When it comes to buying full-size headphones, I've always found myself settling into the mid-range. You know the brands, the sort of headphones you'd see for sale at your university bookstore or a Black Friday door crasher special. The sort of comfortable headphones that can put up with my daily use and abuse without breaking down — or breaking my bank account.
Wicked Audio is known for offering consumer-grade audio products — you won't find a pair of headphones or earbuds priced north of $100. Usually, that means that one feature or another is compromised to get the price down, but with the Wireless Hum 900, you get super comfortable wireless headphones that sound great while delivering actual all-day battery life.
The Good
- Insanely good battery life
- Comfortable to wear for hours
- Balanced sound performance
- Easy to switch between Bluetooth connections
- Optional AUX cable and storage bag included
The Bad
- Micro-USB for charging
- Lacks active noise cancellation
- Rubberized finish attracts fingerprints
Wicked Audio Hum 900 What I like
The first thing that stood out to me right out of the box was the build quality. The ear cuffs are seriously comfy, with a soft-touch synthetic leather finish, and they fit snugly on my head. The rest of the headphone casing features a rubberized finish that looks nice (when it's not covered in greasy fingerprints) and metallic plastic coverings at the folding joints, which I'm OK with because the joint and slider is sturdy and reinforced with metal.
These are some of the most comfortable headphones I've ever used.
All in all, I really appreciate the understated design here — all-black and sleek-looking with that faux-metallic accent, with the Wicked Audio branding relegated to the top of the headband. Track and volume controls are found on the back side of the left ear, while the power switch is found behind the right and I never really had to mess around with any clumsy Bluetooth pairing buttons.
Wicked Audio boasts that the Hum 900 battery life should hover around the 13-hour mark, and in my testing, I actually found these headphones as good or better than that benchmark. I unboxed them on a Wednesday afternoon and used them as my daily work headphones for the rest of the week, and kept testing them throughout the weekend. By Sunday, they were still showing 70% battery life remaining when paired with my Pixel XL, and they finally gave me the low battery warning by mid-afternoon Monday.
I was genuinely blown away by the battery performance given that I had accidentally left them switched on (but unpaired) for the first night, but I was happy to see my error hadn't drained the battery at all. I was also quite happy to see Wicked Audio include a 3.5mm input and an AUX cable in the box. For the times that I'm recording podcasts or don't need to be wireless, it's a great option to have.
In terms of sound quality, these over-ear headphones sound way better than I ever thought an $80 pair of wireless headphones could produce. The low-end is booming without distorting the rest of the track when listening to hip-hop or other bass-heavy genres, and the sound quality come through clear even at the highest volume level.
That balance is evident, too, when listening to a more layered indie track where you're able to pick out all the subtle instrumentals and really appreciate the sound mixing of your favorite albums. My go-to test album is "Deloused in the Comatorium" by The Mars Volta — a progressive masterpiece that jumps between being quiet and atmospheric to a loud cacophony of rhythm, guitar, and spacey sound effects — and It sounded sublime through the Hum 900s.
More important than almost anything else, these things are really comfortable to wear. The ample cushioning in the ear cups and headband and lightweight design have allowed me to wear them for hours at a time without any issues, and because they're the over-the-ear style, you're not stuck with a sore ear canal after extended use. I also live in a colder climate where these types of headphones perform a double duty in the winter as high-tech earmuffs, so I'm encouraged with both the battery performance and comfort once the snow starts flying.
Wicked Audio Hum 900 What I don't like
There's really not much to complain about with these headphones, because any missing features like noise-canceling or more premium materials would certainly bump up the end price and that's a big factor in my recommendation.
There are some premium specs that would have been nice to have, but also would have bumped up the end cost.
For instance, it would have been nice to see the Micro-USB port replaced by USB-C that then could have been used for both high-capacity charging or a USB-C wired connection to a phone, but as someone still using a phone with a headphone jack, I'm more appreciative of the included AUX cable. It only takes two hours to recharge these back to 100% via Micro-USB and you can still wear them wired if the battery dies.
If you're looking for active noise cancellation, Wicked Audio has you covered with the HUM 1000 headset, but it's not a make-or-break feature for me and the exclusion here in exchange for a slightly lower price is a compromise I'm willing to accept. Then again, I work from home and am not a frequent flyer or a regular public transit rider, so that's a feature I can generally do without.
Wicked Audio Hum 900
Affordable and comfortable for all-day wear with fantastic battery life, these are the headphones I would have loved to have owned during my university days.
They come with charging cable, 3.5mm cable, and a carrying bag, and can be found for just $72 on Amazon.
