「 Fried Fristi 」 (fristi@akkos.fritu.re)'s status on Wednesday, 31-May-2023 06:04:38 JST
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@mia @kaia @schappi okay so I recently bought these and I'm returning them for refund. Here's my thoughts on them (and the reason I'm returning them)
First off, the sound is good. Sound is definitely the strong suit with these things, it's crystal clear and for me that's very important. I don't want muddy "bassy" sound. One downside; you do not get an equalizer to play with. Instead the app (which is very basic tbh) only has 4 presets you can choose from. Admittedly though, 2 of the 4 sound incredibly good, third one is I guess okay for certain things, and the last is dogshit.
Comfort-wise, it's pretty good, but the cups could've been a little deeper (my ears just barely hit the insides). It's also slightly heavy, but I'll leave that on me not being used to wearing big cans on my head.
Usability is okay. It's controllable with a joystick on the right cup that has media controls, a toggle for the ANC (switches between ANC, ambient mode and off) and that sorta thing. It works. Not really much else to say. The ANC works well enough, I had no issues with it. Its effectiveness will likely depend more on how well your ears get sealed into the cups, and that will depend a lot on your head shape and size. The Ambient mode however is shit. DO NOT ENABLE AMBIENT MODE IN THE WIND. Your ears will thank me.
Construction is pretty solid, it doesn't feel very cheap. However I found that any tapping and stuff on the plastic will be annoyingly audible while wearing the headphones. Not sure if that's will all cans but I found it especially notable on these.
Firmware/Bluetooth on this thing is its weakest point and my reason for returning. I found the bluetooth stability to only really be stable on my android phone, but it was a big mess on my laptop and pc. Unusable. Additionally the firmware in how it controls volume is also a bit dodgy; the lowest volume setting is still fairly loud imo, and even more annoying is that whenever it gives you a status message (like when it connects to bluetooth or when you switch ANC modes) the headphones will very annoyingly raise the volume to what it wants for the status message and then lower it. This is rather jarring and uncomfortable and totally not necessary. And of course the ambient mode is horrible.
The whole issue with this thing is that literally all of its problems are firmware related. Physically this thing is pretty good, but the software just sucks. Frankly I should've expected that from a new player in the audio world but jezus they could've tested this stuff more before releasing this thing on the market.
Final verdict: has potential but disappointingly shit firmware might ruin your day. For a similar pricetag you can get: sony xm4's which have a lot of settings (including an equalizer you can fuck around with). Bose quietcomfort 45 which are very comfortable and supposedly have the best ANC, but are lacking in how much you can configure them (and you cannot turn off ANC). Similarly in this price range are sony's and bose's earbuds, which apparently are very good.