So, how do they sound? Featuring 10mm drivers, Kygo says that the Xcellence provide a "naturally deep and balanced sound", which can be fine-tuned via the X by Kygo app. For the most part, everything works rather brilliantly too. The moment you open the box, everything feels intelligently designed. Lift up the lid of the box and you're presented with straightforward pairing instructions, which genuinely take seconds to work through. That level of intuitiveness continues as you use the headphones. It all just works in a way that's akin to Apple-style design at its best – simple yet effective.

The balanced sound they deliver is really great, and the headphones clearly define vocals, mids, and bass in the soundstage. Where your typical Beats headphones prioritize the bass, the A11/800s add a similar degree of punch to a beautifully rounded soundstage. If my sweaty ears didn't make me take the Kygo's off after a bit, I probably wouldn't want to. The engaging, bright sound is really addictive. As a pair of sporty wireless earbuds, the Kygo E7/1000 deliver on the design front. They look good, are comfortable to wear and do feel able to survive getting sweaty. Sadly, the’r decent design isn’t matched on audio front. Perhaps it’s a reference to the 1970’s Xenon nightclub in New York, which, according to its Wikipedia entry, was the only nightclub popular enough to compete with the famous Studio 54. It’d make sense, considering Kygo himself is a DJ of some renown.Instead of a bunch of settings to tweak, the Kygo Life app offers four presets – Bergen, New York, Los Angeles, and Ibiza. Supposedly, each is based on Kygo's view of the kind of music and ambience expected from each location. Los Angeles is meant to offer "ambient feel-good sounds" while Bergen should be ideal for quiet music and crisp sounds. You can move a dot around the screen to lean in a particular direction or go all in with one of the locations. The clamping force is well measured, so you can be rest assured that they’ll stay put on your head. Nor will they become uncomfortable over prolonged periods of use. They can sound a little muddy, particularly at higher volumes. This is most evident in vocals, where that drop in clarity and detail really makes itself known. There is a Kygo Sound companion smartphone app that offers the ability to select from different sound profiles – but, unfortunately, it isn’t compatible with these buds right now. There’s no wear sensor technology, no Ambient mode, no touch panel; and the headphones don’t appear compatible with the Kygo Sound app, so you don’t get the (rather needless) customisation options either. The only other redeeming feature of the E7/1000 are the small indicator lights, which sit in close proximity to the microphones. Those lights will essentially tell you when the buds are successfully paired to your phone; when they’re in call mode; or, are successfully charging inside of their case.

Regardless of your views on the app, the Kygo Life A11/800 sound great, look pretty good, and offer plenty of convenient features. What more could you want from a pair of wireless headphones in 2020? Beneath that matte exterior are 6mm drivers, with Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity for pairing the E7/1000 with your Android and iPhone. We tried the buds with both, and aside from some issues with a Pixel phone, they played nice with an iPhone and a couple of other Android handsets.Moving from music streaming to making a call, it’s a similar story. There’s the promise of stereo calls – and, if you take a lot of calls then the you’ll be pleased to learn that the E7/1000 handle the task well enough. Battery life registers at 24 hours, which is five more hours than the A11/800, and charging time from empty to full is identical at two hours. Understandably, given how well the A11/800 performed, the Xenon strips a few features from its specs. That does mean if you want fancy smarts, you’ll need to look elsewhere.

This doesn’t mean that some issues haven’t carried over. The Xenons are another large-sounding pair of headphones with a wide soundstage, but the setting they describe isn’t the most vivid compared to the leading efforts at this price. I like the simple, minimalist design. The all-white body looks cool, and the large Xs on each ear cup gives the headphones some visual interest, without going overboard with the branding. Wearing them isn't going to suddenly promote you as a huge Kygo fan, which increases the appeal to those who don't know who the DJ is. The cups are just the right size too, perfectly maintaining a sleek profile on your head, while the headphones fold down into a handy size when you're done. In reality, audiophiles will wish they could manipulate the equalizer in a traditional way, but if you don't know much about individual settings, presets could be a simpler solution. A music producer making headphones? Well, it worked for Beats by Dre, so why not Norwegian DJ Kygo? In fact, I've only heard of Kygo due to his exploits in the world of tech, starting with headphones and speakers, and more recently a partnership with Skagen to produce a special edition Falster 3 smartwatch. A search brings up results that include a colourless, odourless gas (Xe); a tyrant from ancient Greek; and the codename for the Xbox 360.Kygo talks up the waterproof rating here, with the earbuds coming with an IPX7 certification. That means they can be submerged into water up to 1m deep. Accidentally drop your E7/1000 in a puddle on a run, and they should survive. Go for a swim with them in your ears, probably not so much. This rating more signifies that they’ll survive sweat and splashes of water. We'd have liked a less creaky build and slightly improved noise cancellation, but these are all fairly minor issues for the price. Audiophiles may also prefer to have 'true' control over the in-app equalizer settings, but if you're a casual listener, you'll appreciate feeling less like you need to be an expert to tweak how things sound. It's certainly quite entertaining to see what a difference an option makes. Active noise cancellation is divided up according to a few different options. There's 'full' noise cancellation, an awareness mode which cancels out 50% of all ambient sounds while still allowing you to hear people's voices, plus an ambient mode, which lets everything through for when you need to be aware of your surroundings. Compare the E7/1000 sound to a similarly priced pair of earbuds such as the Jaybird Vistas or Jabra’s sporty buds, then you can definitely expect to get something more balanced and rewarding if you demand seriously good sound quality to match a workout-friendly build. Maybe we’re reading too much into it. Maybe they just thought it was a cool name. Kygo Xenon price and availability