CK Moustache

100+ Head-Fier
Link to my review and measurement index thread where one can also find a full review overview, more information about myself as well as my general-ish audio and review manifesto: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/956208/




I only give full stars. My ranking/scoring system does not necessarily follow the norm and is about as follows:

5 stars: The product is very good and received the "highly recommended" award from me.

4 stars: The product is very good and received the "recommended" award from me.

3 stars: The product is good/very good, but not outstanding/special enough to get any of my two awards. ["Thumbs Up"]

2 stars: The product is only about average or even somewhat below that and somewhat flawed/flawed in some areas. [neither "Thumbs Up" nor "Thumbs Down"]

1 star: The product is bad/severely flawed to outright bad. ["Thumbs Down"]





EarFun Free


Source:

Purchased at a discount for the purpose of a product review.


Miscellaneous:

Don’t come with many accessories, but enough so that it’s a complete package – three pairs of silicone ear tips, a charging case that’s also used for storing the Free, and a charging cable.

Bluetooth 5.0 with AAC and SBC codec support. Unfortunately no aptX, but that isn’t really to be expected at this price point anyway.

The charging case itself can be charged wirelessly.
It is compact, looks very nice (in my opinion) and has got four white LEDs that light up when the lid is opened and indicate the battery status. I like that the surface is hard matte plastic and not shiny (should reduce scratches).
What’s very nice is that the lid doesn’t fall shut unintentionally but is held in place in any position that it is opened.
The in-ear pieces are strongly held in place magnetically – a bit too strongly, in my opinion, as removing them requires some more force than I’d like.

The ear pieces themselves look rather generic and don’t have any special design elements that are unique.
Design and build quality are okay for the price but don’t feel premium, although not cheap either.

The faceplate with the EarFun logo is made of rubber as there’s a small button under each that’s used for playback and phone call controls. Even though the accentuation force isn’t too high, it’s not a pleasant thing and an inferior solution to using a touch-sensitive surface.
There’s no volume control on the Free – the volume is controlled by the source device (I personally don’t mind, but some could).

The fit and seal are good as the insertion depth is surprisingly deep even though the nozzle and ear piece shape don’t look like that (which is also why the ear tips that look smaller than expected and usual fit and seal easily and well in my large ear canals). The comfort is good and since the fit and seal are good, the Frees’ ear pieces stay in my ears securely and don’t fall out.

The right ear piece is the master unit.
The Free turns on and off automatically when taken out of the charging case respectively back in.

The signal quality and stability are excellent when used with my Apple iPhone 4 or BlackBerry Classic – no dropouts or the like.

One 6 mm graphene-coated dynamic driver per side.




Sound:

Largest included silicone ear tips.

Bluetooth sources used for listening to music: ZOTAC ZBOX CI547 nano, BlackBerry Classic, Apple iPhone 4. (Bluetooth sound quality with the EarFun Free: BlackBerry ≳ iPhone >> Zotac.)

The Free hiss slightly in quiet and silent passages of the music, so the amplifier chip that’s used probably doesn’t have state-of-the-art signal-to-noise ratio and/or the dynamic driver that is used is very sensitive.

Volume Control:

There is no built-in volume control – the Bluetooth source device acts as such.

The status reports (“connected”, “disconnected”) aren’t overly loud, which is nice, but they are not very quiet either and I wish they were just somewhat quieter; they only come through the right ear piece.

Unfortunately, the Free also suffer from the same problem that pretty much all Bluetooth in-ears suffer for me: the quietest possible volume setting above mute is much too loud for me personally and clearly above my normal listening volume.

Tonality:

Heavily consumer-oriented fun-oriented v-shape sound signature with the main focus on the lower bass and upper treble, which isn’t a surprise given that they are affordably priced dynamic driver in-ears; really good and naturally tuned midrange.

Heavy bass elevation that peaks at 30 Hz in the sub-bass with a quantity of 16 dB over the central midrange at 1 kHz.
The upper bass at 100 kHz is already elevated by ca. 12 dB.
The root at 300 Hz is elevated by ca. 5 dB over the central midrange.
The bass elevation starts to climb at around 600 Hz.

The lower mids and fundamental range is, not much surprisingly given the heavy bass elevation, on the warm and full side and gives the sound an undeniably warm and full tilt, but doesn’t overshadow the midrange (since its elevation rises towards and peaks in the sub-bass), which is nice.
Other than that, the central and upper midrange mostly follow a slightly-less-than-flat-neutral target and are not far off the Etymotic ER2SE, wherefore the mids sound realistic and natural.

The lower and middle treble are mostly neutral, with the 5 kHz range showing a moderate dip, followed by the highs rising again just a little below 7 kHz, just to then form a strong and bright peak around 8 kHz.
The super treble above 10 kHz shows an even down-slope/roll-off.

As a result, the sound is v-shaped and clearly exaggeratedly consumer-oriented, but done so in a surprisingly nice way with a really good tuning of the midrange, wherefore one could even consider the sound as natural but with a loudness compensation adjustment for listening in a loud, noisy environment; solely the bright 8 kHz peak appears artificial and plasticky even though it doesn’t come across as too sharp as it acts as a counterweight to the strong lower bass elevation.

Frequency Response:


ER-4S-Compensation


ProPhile 8-Compensation

Resolution:

Good. Do not sound like typical wireless in-ears from a few years ago (for example, they are clearly better than the MEE audio X7 Plus), and are more controlled than comparably priced wired in-ears such as my SoundMAGIC E10.
Aside from the bass quality that is superior on the Shure, the Free are not much behind my (non-wireless) Shure SE215m+SPE in terms of resolution, which is definitely a good thing, however as the Free lack aptX codec support, their sound quality will ultimately depend quite strongly on how good the streaming source’s Bluetooth audio transmission quality is (it is rather bad on my Zotac desktop PC, but very good on my BlackBerry and iPhone). One should not fully expect the technical performance of really good dynamic driver in-ears such as the Fidue A65 or iBasso IT01, let alone the Etymotic ER2XR, though.

Especially surprising is the bass control despite the very strong elevation.
The lows soften towards the sub-bass and lose some texture but without becoming muddy, and the bass doesn’t feel uncontrolled even with more complex tracks.

The midrange resolution is good for the price and doesn’t show any weakness; there’s also no obvious sign here that the Free are wireless in-ears.

Treble separation is slightly on the softer side but still defined and precise. This, however, also helps with the 8 kHz peak.

Transients are a bit on the softer side but far from blurry or the like.

Therefore, the Free perform well in the technical department, and it’s clear that the dynamic driver that was used is of the better and more capable sort.

Soundstage:

Expands wider than the base between my ears and stretches almost to the outside of my shoulders. Therefore definitely wider than average and not congested in any way.
Subjectively, the spatial depth is almost similarly present wherefore the soundstage is almost perfectly circular; it appears realistic and three-dimensional.
This, however, is pretty much always the case with a v-shaped tonal tuning.

The imaging is nicely accurate and still remains intact even with fast, dense and complex material, although some mild to moderate blur then starts to occur.




Conclusion:

Good sounding and affordably priced in-ears with a strongly consumer-oriented v-shaped tonality (but well-tuned midrange and generally tuned well for what they aim for (personally, I like the tuning and sound)), but they unfortunately suffer from the same problem that pretty much all Bluetooth in-ears do: they are much too loud for me.


Photos:

musicphotolife

100+ Head-Fier
Pros: 1. Detailed sound quality, strong bass and controlled treble
2. Wireless charging case, IPX7 waterproof, easy to press buttons
3. SBC audio codec delivers good resolution without distortion
Cons: 1. SBC audio codec
2. Relatively short battery life compared to competition
3. Unconventional earbud button controls
4. Master earbud is fixed
Earfun reached out to me to review the Earfun Free, their crowdfunding true-wireless earbuds that are available for for US$49.99 at selected Amazon sites. The specs are impressive: Bluetooth 5.0, 6 hours play time per charge, 30 hours with charging case, IPX7 water resistant, wireless charging, USB-C, ergonomically-shaped earbud design.

Crowdfunding Fatigue?
There are so many crowdfunding true-wireless headphones that it’s so hard to determine if they are really as good as they have claimed. The challenge is that the prototypes were reviewed by tech sites which might not be the final product during the manufacturing. The other factor is that during the crowdfunding process, the project team might modify the specs, for better or for worse. Quite often, these crowdfunding products achieve success only after they have received overwhelming acclaim after the commercial launch.

Earfun_Free_2-1103x1200.jpg

I have reviewed quite a handful of these TWS that started as crowdfunding projects, like Bragi The Dash, Earin, AVIOT TE-D01b, xFyro xS2. Of all the crowdfunded earphones I have reviewed so far, the Earfun Free is the lowest priced, but being low-priced might not be a good thing for a crowdfunding as it is associated with either low-quality or potential scam.

Unboxing and Design
I received the production version and the packaging looks professionally done up. The instruction booklet and inserts are printed of good quality paper and does not look like fly-by-night product. The 2 pairs of additional eartips are housed on a strip of plastic holder instead of just in a ziplock bag.

Earfun_Free_1-1200x749.jpg

The casing is made of plastic with matt gloss, the same material as the earbuds. This is to allow wireless charging. The top case cover has some resistance at the joint such that it does not just slam shut when you push the cover down. A cover is held by weak magnet which allows the cover to be opened without excessive effort while enough to keep the cover closed. The 4-LED indicator is helpful to show the remaining battery level, and the USB-C charging port is behind.

Earfun_Free_4-1200x800.jpg

There are ample room in between the 2 earbuds to slip your finger to push the earbuds sideways, a well-thought design. Without this space, the user would have to lift up by pressing at the top and bottom of the earbuds, and given the strong magnet and the contour, it would be quite a feat to get them out elegantly.

To pair the earbuds to the device, turn off the right earbud, then press and hold the right earbud for 3 seconds to turn on and then go into pairing mode. Once the right earbud is paired, there is no need to worry about the left earbud as it will auto-connect. The Earfun Free is designed as a pair and the buttons on each earbuds operate differently. For instance, the left earbud button controls the track changes while the right earbud button activates voice assistant (Siri, Google, etc.).

Earfun_Free_3-1200x800.jpg

True to the product website description, the earbud buttons are easy to depress. The button is made of silicone instead of a stiff plastic, which means user can press with a finger tip without too much force, as opposed to pushing the entire surface on other earbuds. Good thing is that you can feel the click when pushing with your finger tip, so you are sure that the action will be registered.

The earbuds attach to my ears snugly, thanks to the ergonomic design. There is no unwanted weight or pressure felt inside my ear canals, as the main earbud body is supported by the outer ear wall. The voice prompts are rather soft, too soft if I may critique, though it’s probably not a bad thing. Running with them is fine, they don’t wriggle nor exhibit any risk of dropping out of the ears. But due to the tight seal which isolates noise well, the drawback is that I hear my thumping footsteps as I jog.

Earfun_Free_7-1200x796.jpg

Sound Quality
I was surprised that the Earfun Free produces respectable audio details for its price. Despite supporting only SBC codec, the audio reproduction is smooth with no jarring compression artifacts. The bass is heavy, punchy but leaves room for the treble, though the lows are slightly slow in the decay. Yet at the same time, I could hear the bass guitar lines clearer than some other earphones. The bass presence is impressive and offers some fun to my ears. The midrange benefits from the detailed bass and offers musical balance which I enjoy. Earfun Free achieves that without muddying the overall sound.

The treble is less forward, and its first impression might not deliver that transparency that makes earphones stand out. But I prefer this balanced tuning for a more comfortable extended listening experience, even at higher volumes. The treble details are all there, just not as outstanding and pushy as the lower frequencies. The sound stage subtly reveals the depth when the track is not too overwhelming, for instance, when listening to Classical genres. The Earfun Free produces the dynamic range well, and my ears could not detect any distortion. Earfun Free has one of the better implementation of the SBC audio codec.

Verdict
The Earfun Free true wireless earbuds are few of the TWS gems in the saturated audio market that I recommend getting your hands on, especially if you prefer a balanced treble sound quality, or one that loves to listen to music at higher volumes but dislikes harsh treble. The wireless charging case offers a nice geek feature to show off.
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