AKG Y45BT Review

PROS

Delivers deep bass and crisp highs without distortion.

Handsome, comfortable design.

Can be used in passive mode with included cable.

CONS

Can sound tinny or overly bright at times.

An audible hiss is noticeable on quieter tracks.

Overpriced.

AKG has made plenty of fantastic headphones in the past, so it's a bit surprising that the AKG Y45BT isn't a standout option. These $149.95 Bluetooth headphones look great and offer a comfortable feel, and they even deliver the rich lows and crisp highs you'd expect from an AKG pair. However, there are hiss issues with the Bluetooth stream, bringing to mind the problems with Bluetooth playback from a few years ago instead of the improved wireless sound of 2014. It's less of a problem if you don't listen to quieter tracks, and it can be bypassed altogether by listening using the included cable instead of streaming audio wirelessly. But there are better options for your money.

Design

Available in an all-black model or in white with tan leather earpads and trim, the Y45BT is a stylish, extremely lightweight supra-aural (on-ear) headphone pair. Like other AKG models we've seen, the metallic headphone adjustor has marks on it so that you can perfectly adjust each earcup to the same length.

The right earcup holds Play/Pause/Call Answer/Call End, Volume Up, Volume Down, and Power/Pairing buttons. This is also where the microphone is placed, along with a jack for the included cable for wired listening. When the cable is connected, the Y45BT operates as a passive, unpowered headphone pair in order to preserve battery life. You can no longer take calls, however, as the cable has no inline remote and the in-cup microphone is unpowered in passive mode.

The left earcup houses a micro USB connection for the included charging cable. Unfortunately, there's no wall adapter included, so you'll have to plug it into your computer to charge the battery if you don't already have a USB charger. A handsome, circular zip-up protective pouch that the headphones fold down flat into also comes with the Y45BT. AKG estimates the Y45BT's battery life to be roughly 8 hours. Your results will vary depending primarily on how loudly you play your music.

Performance
On tracks with serious sub-bass content, like The Knife's "Silent Shout," the Y45BT delivers a laudable amount of deep low-end. It doesn't distort even at top, unsafe listening levels, and the headphones still maintain a strong sense of low frequency response paired with crisp high-mid presence at lower volumes.

On Bill Callahan's "Drover," his baritone vocal delivery gets a bit of unecessarily added richness, but nothing that makes things muddy. This is thanks mostly to a strong high-mid presence that gives his voice definition and edge. The drums on this track receive a bit of extra low-end boosting for a pleasant, full sound, but again not enough to make them sound unnatural. It's really the guitar strumming and vocals that stand out here, especially at moderate volumes. Though deep lows come through here and there, the track sounds at times almost overly bright or tinny.

The attack of the kick drum loop on Jay-Z and Kanye West's "No Church in the Wild" hits with enough treble edge to slice through this dense mix, but the low and low-mid sustain of the drum loop is also a powerful force. The sub-bass synth hits have some depth to them, but not the level of deep lows you would expect from a seriously bass-boosted pair. The bass on the Y45BT exists in the rich lows and low-mids, and not so much in the deep sub-bass. The Knife track shows us that the Y45BT can produce intense sub-bass cleanly when it's present on the track, but there isn't a real subwoofer-type frequency response here.

Classical tracks, like the opening scene in John Adams' The Gospel According to the Other Mary, highlight the Y45BT's primary issue: background hiss. The frequency response is a pleasant balance of natural lows and bright highs, but on a quieter track like this, there was notable hiss during playback. It was also slightly detectable on some quieter tracks from Bill Callahan. Simply put: This doesn't sound like high fidelity Bluetooth streaming should in 2014. It sounds more like Bluetooth audio from years ago, when stereo streaming was much shakier.

It's hard to recommend the Y45BT when there are options that deliver cleaner wireless streams like the JBL Synchros S400BT ( at Amazon UK) , SOL Republic Tracks Air ( at Amazon UK) , and Harman Kardon BT ( at Amazon UK) , all of which offer varying levels of bass response, balance, and price. If you're looking to spend less money, the Outdoor Technology DJ Slims are also a solid option, but aren't on the same quality level as the aforementioned pairs. The AKG Y45BT isn't a disaster; it just doesn't deliver the Bluetooth audio quality you'd expect for this price. The included cable helps, in the sense that you can use Y45BT passively and bypass the hiss, but that's a pretty big limitation for wireless headphones.