Onkyo E700M review

High-Res Audio headphones don’t have to break the bank and can actually be affordable for those on a limited budget. We take a look at the stylish, comfortable and great sounding Onkyo E700M in-ear headphones in our full review. See also: Best budget headphones.

Onkyo E700M Price

You can get a lot of cheap in-ear headphones, often under £50 but it can be worth spending a bit more.

That normally means breaching the £100 barrier but the Onkyo E700M in-ears come in at a very reasonable £74.99. It’s a nice price point for those wanting to spend a bit of cash but not blow a hole in their bank balance.

They’re cheaper than the non-High Res Yamaha EPH-M200 in-ears.

Onkyo E700M Design and Build

Pretty much all in-ear headphones have a similar design; you won’t see law suits between rival companies here. That said, there are some interesting elements about the E700M design to note.

For starters, they come in black or white colour options and you’ll notice that a stand out feature is the twisted cable – one is clear which looks quite cool. This not only makes the cable stand-out but stops them getting tangled which is always pain when you want to just get listening.

We like the angular design of the ear pods which we found fitted nicely and it’s hard to left and right confused here. The aluminium casing looks great with the spun glossy finish and also helps get rid of unwanted vibration, according to Onkyo.

The headphones are supplied with a soft carry case and you also get more than the usual three sets of tips in different sizes. You also get a pair of Comply foam tips which are like ear plugs.

The memory foam fills your ear canal very well creating an excellent seal. This improves sound quality by keeping noise out and audio in, plus makes the E700M headphones more comfortable than the vast majority of in-ears.

Aiding comfort is the fact these headphones are lightweight at just 18g. Features like a 1.2m cable and in-line microphone are pretty standard. However, the control has no volume buttons which is a shame.

Onkyo E700M Sound Quality

One of the big issues to tackle here is the fact the E700M are ‘High-Res Audio’ headphones. You’ve probably seen the logo around on various products over the last year or two, but what are High-Res headphones?

The idea is that you experience ‘better than CD quality audio’ but you’ll need to listen to High-Res music files for starters.

In simple terms the logo means they can reach an upper frequency of at least 40kHz which is double that of the human hearing range, which is 20Hz – 20kHz. These Onkyo headphones can cope with 6Hz – 40kHz which seems a little pointless but there’s more to it.

If the headphones can playback frequencies outside your hearing range it can still help what you hear sound better. It also means the headphones can handle frequencies within the normal range with increased accuracy.

For those with Hi-Res equipment to plug these headphones into, and the files, the Onkyo E700M in-ears are an affordable option, but what if you don’t have High-Res tech and tracks?

Never fear because the E700M headphones sound great anyway, thanks principally to the large 13.5mm high power neodymium drivers. As mentioned earlier, noise isolation is excellent with the included foam tips.

Headphones will appeal to a wide range of listeners when they are nicely balanced and that’s what we’ve found to be the case here.

The bass is strong and has an impressive richness like there are tiny woofers hidden somewhere, which you rarely find in headphones under £100. However, the low frequencies don’t dominate unless you push the volume up a lot which can sometimes be the case in an effort to make them sound good.

The mid-range and top-end are both detailed so all kind of elements like vocals, guitars, pianos and cymbals are present in the mix. It’s also impressive how loud the E700M headphones can go without dramatically losing quality.