Earin M-2

In general, I agree with most of what kevinscottcaja has said so I'm going to just emphasize my unique experiences with it and why I ranked it 1 * lower. Therefore, you should read kevinscottcaja's review first before reading mine as it'll otherwise leave you a very negative impression from just reading mine than what I meant to express.

Drop Outs:
Yes, I experienced dropouts. And they all followed the same pattern. My daily commute to work requires me to pass through the crowdy and busy Grand Central Station with a many travelers/commuters and an Apple store right inside of it. Obviously, there must be a ton of RF signals cross talking each other. As such, I view this place as the toughest testing environment for the connection quality of a wireless device. Unfortunately, my M-2 didn't perform perfectly there. For the 5 weekdays I've had it so far, I had at least 1 dropout (a break pause in my music playback) everyday as I pass through GCS. However, it's NOT that bad either since the worst I've had was 2 dropouts in a single pass through. In addition to GCS, I've also experienced occasional dropouts in other parts of the city though very infrequent (~ 1 per day) and inconsistent.

Sync problem between left and right:
There always seems to be some very noticible delay before the two pieces sync up and play stereo music to my ears. Sometimes just a coule seconds, someotimes as long as a few minutes. The worst was this morning when I rushed out and I put it on while I was waiting for elevator. Only when I have left my building I suddenly heard the musics becoming louder and more around. I then realized I have been listening to monotune the whole time. That was like 4~5 minutes since I put them on.

Phone mode does not work:
I've reported this one to Earin's support and got an overnight response. Basically, it appears my phone is using the Earins for communication but neither could I hear the other side or make them hear me. And when I was testing that I had both earbuds in my ears. I was told by Earin support this is a software problem and a patch in on the way, first for Android then iOS.

Noise Cancellation:
My understanding is these earbuds supposed to come with active noise cancellation. However, I cannot feel any such effect. Obviously being an earbud it's already very good at isolating noise. However, I feel no improvement whether I connect the Earins to my phone or disable bluetooth. I still hear a little bit of outside noises when no music is playing. I know this is not the most thorough test. I do, however, hear the effect of Transparency on/off which proves it has a microphone and circuit to transfer background sound into my ears.

With all the above, I still like them. It's a big improvement over the ZNT AirFits True I bought from Amazon. It beats those in sound quality, size, and wireless connectivity by a lot. However, at $250 (2.5x of ZNT), this is expected. At this point, I'd give Earin M-2 90 out of 100. And, I am having a hard time justifying the price given the flaws listed above. I may end up returning it and wait for the product to be a little more mature.

Comfort, Control, Battery life and Portability:

They are really small and very comfortable. They sit flush in the ears and completely invisible, very low profile. I don't feel any earlobe pain after long use.

The earbud controls are capacitive and touch sensitive. This means a simple light touch on the side is needed instead of a push. This is great because you don't have to push hard which hurt the ears of some if you wanted to pause music. The touch controls are basic, one tap to pause/play or answers calls, two taps for next song or to end call or reject incoming call, three taps for previous song and long press to activate voices assistant.

The charging case is really small (4 inches tall and 0.8 inch widest part). They are very pocketable than the charging case of the Jabra Elite 65t that I own. It’s also made of aluminium adding that premium feel to the touch. Earin have chosen to use micro USB (Micro B), I have no complains but some people might prefer USB C. The charging case has three LED lights to indicate the charge of the case. Inside the case are LED lights for each of the buds. Flashing means its charging and steady means its fully charged. It takes under an hour to fully charge the buds and 1.5 hours to fully charge the case. The earbuds also has LED lights right in the centre of the touch area. When taken out of the case, they flash letting you know its powered on and ready to pair. The ear buds last up to 4 hours on a single charge on a 70% volume and and less than 3 to 2.5 hours when you push the volume around 90% to 100%. I can easily reach 4.5 to 5 hours of play time on lower volumes around 50% which are my normal listening volume for this earbuds. The case provides up to 3 charges.


Connectivity and Pairing:

Although using an old Bluetooth 4.2, connectivity is stable. Similar to my Jabra Elite 65t, the earbuds did not skip connections from my iPhone X even in highly crowded areas and in the train.

There are no left or right labels on the IEMs as they feature an auto channel selection. The buds themselves have built-in accelerometer that helps with the L/R channel auto assign.

Each of the earbuds can both work as a master or slave. Both earbuds contains the CSR chipset (unlike the 65t which is only on the right side), whichever of the earbuds connects to the device first, it will be the master and the other earbud will use its NFMI to communicate with the master earbud. The two earbuds can also be connected to separate Bluetooth devices, and in this way used as single headsets on two devices. The only thing I think

First time pairing process is a bit cumbersome as you need to pair both earbuds to your phone. This is needed for the auto channel selection and for the master and slave swapping to work. To pair the earbuds, you take out one earbud first and pair and then take out the other earbud and pair. When paired, they auto connect to the last paired device automatically. The first earbud to connect the device will be the master and the other earbud will be the slave.

These earbuds feature aptX codec. This is a huge plus for people using Android, but for me as an iOS user, I'm currently fine with AAC on iPhone and aptX on my MacBook Pro.


NFMI connectivity (compared to Jabra 65t):

The NFMI in the Earin is really good, they are using an NFMI chip designed by NXP. Doing research on FCCID website (www.fccid.io), it seems Earin is using a frequency of 10.578Mhz while the Jabra Elite 65t uses 10.6Mhz. The NFMI connection between the earbuds is very stable, the slave earbud never loses connection to the master earbud, while in my 65t the left earbud always loses connection, especially if I go near on places with lots of CFL lights or if I go inside a mobile phone shops with lots of turned on demo phones or in shops with CCTV cameras that uses the 10.6Mhz frequency. The left side of my Jabra Elite 65t is also a lot louder than the right side, however the loudness equalises when I pushed the volume around 80%. On lower volumes, the L/R channel is slightly imbalanced. It could be that my Jabra 65t is defective but trying two pairs of 65t in the store yields the same result. The Earin on the other hand did not have these kinds of problem.


Microphone and Calls:

They feature two microphone per earbud (Similar to the 65t) and one mic is used for noise cancelling during calls. The sensitivity of the mics are a bit on the lower side than the 65t but what impressed me the most if how much noise it blocks out than the 65t. Compared to the 65t, even in a very noisy environment, callers did not here much of the noise and they can clearly here my voice. The 65t on the other hand had some difficulties filtering some of noise.

Only one earbud work for calls. Whichever of the earbuds is the assigned master, this will be the one used for call. This is problematic since if you happen to place the one earbud in your left ear first, that will be the assigned master. Some people find weird answering calls with sound coming only on their left ear as some people are accustomed answering calls in their right side of the ear. My solution was to take out one bud first and place it on my right ear (the one I use mostly for calls) which will auto connect to my iPhone and will be assigned as the master, and then place the other earbud in my left ear which will be assigned as the slave. This way, the right side is always used for calls.

The earbuds feature a sound transparency similar of that of the Jabra Elite 65t. I really do not use this feature so I can't say anything about it but running a quick test, you can clearly hear the person talking to you and adjust the sensitivity of the mics and volume to your preference. You can also set automatic to automatically turn on sound transparency when you pause your music.


Ear tip rolling:

The earbuds uses a 5mm diameter nozzle and is 6mm long, can easily fit standard ear tips. You can see from the image attached I'm using the Sony hybrid ear tips.


Phone app:

Earin provides and app to control the sound transparency feature and adjust the L/R balance. There is no built-in EQ, so this will be a bummer for some. I do hope Earin will release an app which includes an EQ in the future. The app also show the battery life of the earbuds. The earbuds does not display any battery percentage on the battery widget on iOS (unlike the Jabra), the battery level is visible only in the app but it’s a simple circle and no numerical indicators. However, I have never tested this on Android as I don't own any Android phones/tablet anymore. The app also provides firmware updates for the earbuds, however this is not available at the moment according to Earin but will be coming soon. The firmware version is currently visible on Android while on iOS, the firmware version is not visible. Earin said this was a bug and will roll out a new app for iOS.

There are two version numbers viewable in the app, CSR and NXP. It could mean than we can both update the firmwares of the CSR chip (responsible for the codec and bluetooth) and the NXP chip (responsible for NFMI).


Sound Analysis:

Now, this is the one that all have been waiting for. These are IEMs in the end of the day so sound is the most important overall. The earbuds do feature a single full range balanced armature (Probably a Knowles RAB-Series based on my analysis after removing the cloth mesh filter. Don't worry, I returned the mesh in place. Don't want dirt to get in to the armature).

The sound signature is warm neutral and with slightly boost in the sub bass region. I've been listening to my UMPro50 v2 for a long time as they are my daily driver specially for commute to work. Compare to them, they sound above average and would consider them a good all rounder for a single balanced armature let alone being a true wireless one.


Bass:

The bass is deep, punchy and does not bleed in the mids. The overall bass is comparable to my Westone UMPro50 v2 with a slight increase on the sub bass region and the bass is a bit lower than my UMPro50 v2. Listening to some EDM, RnB and Hip Hop in my collection, I can definitely hear the sub bass and bass, fast, thumpy, clear and free from any distortion. The feeling though is different. It still has that rumble, but not on the level of big dynamic drivers. Compared to my Jabra Elite 65t though, I find the Earin to be a bit more bassier on the sub bass region (ironic since the 65t probably uses dynamic drivers). All in all, a very good quality sub bass and bass that is accurate and fast but adds that small notch to give you that slight warm and fun to the sound.


Mids:

The mids are lush and rich, they are also the part thats a bit dominant than the bass and highs but not by much. There is a decent amount of separation in the instruments. Vocals sound great for both male and female voices. The overall linearity of the mids is flat.


Highs:

The highs are really good and above average for a single balance armature, they extend around 16khz, which is a standard on most typical single balanced armature. Linearity is flat, this means there is no high peaks which introduces that "tisss" and sibilance sound. What impressed me is despite the warm sound signature, the highs are still clear. You can still hear it if the music demands for it. Cymbals and high hats sounds natural. Not boosted but still fairly clear and natural. Although some who crave that boosted treble may find the highs lacking that sparkle at the end.


Conclusion:

Compared to my 65t, I find the Earin M-2 a very good sounding true wireless IEM. For lovers of a warm and flat sound signature, I would recommend them. Call quality is great, connectivity is great. Overall a happy and great purchase.

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