Introduction
Moondrop at this point is a company that needs no introduction. They are known for some market disruptive IEMs such as the budget Chu and mid-fi Blessing 2 that brought excellent audio quality to lower price points. Not to mention, their signature use of cartoon girl mascots on almost every product box. Case in point, the Moondrop Robin is another drop in their ocean of releases this time in collaboration with gacha game Honkai: Star Rail, showcasing one of their characters, Robin.
Initially retailing at US$99 and now US$119.99 (post-2025 tariffs), these TWS earbuds are relatively affordable and within reach for good number of people.
Without further ado, let’s get into the review. For testing and evaluation, I’m using the default “Standard” EQ preset with LDAC enabled and firmware version 1.2.3 on my Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. This unit is on kind loan from a close friend.
Unboxing
Right off the bat, the outer product packaging itself presents itself as eye-catching with its iridescent font and accents, emboldened full-screen printed graphics, and lightly textured surface. Regardless of one’s taste in anime, there’s no denying that the production quality of the packaging alone is surprisingly unexpected at this price point.
The back of the sleeve harbours the technical information and specs of the Robins, including its frequency response. More on the sound later.
Removing the outer sleeve would greet you with an iridescent print of Robin herself on the inner box. Taking its cover off reveals the quick start guide and hefty acrylic brick, which again, is not something expected of a TWS package especially at this price.
Below that are finally the TWS charging case and leatherette case cover which genuinely feels quality and soft to the touch.
Nestled within the charging case are the TWS earbuds themselves. Its pseudo custom shell design is reminiscent of Moondrop’s own Variations, but thankfully they’re not as big and feel much more ergonomic.
Last but not least, at the bottom of the box, we have the accessories. There’s a manual, QC card, Type-A to Type-C USB charging cable, and a variety of tips including spring tips, wide bore tips, and more.
Build Quality & Comfort
The build quality of the case and earbuds are consistent with the rest of the package; they feel premium, and much thought and care have been put into producing them. So much so that it’s anomalous.
The shell comfortably sits flush in my ears, giving me great passive noise isolation as good as most IEMs. As usual, YMMV, but with the number of tip options available included in the box, you’ll probably have a hard time finding one that doesn’t fit.
Sound Quality
I would call the overall tuning to be warm-neutral with a bass boost. The graph on the back of the box is pretty representative of my listening experience. But let’s go a bit deeper into the details.
The Robin’s bass is deep and plentiful. But what it has in quantity, it lacks in quality. Kick drums for example, don’t feel snappy or sharp, as if it has a blunted attack. They feel almost pillowy compared to something like Moondrop’s own Golden Ages TWS and my Samsung Buds3 Pros. Listen too closely and you’ll probably notice missing bass texture and resolution. In my casual listening, details will just fade and smear into the background of busy music tracks, leaving just the bland punchiness of the bass. For a TWS at this price range though, this is merely a nitpick.
Lower mids are generally pretty accurate, so no strange timbre or unnaturalness that I could perceive for the most part. The only thing that might stand out would be both female and male vocals due to the upper mids/treble roll-off past 3Khz for those particularly sensitive in the pinna gain region.
And speaking of which, that roll-off is what shifts its tonal balance to the warm side. The upper mids and treble are recessed, meaning that everything from instruments and vocals sound veiled, like they’re playing through a thin blanket of cloth. It’s not bad especially if you’re sensitive to treble, but comparing it to more neutral sets such as the Truthear Zero:RED and Dunu Titan S highlights the amount of detail and crispness missing in the upper registers. To me, vocals have no sense of air or sparkle, and even high-pitched instruments sound almost muted. Still, it’s somewhat tastefully done without sucking out too much information, and I can see it appeal to those wanting a non-fatiguing TWS. This tuning is clearly an intentional tuning choice, since Moondrop offers EQ presets in their LINK app that can restore those missing frequencies. More on the presets later.
Technicalities
The detail and resolution for the Robins are in the ballpark of average to slightly below average. Bass detail is a bit fuzzy, vocals aren’t the clearest (though that could partly be attributed to the warm tuning), and instrument microdetails are missing from my usual tracks. In this regard, the Robins are handily beat by its similarly priced wired counterparts.
Likewise for its soundstage, the Robins have just a small to average-sized soundstage width. Instruments commonly crowd inside my head and are ever rarely projected past my ears.
Instrument separation isn’t much better either, with instruments feeling packed and no sense of air or space between them, clumping together into walls of sound. Imaging is alright, but not stellar. It’s accurate enough, but severely hampered by its small stage.
All in all, the Robin’s technicalities are easily the weakest points of this product. It’s not going to blow anyone away with its resolution, staging, or instrument separation capabilities. I kinda feel that it’s held back in this regard for the sake of market segmentation, meaning that giving these earbuds exceptional technical qualities might make it
too good of a product and bring it from just a solid entry to a complete market disruptor in the budget TWS space.
Usability and Features
In this section, I’ll fire off my thoughts on the Robin’s general usability and in-app features enabled by the Moondrop LINK app. For the sake of conciseness, I won’t cover features I feel are self-explanatory and minor such as gesture control. To start though, I must mention that quite a number of users online have complained about the usability of the app on iOS. As an Android user however, the app functions just fine. I didn’t experience any crashes or weird bugs at the time of writing.
Bugs – Randomly beams high frequency sounds when using LDAC and won’t stop until they’re back in the case. Rare connection drops.
ANC – Thanks to its IEM-like shell and fit, the Robin’s overall noise cancelling is actually pretty good. It passively blocks as much noise as your standard IEM, plus any additional noise by the ANC algorithm. The ANC itself isn’t the best, but once music starts playing, it’ll pretty much block almost all background noise.
Transparency Mode – It’s quite alright actually, voices come through clear enough, but wind noises are amplified. This mode can benefit from having mic volume settings. Additionally, due to the inherently IEM-like shell, I still sound like I have my ears plugged whenever I’m speaking. I generally find earbuds that adopt a stem-like design with a solid transparency algorithm such as the Apple Airpods Pro or Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro don’t seem to suffer as much from this issue.
Codec Support – Supports SBC, AAC, LDAC, and LC3. The latter two are switched off by default and need to be toggled in the app. LDAC sacrifices the range of the Robins to stream audio at a higher bitrate. Not a worthy trade off in my opinion, especially with the previously mentioned bug.
Light Sensor – Vaguely named “Sensor Settings” in the app, it’s a toggle that apparently utilizes the Robin’s light sensors to control your media based its surroundings for a more “intimate user experience” according to its description, whatever that means. All it seems to do for me is just randomly pause my media, leaving me to permanently switch it off and never touch it again.
Moondrop LINK EQ Presets
Unfortunately, any form of custom PEQ or even GEQ is missing from the app, giving only 5 presets to choose from. I’ll run them by below.
Standard – The stock warm tuning that the Robins come with. Not my personal favourite, though admittedly still a solid tuning.
Ultra Bass – As the name implies, it adds more bass. But it also adds more treble to make it more of a V-shaped tuning. Not really to my liking as it sounds artificial.
POP Style – I could scarcely notice a difference. According to squig.link’s graph database, it’s a mere additional 2db of bass shelf, which would be imperceptible to most. I dare say it’s a redundant preset.
Moondrop Classic – The stock tuning with the upper mids and treble restored, albeit slightly overcompensated and peaky in certain frequencies. Overall, my preferred tuning as I’ve found the default tuning too mellow in the treble.
Monitor – Basically the Classic tuning with less bass. Great choice if you prefer a neutral tuning.
Conclusion
The Moondrop Robin is a well-tuned TWS IEM whose only major fault is only its passable technicalities. Despite having a warm sound signature that I generally don’t lean towards, it can definitely appeal to listeners who prefer mellow treble or are sensitive to higher frequencies. Otherwise, one could switch to the Moondrop Classic preset to improve its tonality.
If you’re a fan of HSR or don’t mind its look, combined with its accessories and build quality, the Moondrop Robins are genuinely one of the best value TWS sets you can get at US$119.99.
