Here some first random impressions about the
Tronsmart Apollo Bold, I know some are eager to pull the trigger on those, especially with that coupon on several amazons. Disclaimer: Tronsmart sent me these for review. I promise I won’t tell you those are awesome (when they are not) or try to sell you flaws as new features with a southern drawl
What I will do though: I will be patient with these buds and give them an extra fair chance (like I did with my Sony XM3, those needed lots of tip rolling & time to fall in love with)
TL;DR: yeah, go ahead and place that order, especially if it’s amazon and you can return if you really dislike them. Sound is subjective and my ears are old.
But overall I am liking these quite some!
For those who have not followed the topic, these are pretty much the Cleer Ally Plus (in a cheaper looking, round, window less plastic case), according to
FCC they are electronically identical, now, does that mean they are sonically the same? Only someone with both sets will be able to answer this
ANC: Yes, it’s there! And pretty effective. And maybe even better once I found the perfect tips. I tried a few and right now I have SpinFits CP155 on (with the wider bore, as the Apollos have oval-ish nozzles which can be tricky to find ideal tips for).
I have tested with fans around the house and the ANC reminds me of what I heard with the Sonys when I tried them first. It cycles through ambient-ambient off, ANC on just like the Sonys (triple click on either bud). As of now it is not as impressive as the APP nor Sony (but might be getting there) but it’s better than the Dyplay BCQ35 and (from memory) those Bonolo I got a long while ago.
UI: I really like the way they mapped the functionality, pretty much by what I need most / more often: Volume first! Tap right one - vol up, left vol down. Tapping twice, play pause. triple tap: cycling through anc / ambient / off. To skip ahead / back a track, tap right / left for 2 seconds to go fwd / rewind. Not too finicky, adjusting the buds does not immediately pause music.
Hey, that ‘take out of ear and music pauses’ actually works
Now,
sound is something I rather let the better ear equipped people talk in depth about.
My brass ears are very happy with what they get to hear so far, but for one I will need some more time with them to just go through many different genres (right now I am listening to some ambient pling pling music) and I want to give them a chance to open up a bit (or burn in or whatever). Top of my head I want to say I am like 80-83% as impressed as a was with the xm3, but this must surely be 'new toy' effect and I should not jump to conclusions.
Things I am not 100% happy (just yet):
Fit! While not terrible (by a long shot), I doubt I will take those out on a run. They do stick out a bit (less weight than the xm3 IMHO and far less out compared to Bose SSF)
They seem a bit loose, there are no wings, but maybe I find super grippy ear tips some day. I would also not mind finding some tips that give me 1 or 2 extra mm to jam those deeper into my earholes. But this is still matter of research.
Now, one ‘out of competition’ thing, something that nearly ruined my afternoon: While trying to use them on different sources (like my AptX Tempotec) I managed to screw them up somehow in the connection department. Most likely they disconnected from each other. Lo and behold, the short manual written in precise English has not one but 2 suggestions on how to fix this.
There is a ‘tap each 5 times respectively’ method (after you made sure they are disconnected, how would I do that?) …
and there is a 5 second hold-tap for reset.
Unfortunately both methods seem to be super finicky and it is not super clear what is going on. For most of the time I never got the white / red blinking light the manual spoke about … long story short, by sheer number of trials and some added magic, they are now connected to my phone again and work well. But this experience has traumatized me, I won't try to connect to anything else for a while until I find out a reliable way to get into ‘pairing mode' (and if 'looking for device' means pairing to source or pairing to other bud)
Now I am very curious what the sound people will say.
update: testing now with
‘clone’ Powerbeats Pro tips, biggest size. And much improved in ANC and ‘more’ bass, not sure yet if that’s also better ...
.
) or put something on top of the buds when closing the case to make sure they are pressed down.
