Fit and Comfort

Seen above is the Edifier WH950NB placed on a mannequin head to help show how these headphones would look on the human head. Note that the head is slightly under average sized, so account for the discrepancies accordingly. Indeed, I did not notice as much empty room on either side at the top on my average-sized head. As with all headphones, getting a good fit and seal is crucial, so make sure to properly use the various pivot points, and the height adjustability of the headband and ear cups. This section is mostly a summary of the points expanded upon in more detail on the previous page, but I will point out that the WH950NB weighs ~300 g by itself. Thankfully the padding on the headband helps distribute the weight and support it on the top of your head to where you should not feel this is a heavy set necessarily. I do wish the ear pads were better though since they not only get warm after ~45 minutes of use but also aren't that comfortable in the first place. The clamp force is plenty adequate to press them inward although the memory foam feels like it is fighting against it. Perhaps using them for a week or so will help. What Edifier does get right is with the sizing and cup swivel/rotation options here, to where you can place the ear cups firmly over the ears and allow for the clamping to squish the pads for a decent seal all around despite the non-contoured pads. There's minimal leakage thus and I was happy to use this on a train to also test for both passive and active noise cancellation where it did quite well in both regards.

Audio Performance

Audio Hardware

Edifier uses a 40 mm dynamic driver in the WH950NB, which in itself is pretty much the driver type and transducer size you would see in the vast majority of such wireless headphones on the market. Where this differs is that the diaphragm is composed of a titanium film composite that promises a stiffer and more responsive driver for a natural sound, or so Edifier claims anyway. There's not much else known about the driver composition although the diagram above confirms there's the expected magnet and voice coil too. There isn't a dedicated DAC inside the WH950NB so the two inputs rely on an analog signal if using the headphones passively via the 3.5 mm jack or Bluetooth that is decoded by presumably a Qualcomm SoC that also contributes to the ANC on offer. The onboard controls are nice as are the various operating modes too, and the app comes in handy as seen on the previous page. There are four microphones (two per side) for both communication and noise cancellation, and this is perhaps where the more expensive, mainstream offerings with their higher number of feed-forward and feed-back microphones help with a more effective hybrid noise cancellation. I will say that the high NC mode was on par with mainstream flagships from a generation ago, so it's impressive once you realize this costs far less. Ambient mode is where things really got competitive and you can easily keep these on to listen to your surroundings clearly. Voice calls also work quite well with the microphone placement and environmental noise cancelling coming in handy, and I will also give a shout out to the relatively high battery life (55 hours rated, 34 with ANC) although with LDAC mode and at my typical listening volume of ~70-75 dB I experienced closer to 35/25 in that order, respectively. It's still plenty enough for a week of use and charging takes 1.5-2 hours only.

Frequency Response Measurement and Listening

I will mention that I have a general preference for a warm-neutral signature emphasizing a slightly elevated bass and smooth treble range with detailed mids and good tonal separation. I also generally prefer instrumental music over vocals, with favored genres including jazz and classical music. Testing was conducted as described in the equivalent section of the Edifier STAX SPIRIT S3 review with the WH950NB tested in both Bluetooth mode (classic mode, no EQ, ANC off) and wired in fully passive mode. This allows for the default tonality of the headphones to be tested given every other operating mode changes things either via EQ or with ANC. Note that noise cancellation here results in a reduction of the lower frequencies as typical with such implementations.


As before, you can find my headphone frequency response measurements on VSG.squig.link along with all the earphone measurements. Scroll to the bottom and choose different targets there, including two from Harman Kardon developed after years of R&D. The Harman 2018 over-ear target in particular, is a reference curve many headphone makers aim for now, but I find it too bass-boosted. As such, I am opting for the Harman 2018 curve with the bass target from the Harman 2013 curve, which is what is referred to as the "Harman Combined" target. Before we get talking about the sound signature of the Edifier WH950NB, I want to briefly talk about the channel balance achieved here. You will notice how the left and right channels are mostly similar across the entire 20 Hz to 20 kHz range of interest in Bluetooth mode, which is how basically everyone purchasing this will use the headphones. There's a slight imbalance from 3-5 kHz which I wasn't noticing much in the ears prior to taking measurements admittedly. Everything beyond this is well within tolerance and I could not really pick out any discrepancies in the treble even after seeing the measurements! The same trends are seen in wired mode too, albeit the lack of DSP does make the mismatch in the higher frequencies slightly more obvious. Nothing that's a dealbreaker and I certainly was not expecting to see driver matching to this extent from a mainstream-targeted Bluetooth wireless set anyway.

The second graph above shows the frequency response of the Edifier WH950NB in Bluetooth mode without any EQ filters to that when run wired passively. I think it's fair to say that Edifier is using DSP to make up for tuning deficiencies of the driver and acoustic chamber. We've seen Edifier do this to good effect with the STAX SPIRIT S3 and others have used it too, including Focal with the Bathys and MOONDROP with its more entry-level IEMs. Given how much worse the WH950NB sounds passively—it's just a bloated mess without any vocals presence and comes off as a poor V-shape tuning that I'd have laughed out of the door by now—I'd say don't even bother using it wired, unless you are used to doing your own EQ, and stick to Bluetooth. It's still a V-shaped sound but much more balanced and milder to where you already have a decent experience for the money. There's plenty of bass for me already and the Dynamic mode tilts things further for those who want more. Indeed, we see a bass shelf effectively begin from 1 kHz going up and gaining emphasis from 200 Hz and lower. It peaks at ~40 Hz with a good seal and you have enough energy for music genres hitting those sub-bass notes—EDM, for example—while still ensuring you hear drums and bass guitars in the mid bass. I will mention here that a broken seal results in an increased SPL at ~300 Hz before losing energy, meaning the resonant frequency of these drivers is at 300 Hz. If you are wearing glasses, for example, chances are you will have a worse experience owing to poor bass extension and an artificially loud mids presence for baritones and some instruments.

The drivers themselves aren't much to boast about. Imaging is hazy, and there's not much in the way of a wide soundstage, although the latter can be somewhat tricked into sounding larger with EQ. Indeed, I mentioned on the previous page how the 4-band EQ in the Edifier Connect app happens to luckily be at the exact places where I have tonality issues with the WH950NB—100/2000/4000/8000 Hz—to where I lowered the bass shelf over a broad Q-factor, increased the 2 kHz region for more ear gain to help with female vocals reproduction, toned down the 4 kHz presence to avoid shoutyness and potential sibilance, and then raised the 8 kHz region slightly to add some sparkle to instruments in the treble. Your mileage may vary here, and certainly try out the various preset modes first, but I was left quite satisfied with the sound signature coming out of the WH950NB knowing this is ultimately a wireless set that has probably had more thought put into the technological features than the drivers themselves. It'll do just fine for music listening on the go, watching movies, listening to podcasts, and even participating in online calls. It's also plenty resolving and can be quite dynamic with EQ.


There's a significant amount of competition in the market segment that the Edifier WH950NB belongs to, although admittedly a lot of them do not get sent out for reviews. As such, I've decided to compare it against two other tested Bluetooth wireless headphones with ANC features as well as the expected comparison in the form of the Edifier STAX SPIRIT S3. The S3 costs over twice as much but is an objectively better product in almost every way down to build quality, battery life, comfort, customization via different pads and more app support, an excellent planar magnetic driver that has DSP implemented for better tuning too. There is no noise cancellation here though, so this is really the only point where the WH950NB wins out. Given the hybrid ANC is quite well implemented here it's a legitimate reason to consider this over the S3 even outside of the big price savings. Then there's the Cleer Flow II going for a more traditional V-shaped sound that sounds worse to me with little detail to discern amidst the one-note bass that then gives way to the incredibly shouty upper mids to where I could not listen to it for more than five minutes. I doubt I'll ever review that except to say it's just not a good set! The final UX3000, on the other hand, might be the best sounding set out of the box and has ANC too. It does lose out on the technological features though, and the hybrid ANC on the WH950NB coupled with the various modes does make it a strong contender even if it costs slightly more. Neither the Cleer Flow II nor the final UX3000 use DSP, so that also helps sway things in favor of the Edifier WH950NB.