I’m a wordy guy, so the TL;DR review is below.As someone who prefers wired earbuds for their sound and no concern for battery life, I only had one pair of Bluetooth earbuds before that were decent, at best.With my Bluetooth skepticism and bias against wireless listening technology, I was having a hard time deciding on a new pair. Alas, I decided to take a chance on these because of the overwhelmingly positive reviews and fair price point.AND WOW! I am not disappointed (so far)! Having only had them 10 days, this review doesn’t speak for the product’s longevity. BUT — if they manage to hold up for at least 6 months (or more), this set will make me a sound believer (pun intended) in Bluetooth headsets!
WHAT I LOVE:- SOUND QUALITY: The sound quality is superb. It may be a little loud, but once you adjust the volume to what suits you, it’s fine. As someone who’s super picky about sound quality, I’ll say that there’s an almost seamless balance between the highs, mids and lows. There’s no noticeable distortion or warbling from playing at normal volumes.
- BASS QUALITY: I swear these things sound like the most bumpin’ concert in your ears! The bass quality was far better than expected. Everything from rock, metal, hip hop, etc. sounds great! It even passed the appropriately named “Invincible” Test (a test I devised to measure the bass output on headphones by listening to the drum breakdown at the end of TOOL’s “Invincible” to see if there’s any crackling or popping from the pounding drums)!
- BATTERY LIFE: As advertised, it promises 150hrs of battery life. How this is possible, I thought, was beyond me. However, after using them for at least 2hrs a day for the past 10 days, the battery is still at 100% (and that’s out of the box)! Even if it doesn’t pull off 150hrs, it more than doubles my previous headset’s battery life!
- BUILD QUALITY: While anything with wires runs the risk of shortage at some point or another, the build and durability of this headset seems pretty decent. It’s comfortable around the neck and the buttons are smooth and responsive. With the right nubs, the earbuds rest comfortably in my ears.
- TAKING CALLS: It’s no problem taking calls and the audio quality is great.
- VOICE: Yeah, even the headset’s voice gets a shout out for having personality! Normally, a headset comes with a standard robotic voice that announces whether the headset is “connected”, “disconnected”, “pairing”, “power on” or “power off”. But this headset’s voice has a smarmy tone about it. She can sound a bit catty, but I LOVE IT! XDSOME SETBACKS & CONCERNS (IF I HAD TO NITPICK):- VOLUME: As mentioned above, the volume sounds much louder than most headsets I’ve had in the past. It can be a bit much. But, the easiest workaround is to adjust the volume to your liking.
- OVERLY BASSY: I’m someone that loves bass. But I was a bit taken aback by how much bass output this headset delivers. My workaround was to make slight tweaks to the EQ on my phone’s media player to get a bass level that was right for me. I’d rather have too much bass that I can scale back than have a flat sound that can’t be fixed to my liking.
- TAKING CALLS: Apparently, it sounds a bit distant and tinny on the other end, to someone who’s speaking to you. I’ve only used the headset for making calls. I can’t speak for talking to someone using this headset to hear how it sounds. Then again, that could also be the other person’s phone.- LONGEVITY: As I said, I’ve only had these for about 10 days, so it’s hard to speak on longevity. My biggest hope is that the sound output remains consistent. It’s no secret that headphone output quality starts going down after a while, but if it can stay relatively in check, I’ll be happy. Just as well, I hope the battery holds its charge and doesn’t depreciate too soon.
- RESILIENCE: I treat my headphones pretty good to get the most out of them. I try not to stress the wires or do anything strenuous to encourage shortages. With that said, sometimes headphones are finicky and short out themselves. I’m hoping they last a while.TL; DR:
PROs:- Sound is great, with a fairly seamless balance between highs, mids and lows.- Bass is amazing, especially for bass junkies looking for a good bump in their music.- Battery life is performing beyond expected, with about 25hrs of playtime so far and still holding at 100%.- Comfortable neckband with different nubs to fit your ear.- Taking calls sounds great, and it’s easy to hear the speaker on the other end.- I personally LOVE the smarmy tone of the headset’s voice! XDCONs (IF I HAD TO NITPICK):- These are LOUD! Simply adjust the volume to your liking.- Overly sassy. Adjust your device’s media player equalizer to offset the bass.- On calls, you apparently sound a bit distant and tinny to the person you’re talking to. I’ve never tested this myself though.- The longevity of this headset remains to be seen.- Given the build quality seems good, it remains to be seen if shortages, sound quality and battery charges will diminish sooner than later.CONCLUSION:So far, I’m blown away by this headset. Should it hold up the way they are, I’d certainly buy these again!
It’s still a bit early to give these a totally informed review, but I’m as pleased as I could be within the first two weeks using this headset!As it stands, this headset proves you don’t have to pay up the wazoo to have amazing sound and battery life!