Hi, again!
After a couple of days thinking about the Nuarl N6 Pro, I finally purchased a pair of Galaxy Buds + for 131€ on Amazon.es
I updated the firmware etc to the latest one and started using them with my iPhone 11 Pro Max, and after few minutes testing the presets I ended up quickly in Dynamic EQ setup. The other options sounded like pure garbage lol.
Then, 4-5 hours of music. I tried like 40-50 songs I’ve listened a thousand times with different cans to test the buds. Based on how I know where and when should I expect certain reactions from the driver, having a more or less trained ear I should say that it’s not that they’re bad, but they’re not good either.
The overall sound, specially bass is muffled and sounds edgy. I'm not a basshead but it's insufficient no matter how you see it. The buds struggle to perform sub bass, and while the bass is liquid, not punchy, not bad, the amount needed in the track to make them work is absolutely ridiculous. Also you need to have a 65%+ volume to move the thing properly which is above more than average for what I used to have.
The treble is nice, nothing wrong with that, perform well with vocals, videos/podcast and it’s also ok with some acoustic music (obviously I don’t expect audiophile performance).
The soundstage is weird as ****, inconsistent. While they have a decent wide one it seems like it’s somehow emulated through some kind of software effect or whatever, cause certain spots they decide to trim parts in a strange way. It's my first time with a BT audio device and maybe this is an usual problem but, after hearing same track with different cans one after the other is even more obvious. This is noticeable with orchestras and music with a lot of different layers.
They are comfortable, but the tactile controls seems to be resistive and not capacitive because they play / pause the music just while laying on the bed or the couch, which is horrible. I mean, if you’re going to do that I just prefer buttons.
Overall, the experience it's not that bad, but only if they costed like... ¿60$? LOL Not at 150$ price tag (or 120, or even 100).
At this point I'm thinking in pulling the trigger on the Nuarl N6 Pro and take a leap of faith due the lack of actual reviews / comparisons. My ideal profile is the one of Beyer DT 770, plain and a little fun, and maybe I'm obssesed with the Nuarl because I read somewhere that they were like the DT 770's and the fact that I can't get em easily makes them more appealing hah.
TLDR; I was looking for a TWS decent audio earbuds. Purchased Galaxy Buds+ and I’m disappointed. Any suggestion on other options with better quality? I don’t consider Jabra Elite due to pairing problems.
There are a bunch of N6P impressions posted here, from the most prominent posters, but this thread is so big that they get lost in the storm. I got these dates below based on photos I took for the reviews, but they review might have been posted within a day or two of those dates.
I think I posted some N6P impressions around 5/2/20 (the pair that arrived 4/30/20 were defective), and some Jabra 75t impressions around 5/14/20, and some Sony WF-SP800N impressions around 5/21/20, if you scroll back to those dates. In the last one I summarized some my experiences. I also posted a full review of the Sennheiser MTW in the review section around 4/21/20.
The N6P sound better than most of my true wireless, but I only use them at home when I can tolerate the higher passive noise blocking without a transparency mode (the lack of which makes phone calls without removing an earpiece harder for me). When I need to be out and about with a transparency mode to hear my surroundings I had to use my MTW or AirPods Pro, where the MTW sound better but the APP transparency mode is better, so a conundrum. I started looking for one that could do everything.
Based on sound, and IF I had to get rid of most of my TW then I'd keep the MTW for the laid back and punchy sound with transparency mode available, and the N6P for more critical listening. I like the GBuds+ and Jabra 75t for their transparency mode and phone calls, but they are not the best for music.
I get better quality bass with my GBuds+ than Jabra (NOT muffled) and both are good for phones calls. With a good seal the GBuds+ bass is deep and strong for me, nothing like you describe. But the GBuds+ treble is sometimes a little sharp and the frequency response is somewhat v-shaped which is helped with the dynamic EQ but that makes the treble worse.
At least the Jabra 75t are easier to EQ in the app with 5 sliders, where I turn down the lowest bass, turn up the lower midrange, leave the midrange flat, turn up the lower treble, and turn down the high treble - the curve looks like a 2-hump wave or an "M" shape EQ curve. The transparency mode in the Buds+ was doing weird things, so I am waiting to see how the update fixes that, but while the Jabra transparency mode has more hiss it's still useable with a lot of pop music that drowns out the hiss (no hiss with transparency off).
I don't have to EQ the N6P at all, and they fit my ear canals to tightly that no sound can get in and they seal well. But then when I'm talking on a phone call I hear my own voice resonate inside my head and I can't tell how loud I am actually talking in the phone call - So I either try to talk quieter than my voice will allow and it cracks, or talk louder so that my voice can penetrate through the seal from the outside.
The GBuds+ and Jabra are more comfortable for me than the N6P because the N6P are larger and tighter. But, if I want comfort I can fall back to my Sennheiser MTW - my only wish with those was to have the transparency mode be just a little louder and I wouldn't have been rolling through different buds to try their features.
Also, I AM UNABLE to use the GBuds+ controls through pressure or laying on them, and must touch them with a finger or body part to activate the buttons - not sure how yours do that laying down.
