You'd think a R400 set of headphones would sound awful and, if you're used to the prime drivers used by Sony and B&W, you'd kinda be right. Also, you'd be a snob. Orion's hyper-budget set have their place, offering USB-C charging and a surprising sonic skillset that headlines vocal and treble presentation. There's less detail on the low-end, which may or may not work for you. But hey, they're only four hundred bucks.
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Design
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Sound
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Battery
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Features
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Value
Operating under a budget is never fun. It often means being cut off from device features that folks with fatter wallets take for granted. Local brand Orion’s BlackWave BTH-200 over-ear headphones offer at least a few upgrades on your typical set of super-cheap headphones, while retaining the ‘super-cheap’ designation.
How cheap? How does R400 a set grab you? If you happen to subscribe to Pepkor’s +More service, that price drops to a frankly bonkers R180. Either price is great, but the lower one will ask you to part with (and agree to share) your information.
Four hundred bucks?
If you’re a long-time Stuff reader, you’ll have some idea of how price influences the quality of audio gear in particular. There are budget headphones and then there are budget headphones. The Orion BTH-200 cans are, at first glance, in the latter category. They do, after all, cost R400. The build is a concession to this, with a plastic casing making up the bulk of the headphones. A padded headband and soft sponge earcups offer some comfort on the head, for an overall impression of lightweight comfort.
That said, the quality of the plastic doesn’t bode too well for durability, particularly since the BTH-200s don’t ship with any sort of case. But they’ll fold up rather neatly to tuck away in a bag or backpack. We don’t harbour much hope for their survival if accidentally stepped on so… don’t do that.
But there’s at least one cool feature — USB-C charging via a port on the right ear cup. They can also be used in wired mode, while physical controls offer phone-free (or your Bluetooth-enabled source of choice) access to your playlists. Finally, there’s a TF Card (a microSD, but less pretentious) slot in case you’re roaming less choice areas and don’t want to risk your phone.
Slimmed-down setup
The Orion BTH-200s are simple enough to set up the first time. Simply hold down the Play/Pause key — located between the + and – buttons until a chap who sounds like he should be commentating for the Mr South Africa pageant wakes up. Keep holding and it’ll switch into pairing mode, after which you’ll find a reference to ‘Blackwave’ headphones on your source device. Poke ‘Connect’ and you’re done.
But four hundred bucks doesn’t buy that many smarts, so you’ll run into trouble if you’re attempting to pair them with another device with the old one in range. Pairing only functions, in this case, once you’ve forgotten the previous partnership. Still, it’s over in minutes. The resulting connection conforms to standard Bluetooth range, and we didn’t experience any drop-out during review.
Again, you’re not paying for smarts here. When you’re done with them, manual shutdown is the way to go. There’s no auto-stop when you remove the BTH-200s from your head. Never mind, there’s something to look forward to in the sound department.
Sounds like four hundred bucks?
It was tempting to savage the Orion BTH-200 headphones for their audio quality during this review. That’s a drawback of constantly testing the best of the best. In the end, sensibility and objectivity prevailed, and we were able to tease out where these over-ears work and where they don’t. The final assessment… wasn’t nearly as rough as we expected it to be.
Performance from the BTH-200’s drivers varies from genre to genre, with vocals and treble elements faring the best across the board. Popping on Machine Head’s Is There Anybody Out There? provided an almost live quality to vocalist Robb Flynn’s vocals. There’s a lack of clarity in the lower ranges that presents itself in heavily bass-driven songs, a sort of sonic mush.
Switching over to Quixotic’s White Testarossa, which relies on treble tones for the most part, offers a much more pleasing mix. Details are better reproduced here, but bass hits don’t have the punch you get elsewhere. Glam rock or hair metal, weirdly, sounds incredible across the board. There’s a dirty quality to the sound the BTH-200s put out that suits every song we tried. Bouncing through Poison’s Nothing But A Good Time was almost like sitting in the studio while the band recorded.
Are sound levels perfect? Nope. Are the budget drivers in the BTH-200 flawed? Certainly. But audio quality has its upsides, with vocal and treble reproduction being the standouts. Podcasts should be very immersive, but your results will vary elsewhere.
Orion BlackWave BTH-200 verdict
Could the Orion BlackWave BTH-200 over-ears be better? Of course. Would they have to cost more? Undoubtedly. For four hundred rand, though, these aren’t out to scoop up your cash and offer nothing in return. The cans will survive if you look after them, and having USB-C charging for the 250mAh battery is a pleasant bonus. Bass-heavy tracks might lose detail and some of the punch you’ll get from better-tuned (read: more expensive) headphones, but there’s a pleasing eccentricity playing out on some tracks. You’ll have to find your own weirdly-good-on-the-BTH-200 contenders, though. We’re not about to do everything for you.
