B&H Photo Video

For more than thirty years, B&H Photo Video has been the destination of choice for professional photographers. It is the world’s leading retailer of imaging products. Not only does B&H Photo Video stock the best products available and offer them at very competitive prices, it also has one of the best service departments in the country. B&H has also become one of the leading retailers of top quality home video, offering an enormous selection from Pioneer, Panasonic, Sony, Samsung, Sharp, and many others. While not quite as extensive, B&H does offer a wide selection of home and portable audio products, including headphones from AKG, Sennheiser, Ultimate Ears, Etymotic, Bose, Ultrasone, Beyerdynamic, Audio-Technica, and Sony.

The website is very well organized and set-up. Categories are clearly defined and broken-down making it easy to locate specific products. It took just three clicks to locate the AKG K 701 headphones that we were looking for. This ease of use proved to be consistent across all of the various categories and brands. The site offers more than 170,000 products, so B&H deserves some recognition for its search feature, which locates products very quickly and most importantly, the one you are looking for. We tried specific products using only the model name/number and while we did receive multiple entries, the correct product was the first product listing each time. B& H offers ‘free shipping’ on portable electronics and headphones. The site does offer ‘Live Help’, which we tested to gauge response times and quality of information. The site allows you to track your purchase and shipment. When it comes to returns and refunds, B&H has a very strict policy which requires a RMA # and it must be done within 7 days for portable audio and headphones. Defective items will be repaired or exchanged at their discretion for the same or the manufacturer’s equivalent model only. Refunds on returned items which were paid for by credit card, PayPal or Bill Me Later® will only be made by crediting the account charged for the purchase. Refunds on returned items, which were paid for by check, will only be made by check after a 10-day waiting period. B&H does email out notices about discounts, rebate offers, and open box items, but does not offer online coupons.

Our experience shopping online was generally positive. We did receive “free shipping” and much to our amazement, the shipment came one day earlier than expected. We were disappointed to discover that many popular, inexpensive headphones were out of stock. B&H seems to have ample stock of the expensive models, but never enough inventory of the better quality, affordable ones. Another area where we were disappointed was in the ‘Live Help’. The answer to our question about ‘headphone amplifiers’ took about three minutes, but the person on the other end did not seem to know a lot about the topic, and only offered up brand suggestions. Granted, B&H Photo Video does offer information on 170,000 products so it is probably unrealistic to expect them to be an authority on every single product. Nevertheless, the online store is a safe, efficient, and worthwhile place to shop if you are looking for a great deal on premium headphones.