Philips TAH8000E review: these mid-priced ANC headphones have a lot of appeal
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Imagine this, walking through the park on a beautiful summer day, fully immersed in your favorite song as it plays on your wireless headphones. But just as you’re about to get to the best part, the battery dies and you’re left feeling disappointed and unfulfilled.
If you don’t like that, you should check out the Philips TAH8000E wireless headphones. As long as the Dutch manufacturer’s claims of 70 hours of battery life (50 with ANC on) are true, situations like the one described above shouldn’t happen very often.
But who wants headphones that last a long time if they’re not fun to listen to? Let’s find out if…
Price
If you’re in the UK, you can buy the Philips TAH8000E on Amazon for around £140 at the time of writing, although we’ve seen the price go as low as £122, depending on the end.
US customers can pick them up for $149 when they launch there later this month. Australians will have to wait until the second half of the year to get their hands on these Philips, where they will cost an estimated AU$246 based on current exchange rates.
This means that the TAH-8000E is currently in the mid-priced range of wireless headphones, an underserved category that includes the award-winning Austrian Audio Hi-X25BT (currently £129 / $199 / $289) – we’re taking these stand-alone speakers out of stock to compare them for sound quality, although we note that they’re not noise cancelling.
Sony’s WH-CH720N (£75 / $100 / $AU259) technically falls in the price category below the Philips, but they’re close-priced award-winning headphones with active noise cancellation, so we’re looking for them for comparison in our tests.
Features
Philips’ claims of long battery life proved to be true during our testing period. After fully charging the TAH8000E, seven hours of use with ANC off left us with 90 percent juice, according to the Philips Headphones app. This suggests that they should comfortably beat the Sony (50 hours with ANC off) and the Austrian Audio Hi-X25BT (30 hours).
Specifications for Philips TAH8000E tech
Bluetooth 5.4
Codec support SBC, AAC, LDAC, LC3
Noise cancellation? Yes
Battery Life 70 hours (ANC off), 50 hours (ANC on)
It ends x 2 (white or black)
Weight 260g
When the TAH8000E’s battery eventually dies, you can use the supplied 3.5mm cable (1m length) to continue streaming your favorite tunes via a wired connection to your source device. Philips says a 10-minute charge via the supplied USB-C cable will provide an additional eight hours of playtime, too.
While it’s useful to know how much listening time you have left (perhaps a little while), the Philips app lets you do more. Not only does it allow you to fine-tune the active noise cancellation, but there are also customized EQ settings for music and voice calls, making a noticeable difference to what you hear. We would advise against using the ‘Dynamic Bass’ setting as the lowest level isn’t needed here, but we find that boosting the high frequencies during calls makes voices clearer.
The surround sound setting also widens the sound field and, as a side effect, softens the effect of bassier tones that come when watching movies. Also, there’s a ‘Explore’ section that gives access to a selection of tones and sounds – like water drops tumbling down a cave – to listen to in the background, some of which are immersive and calming.
The TAH8000E is equipped with Bluetooth 5.4, and supports Auracast sharing technology and multi-point connection. Additionally, they support the high-quality LDAC codec alongside standard SBC and other AAC methods.
The sound
The first thing we notice about the Philips presentation is how extreme the bass sounds. While bassline junkies can enjoy that, certainly if they listen to similar tracks The problem with Scorpio, the mid and high frequencies feel stronger in comparison. So, we dial down the end using the app’s EQ settings. This helps to a fair degree, and restores a sense of balance.
Once that’s done, we’re able to pick out the hits and hi-hat songs from The Trammps’ Disco Inferno easily, while the drums together sound tight and sharp. These Philips headphones do a great job of conveying the sweet beat of the song and we find ourselves nodding along to the beat.
The nod continues as we explore the poppier tracks. These may not be lively headphones, but Philips’ quiet presentation is a lot of fun nonetheless.
It wouldn’t be our first choice for aggressive music, though. We’re playing Thin Lizzy hard, and while the Philips are pushing the songs forward enough, things aren’t as bad as we’d like them to be.
Stronger management than competition. Beethoven’s Symphony No 7 build slowly until you meet a beautiful wall from the horns. This classic Beethoven piece offers an opportunity to test the level of detail on offer, and we find the strings have a decent amount of texture to them. There are so many elements that go into the making of a piece of music like this, and everything from the strings to the flute comes to the fore.
Despite the complexity of the music, the Philips over-ears are always pleasingly composed, conveying a great sense of scale, while delicately arranging different instruments for individual enjoyment and how they interact with a wider orchestra. High notes also sound clean, but the Philips’ smooth tonal balance means it penetrates our eardrums with minimal pain.
While Austrian Audio’s class-leading headphones have a dynamic, detailed and energetic presentation overall, the TAH8000E are still satisfying on their own. Comparisons with cheaper Sony headphones prove to be interesting, and the Sonys sound a little more compact and expressive overall, although not as detailed or refined in the midrange and treble.
As with most wireless headphones, the Philips sound best when connected via cable to an audio source. Clarity, detail levels and dynamic handling all get a noticeable boost when connected to our laptop. This allows vocals and higher frequencies to shine through more, so even though the low end still needs some control, things sound more balanced overall.
Build & comfort
However you choose to use the Philips silk-coated 40mm drivers and their resulting performance, however, you can do so in comfort. Their soft, green ears are well-curled and remove you from your surroundings without letting your ears overheat. Philips also offers replaceable ear cushions when worn out. A good layer of padding in the headband keeps the top of your head comfortable, too.
The clamping force is not too strong and we are able to move our glasses back and forth without much resistance. They divide you well in your area even if the ANC is turned off. At 260g they’re not too heavy, either.
Build quality is generally good, but ideally, some visual controls, all visible on the right earcup, could feel more precise. Pressing a button/lever to pause or start playback feels vague, for example.
While these controls feel intuitive to use for the most part, you also have to click a button/lever quickly to make dramatic volume changes unless you resort to using the app.
The TAH8000E’s earcups can rotate 90 degrees and tilt inward, allowing them to fit snugly in a rucksack or the sleek but sturdy oval carrying case they come with.
Another key feature of these Philips headphones is the replaceable lithium-ion battery, which can be replaced when it reaches the end of life – in an effort to be more sustainable overall.
ANC & call quality
Of course, there’s not much point in having wireless headphones if it means you’re freaking out every time a car screeches by or your music won’t drown out the chatter of the world’s most annoying train passengers. If you’re wearing Philips, however, it shouldn’t give you too much trouble because of the active noise cancellation.
The headphones use five microphones and a ‘noise reduction algorithm’ that the Dutch manufacturer says is optimized to block out most sounds. When we take these features to test, we find that the closed design is inherently different, which means that the sound from passing cars is not heard even when the ANC is turned off, much more so than when wearing the Sony CH720N.
Turning on the noise cancellation, however, allows most of the car and wind noise to be ignored by the Philips cans.
Call quality is generally good. Although voices lack some richness and warmth, conversations come through clearly and we can’t detect any background noise from passing cars during our test. In comparison, Sonys rival blocks out little road noise and can’t match the Philips for clarity.
The decision
Philips’ latest headphones have solid battery life. If you also consider that they are comfortable and effective at isolating external noise, the TAH8000E will probably have its fans.
But to bring you back to our earlier question, is it worth listening to while it’s still around? Given their refinement and midrange clarity at this price point, we think so.
Update published: 27th February 2026
POINTS
MORE:
Read our review of Austrian Audio Hi-X25BT
Think again about Sony WH-CH720N
The best wireless headphones: reviewed and rated by our in-house experts
