Philips Fidelio M2BT review

The original Fidelio M1BT impressed us with its good looks and excellent sound quality, so it should come as no surprise that Philips hasn’t strayed from a winning formula for the follow up. The most obvious change is that the M2BT has a new rib-woven fabric headband made from toughened fibres.

We marginally prefer the stitched leather found on the M1BT, but the M2BT is still a very good-looking pair of headphones. It has an understated class, which is a nice contrast to the ‘street’-inspired headphones that dominate the market. The headphones feel well constructed, which extends to the extremely comfortable memory foam earpads.

The earpads sit on your ears rather than enveloping them. There’s a little sound leakage if you’re listening at a relatively high volume, but it’s minor. The headband is height adjustable on sliding rails and is just tight enough for the headphones to sit securely on your head without being too tight.

The right earcup holds the controls; there’s a small job wheel to adjust volume by tilting up or down, while pushing the wheel inwards skips tracks. A larger button plays and pauses your music, as well as answer calls using the built-in microphone. There’s a second microphone to measure ambient noise and adjusts levels accordingly. Call quality was clear and it didn’t struggle to pick up our voice.

We were pleased to see the M2BT support both Bluetooth 4.0 and the less-lossy aptX codec for superior sound quality, and the addition of NFC on the ear cup makes it much easier to pair compatible devices. AAC is supported for Apple smartphones too.

The M2BT’s battery is rated at 10 hours and this seemed an accurate representation of our testing. We only charged them once a week, using them during the daily commute and some light use throughout the day.

There’s a 1.2m cable included should the battery die, letting you use the M2BTs passively and continue listening to music without issue. Using a wired connection will also be your best option if you value sound quality and don’t have an aptX compatible audio device.

Sound quality from the M2BT was also a real delight. Tracks sounded suitably detailed across the frequency spectrum and bass was tight without becoming overbearing. Dance tracks were injected with energy but the M2BT was also able to produce the subtle tones of our instrumental test tracks. It was also supremely comfortable to wear and at no point did our ears become too warm or tired.

Overall, the M2BT is a fantastic follow up to the Fidelio M1. They look great and sound even better.