Just one year on, and the competition in the true wireless earbuds category has ramped up immensely, with big names like Bang & Olufsen, Bose and Sony jumping in the fray.
Just one year on, and the competition in the true wireless earbuds category has ramped up immensely, with big names like Bang & Olufsen, Bose and Sony jumping in the fray.
B&O BEOPLAY E8
Stylish and elegant, the Beoplay E8 are Bang & Olufsen’s first entry into the realm of truly wireless earbuds, and they certainly live up to the B&O branding in terms of delivering that “premium” feel. Both earbuds have to be paired to each other before pairing with your player, but this doesn’t always work smoothly, requiring a restart in some cases.
On that note, the touch controls really take some getting used to, as there’s no way to disable any of them. The app only helps to maintain firmware updates and switch your transparency settings. These settings let you adjust the amount of ambient sound you hear, but they seem to do so at the expense of your audio. The E8 is said to use NFRMI (Near Field Magnetic Induction) for better audio quality and greater connectivity. This held through in terms of sync between earbuds, but the left earbud would randomly drop out for split seconds so connectivity still isn’t best. Battery life is rated at four hours on a single charge while the carrying case gets you another two full charges, so you get 12 hours of play time on the road.
In terms of audio, we thought the E8 truly did serve up quality befitting of the higher price tag, with one of the most robust sounds we’ve heard out of true wireless earbuds thus far. It manages to produce pretty full sound, with a decent amount of bass to boot. This is a little on the dry side though, but there’s enough kick when the piece calls for it.
For example, on a recording of Diana Krall’s Temptation from her The Girl in The Other Room album, you can easily feel the bass guitar. It also shows good imaging capabilities here too, as you get a sense of being in a bar setting with bass and lead guitar to your left, Krall slightly off center at the piano, and the drums to the right. Safe to say, the earbuds work with instrumentals, but regular pop pieces are served up well too, though rock pieces that call for more bass like the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Californication might leave you a little wanting. Still, among the true wireless earbuds we’ve tested, these are easily one of the best we’ve heard thus far.
AT A GLANCE
FREQUENCY RESPONSE
20Hz-20kHz
BATTERY LIFE
4 hours
WEIGHT
7g (right earphone)
6g (left earphone)
PRICE
$429
BOSE SOUNDSPORT FREE
The SoundSport Free earbuds are supposed to be perfect for exercise, thanks to the addition of StayHear+ Sport tips. These are specially engineered so the nozzle spreads contact evenly around the inside of your ear, while the fin fits into the upper ridge of your ear, making for a secure fit. However, getting a right fit wasn’t the most comfortable venture, and we found that we had to take a size smaller than what we normally use, so it’s good that you get a selection of different sizes to start, and that they’re fairly easy to replace.
As you might expect from something with “sport” in its name, the SoundSport Free earbuds are IPX4 rated so will take sweat or light rain just fine. The StayHear+ Sport tips really do help to keep the earbuds in securely, but that doesn’t translate to a strong audio seal as you will still be able to hear your environment. Connecting to these somewhat oversized earbuds is a simple affair, and we didn’t experience drop outs during our testing. However we did occasionally have issues where the left earbud didn’t connect on startup – a situation easily remedied by putting both earbuds in the case and putting them on again. While the right earbud sports a multifunction button that allows you to adjust volume and control playback, we found this to be too stiff to activate – so trying to increase volume would lead to us shifting the earbud for example.
In terms of audio, we thought the SoundSport Free performed well in the midrange, but had perhaps the best low end of the entire group. On a recording of Correnteza by Ana Caram for example, the earbuds manage to serve up a nice full-bodied bass to lead the track, while presenting Caram’s vocals with good clarity. We do think the earbuds could have done a better job with balance on this piece though, as we found ourselves struggling to pick out some of the nature sounds sprinkled throughout the piece, especially those on the higher end of the audio spectrum. Perhaps because of the more substantial bass, we found faster moving pieces to work better with these earbuds, as pop pieces like Bruno Mars’ 24K Magic were presented with more than enough energy to get our feet tapping along.
AT A GLANCE
FREQUENCY RESPONSE
20Hz-20kHz
BATTERY LIFE
5 hours
WEIGHT
14.2 g (each earphone)
PRICE
$319
BRAGI DASH PRO
The Bragi Dash Pro takes over from The Dash as the premium model in Bragi’s lineup. It follows largely the same formula in terms of design for both the headset and the carrying case, but boasts improved Bluetooth quality and better battery life. These now give you up to five hours playback on a single charge, so together with the five charges provided by the carrying case gives you a total of 30 hours of playtime at a go; good for more than a full day’s worth of listening.
It comes with an onboard media player with 4GB of memory so you can use the headphones on a standalone basis, and we found this to offer the best performance in terms of having a steady connection. However, you’ll be limited to linear control of your playlist (i.e. jumping forwards or backwards one track at a time) as there’s no way to see the entire set of tracks this way; not even via the app. The new Dash Pro also offers up a Virtual 4D Menu – which lets you literally use your head to call up and navigate a menu of commonly used functions.
Activating the menu requires you to look down till you hear a tone, then forward, and finally up again till you hear another tone. Turning your head left or right takes you through the various menu options, and then you have to look down till you hear a tone to select it. This works pretty well in practice, but given how much of a range of motion you have to go through to activate it, we doubt most people will use it in public.
Audio performance is at about the same level as the previous model, with a shift in audio signature away from the lower ranges for better performance in the highs. Naturalness is a strength with these earbuds, as they did best on live recordings like Eric Clapton’s rendition of Layla for his Unplugged album. This piece is headlined by Clapton on guitar and Chuck Leavell on piano with extensive solos for both, and the earbuds did a good job of rendering both instruments cleanly. Bass is a little dry even for true wireless headphones though, so you may find yourself left a little wanting on rock pieces.
AT A GLANCE
FREQUENCY RESPONSE
20Hz-20kHz
BATTERY LIFE
5 hours
WEIGHT
13.0g (each earphone)
PRICE
$528
JBL FREE
Sporting a simple, non-descript design, the JBL Free true wireless earbuds are billed as a flexible companion for an active lifestyle, and come with a splashproof IPX5 certified design as well as added gel sleeves that fit over the earphones for extra protection and a more secure fit when you work out. Battery life for these earbuds is a good four hours on a full charge, while the included case brings another five charges so you get a total of 24 hours of playback on the go.
Like the other earbuds in this shootout, the JBL Free comes with an integrated microphone so you can take and make calls with it. Unlike the others though, this automatically switches the audio to mono when receiving a call so you only get audio from the right earbud during the call. Stereo sound is restored when the music resumes. Push buttons on the side of either earbud allow you to control playback without having to dig out your media player. However, given that eartips themselves are relatively hard, this doesn’t make for the most pleasant experience to use as you almost feel like you’re trying to drive something into your ear.
Unfortunately, trying to listen to music on the JBL Free is an experience marred by frequent connection drop outs. The left ear bud in particular tends to keep dropping out momentarily, leaving you in mono mode more often than you would like. When they do play together, the earbuds are capable of good performance in the mids and highs, but seem to be lacking in terms of bass. For example, we tried listening to a recording of Rebecca Pidgeon’s Spanish Harlem, and the only way to hear the opening bass line on this track with these earbuds is to crank the volume up so the rest of the piece is uncomfortably loud. Sadly, even the highs can get screechy when pushed too hard. Live N’ Let Die by Guns N Roses has an epic solo with a frenzy of violins and parts of this come off as sharp and jarring, making for an unpleasant listen. Seems in this case that the lowest priced earbuds really did perform commensurate to their price tag.
AT A GLANCE
FREQUENCY RESPONSE
10Hz-22kHz
BATTERY LIFE
4 hours
WEIGHT
-
PRICE
$249
JABRA ELITE 65T
Perhaps the most futuristic looking of the group, the Jabra Elite 65t earbuds offer fuss-free pairing and strong connection strength. These are advertised as offering “conversations as good as music”, but we really think it should be the other way around, given Jabra’s heritage in headsets and speaker phones.
While the Elite 65t earbuds don’t offer active noise cancelling, they do offer wind noise reduction and pretty good passive noise isolation that you can adjust by way of the Jabra app on your phone. This works by way of addition in the sense that you can choose to have more ambient noise fed in for better awareness thanks to microphones on the earbuds. Jabra calls this HearThrough, and four modes are available via the Jabra app – Standard (with settings you can tweak), Commute (with HearThrough at 50% to hear announcements), Focus, and Relax. Both of the latter modes work to keep out as much of the surrounding sound as possible, though the headset will pause music from the headset to allow you to fully focus if you enable HearThrough.
Connection strength on the Elite 65t earbuds was definitely one of the strongest of the group, as the earbuds stayed connected throughout; though we did encounter odd bits of interference noise from the left earbud. In terms of battery life, the earbuds offer up to five hours of listening on a single charge with an additional ten hours from the carrying case. They also have a quick charge feature so just 15 minutes in the case will give you up to 1.5 hours of listening.
In terms of audio performance, the earbuds serve up a rich midrange with nice highs and a slightly dry bass. Rebecca Pidgeon’s vocals are sweet and haunting on a recording of Spanish Harlem. Shifting to a more epic piece like November Rain by Guns N’ Roses further confirms the imaging capabilities of the earbuds, as they place Slash’s vocals well forward of the instrumental madness that goes on during the solo portion of the track. Meanwhile, faster moving pieces like Jamiroquai’s Love Foolosophy are handled well, with the earbuds easily managing the pace, injecting the needed energy to get you moving.
SAMSUNG GEAR ICON X 2018
This year’s Gear Icon X improves on virtually every aspect without hiking up the price. The earbuds are slightly more compact now, and with a narrower case that takes up less space. It also has battery charging indicators for both earbuds and a separate Bluetooth pairing button so you can initiate pairing even before you take the earbuds out.
As with the previous version, the earbuds will automatically pair to your device the instant you open the carrying case after the first pairing, so you’ll have to take care to ensure that the case is kept closed during transit. Thankfully though, the earbuds now come with a quick charging feature so just a 10-minute charge gives an hour of playback. There aren’t official figures for how much battery life the case provides, but we’d say it gives at least three more full charges, giving you about 20 hours of playback on the go.
Gone is the onboard heart rate sensor, but in return you get up to five hours of playback via streaming from a media device, and up to seven hours of playback using the internal media player. The 2018 version again comes with 3.4GB of internal storage, and this time they’ve fixed the streaming capabilities so music sounds just as good whether it’s sent over from your phone or read from the internal memory. Like some of the other earbuds in this shootout, the Gear Icon X also offers a Voice Focus feature that feeds external noise in so you can hear what’s going on without having to tune down your music.
Needless to say audio performance is also much improved compared to the previous version. Gone is the excessively bright sound signature, and in its place is a more balanced one that has good energy and a somewhat mellow bass. The earbuds managed to offer up an enjoyable rendition of Rebecca Pidgeon’s Spanish Harlem, reproducing the piano and shakers with a good amount of detail while still keep Pidgeon’s vocals the centerpiece of the track. A recording of Paradise City by Guns N’ Roses further showed off the earbuds’ ability to rock, but also revealed a tendency for the mids to be slightly bloated.
AT A GLANCE
FREQUENCY RESPONSE
-
BATTERY LIFE
5 hours
WEIGHT
8g (each earphone)
PRICE
$268
SONY WF1000X
Announced at last year’s IFA trade show, the WF-1000X is one of three audio products from Sony’s wireless noise-cancelling headphone family, and probably one of the first true wireless earbuds to sport noisecancelling capabilities. Coming in a choice of shiny gold or black, this has a more flashy design with a somewhat longish carrying case that doubles up to provide another two full charges for a total of nine hours battery life on the go. That’s just about long enough for meaningful use, but is still the shortest among all of the contenders in this shootout. Like the WH-1000X Mark II, the earbuds also get ambient sound modes and Sony has added the option of Adaptive Sound Control to the app which attempts to detect your present activity and then automatically pick the ambient sound mode that best matches it. This all sounds good in theory, but the open nature of these wireless earbuds means that the difference between ambient sound modes is minimal at best, so we just left the earbuds in full noise-cancelling mode at all times.
The supporting app also allows you to change EQ settings, and lets you choose if you’d like to place a priority on sound quality or stable connection (in which case the connection codec is fixed to SBC). Firmware updates also come down by way of the app, thus letting you easily keep it updated.
When it comes to audio, we thought the WF-1000X was one of the earbuds that easily stood out for its quality. The earbuds easily handled faster moving pop pieces like Sam Smith’s Money on My Mind. This piece has layers of overlapping vocals paced by a thumping bass beat, and the earbuds kept up with the pace and energy well. They did well on acoustic pieces too, with a level of refinement matched only by the Beoplay E8 in this shootout. For example, the earbuds presented an excellent rendition of the acoustic version of Hotel California by The Eagles, fleshing out each and every one of the various acoustic instruments present well while giving ample weight to both the singers and the crowd. As with most of the wireless earbuds we’ve tested so far the bass is on the dry side, but there’s enough kick for it to be felt.
AT A GLANCE
FREQUENCY RESPONSE
20Hz-20kHz
BATTERY LIFE
3 hours
WEIGHT
6.8g (each earphone)
PRICE
$349
YEVO LABS YEVO 1
A new contender in the wireless earbuds space, the YEVO 1 actually comes from the creators of Swedish fashion and lifestyle brand Happy Plugs, which might explain the emphasis on design. These are easily the best looking wireless earbuds we’ve come across so far, with a minimalistic design that ensures the earbuds fit nicely into your ear instead of sticking out from it.
The included carrying case is equally sleek, with a pull-out drawer design that seems to have just enough resistance to stay closed thanks to what seems to be magnets within. This also provides an extra four charges to the earbuds, so you’ll get a full twenty hours in your pocket on the go. A row of lights on the side of the case indicate just how much battery life remains in the case.
As with the other earbuds in this shootout, the Yevo 1 uses touch controls on the side of the ear buds to perform various functions. What’s different, is that you can assign touch controls to either ear via the companion app, so you could have anything from just two controls to a full set of six. The app also adds EQ presets, the option for Audio Transparency, and allows you to visually monitor the remaining battery life on the earbuds.
In terms of audio performance, the Yevo 1 proved to be a quality product – when the connection between earbuds held up. We found that on numerous occasions, the left earbud would randomly drop out then come back in, which is obviously most distracting from the performance. When they do play together, the earbuds produce a nice wide soundstage, playing with both channels well to get a more obvious stereo effect. Vocals are generally presented nicely forward, and if you put on a piece with heavy acoustic backing instruments like Diana Krall’s Temptation for example, you’ll be able to easily pick out each of the instruments. While the bass on these is still lacking some, there’s an extra bass booster mode you can activate if you need more. Rock pieces like the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Give it Away and Bruno Mars’ 24K Magic need a good deal of energy to get you moving, and these earbuds are certainly capable of providing it.
AT A GLANCE
FREQUENCY RESPONSE
-
BATTERY LIFE
5 hours
WEIGHT
8g (each earphone)
PRICE
$268
By Marcus Wong Photography by Angela Guo Art Direction by Orland Punzalan
