentary interruptions in reception even in the same room and a brick wall is enough to interfere badly with the connection; rather than cutting out the connection cleanly, the sound breaks up. Volume is lower still with the adapter and the audio quality is slightly inferior.

Creative puts together a good package with the CB8100s but we’d expect better sound quality at this price; the Plantronics Pulsar 590As have better sound and phone features as well.