Going fully Wireless IEMs. Too soon? Or are we there yet?

[Not so fat head]

I'm a lot of fun. What are you even talking about? Clearly by my sig I'm not cheap, not even including the things I've bought and sold which is many more, but I still make price to performance ratio calls, that means I'm so serious and not fun? too rich.

Methinks you are simply misusing that phrase - because it has it's places, but this was certainly not one of them.

Maybe he meant Fungi…. Like mold or yeast..

 

[darkness Angel]

Hopefully one-day iems will move to wireless rather than Bluetooth. I don't think we're there yet. Using a portable Bluetooth DAC/amp is the way to go right now

 

[cresny]

Being part of the Samsung group, I wonder if they’re tuned by AKG? My GB2P’s say AKG tuned on the box..

The Tour Pro 3 and AKG N9 Hybrid share the same app with a very slight style differences. I'm using both exclusively for the time being. I'm guessing they share some DSP tech. The N9 in particular has incredible detail isolation that seems to be DSP rather than drivers. Both also have very good call quality.

 

[darkness Angel]

I may have to give a pair a try. Havnt heard any good DSP iems yet

 

[SilverEars]

Soon... there are quadbrid DD + EST + BC + BA driver TWS iems in the works from Kinera, other companies will follow once the gold rush starts.

The hard part is selling people on a $1000 TWS that will be landfill garbage in under 5 years when the battery dies. For me, the Noble Triumph was pretty groundbreaking with the sound quality

Well, 5 years isn't terrible, however, yeah, the battery life would degrade over time. I highly doubt decent lasting battery to achieve so many drivers inside them. It better sound like $1000, I personally don't even find any wired to sound like $1000 even if they are price $10,000. lol Wouldn't be surprised if there is some crazy mofo charging those price right now. Price is subjective I know, but in my subjective view, they all not worth whatever they ask for!!

They better cut my grass and fetch me beer too, and then I may consider.

 

[darkness Angel]

Well, 5 years isn't terrible, however, yeah, the battery life would degrade over time. I highly doubt decent lasting battery to achieve so many drivers inside them. It better sound like $1000, I personally don't even find any wired to sound like $1000 even if they are price $10,000. lol Wouldn't be surprised if there is some crazy mofo charging those price right now. Price is subjective I know, but in my subjective view, they all not worth whatever they ask for!!

They better cut my grass and fetch me beer too, and then I may consider.

Are we talking wireless quadbrid iems? I like kinera, but bet I'd still prefer wired till we start seeing some cheaper sets.

 

[Juturna]

I have been using the JBL Tour Pro 3 a lot these last couple of weeks and my experience with them is certainly mixed.

At first I thought they sounded awful, bass-bloated mess. But after using the Club EQ Preset and then Wavelet to increase sub-bass, lower the mid-bass and in general boosting the mids they sound quite good.

But **** ME, are they buggy sometimes.
I've had multiple instances where ANC literally disappears from the rotation of modes so you only have Ambient sound and ANC off available, you can't even toggle it on in the app...
Some weird behavior during calls where they automatically muted themselves in the middle of a call and I didn't even know how to turn it off... And they also hung up on calls as well.

Except for that, they've been pretty good. I'm sad that they don't allow you to use spatial audio or your personalized EQ with LDAC though, that is just... Not great.

 

[darkness Angel]

I had a set of Klipsch wireless earbuds. Worst 200 spent. Nothing but charging issues. They replaced earpieces 6 times before I gave up.

 

[JackNarrow]

Those could be using hardware upgrades, such as upgraded or better mics, which are integral to both good and and transparency mode.

But they did already have good mics since the call quality is so good.

If it's just software updates then that's just more proof of crappy business practices.

Yes indeed. The mics are excellent with the 10 and gen 2. I read in the jabra subreddit that there was a teardown and the internal bits appeared to be identical with the two models... Not sure how true that was though..

I had the 10 and gen 2 and I can tell you that I couldn't see a physical difference between the 2. They fit in each other cases too..

It's actually a real shame as the gen 2 are seriously good but hard to recommend given the situation with support and potential updates.

 

[Whitigir]

A pair came in the box, but I've abandoned them for the Azla.

Thanks! I didnt bother checking those LOL!!! You have a link to Azla ?

 

[cr3ativ3]

It's a confusing mess. Yes, it works. But yes, you need to turn off bt or disconnect then wait (which sometimes takes a min) to get the adapter to connect to the buds. It won't work on a few of my buds. Says it's connected but then I hear nothing. The app is buggy, sometimes disconnects and I have to be patient to get it to reconnect. It works great with my Noble Triumphs, PI8 and Tour Pro 3, but not others. YMMV. I don't regret getting it. But if you think you can rely on it... nope. It'll just live in my collection for when I'm home and want to do LDAC or aptX on the above mentioned buds.

thanks.. i think i just use aac which just works ..

 

[cresny]

I have been using the JBL Tour Pro 3 a lot these last couple of weeks and my experience with them is certainly mixed.

At first I thought they sounded awful, bass-bloated mess. But after using the Club EQ Preset and then Wavelet to increase sub-bass, lower the mid-bass and in general boosting the mids they sound quite good.

But **** ME, are they buggy sometimes.
I've had multiple instances where ANC literally disappears from the rotation of modes so you only have Ambient sound and ANC off available, you can't even toggle it on in the app...
Some weird behavior during calls where they automatically muted themselves in the middle of a call and I didn't even know how to turn it off... And they also hung up on calls as well.

Except for that, they've been pretty good. I'm sad that they don't allow you to use spatial audio or your personalized EQ with LDAC though, that is just... Not great.

I had the exact same ANC toggle issue yesterday. Very annoying but I was commuting on my bike so I just reset them on the spot. As for LDAC vs all the other features, the AKG gives you the same Hobson's Choice, which reinforces my thinking that the AKG are the Tour Pro 3 blown up to over-ears format. I choose LDAC; I found the hearing test created a sound signature that was too bright and detailed to be pleasant, and I never mess with EQs.

A lot of people don't know that Harman Kardon makes most of its money in more open environment applications of sound, like car audio, etc. Stuff like that requires a lot of dynamic signal processing. Whatever they do there seems to be trickling down into their consumer audio products.

 

[SilverEars]

I had the exact same ANC toggle issue yesterday. Very annoying but I was commuting on my bike so I just reset them on the spot. As for LDAC vs all the other features, the AKG gives you the same Hobson's Choice, which reinforces my thinking that the AKG are the Tour Pro 3 blown up to over-ears format. I choose LDAC; I found the hearing test created a sound signature that was too bright and detailed to be pleasant, and I never mess with EQs.

A lot of people don't know that Harman Kardon makes most of its money in more open environment applications of sound, like car audio, etc. Stuff like that requires a lot of dynamic signal processing. Whatever they do there seems to be trickling down into their consumer audio products.

Interesting. I guess the JBL side of things weren't refined as well as GB3P for release. Which isn't surprising given GB3P is Samsung's flagship that's expected to sell. But even with GB3P, there was the tearing of the tips, which is Samsung for ya.

I do think that airplane adapter feature is a cool idea. I wish they all had that. Not sure how useful that LCD screen on the case is.

I would like to hear a comparison between GBP3 and the JBL. Is there differences I wonder.

I didn't have any real issues with GBP3 since I got them. Only thing was being able to see the charge level for the case, and recently realized you have to place an earpiece in the case to see the charge level show up, which is a minor nuisance for me.

If I compare to Hauwei freebuds pro 3, I like the ANC and battery life by a mile on it compared to Samsung. Samsung has better sound quality, but that's about it. ANC is good, but not as good as Hauwei. I want all these qualities of Hauwei, but with some good ass SQ. Like, wind noise is reduced with Hauwei (this is uncommon), it's ANC is crazy good. Hauwei isolates ambient sounds like a mofo. It's really impressive that I really like it for that alone, and once you really get good ANC, it's hard to go back. ANC is very practical in a convenience sense to rid of the noise.

Hauwei charges super fast, and battery last a LOOOONG time. This is a very good feature for convenience. Very under-rated feature IMO. A lot of these characteristics of Hauwei makes it a top choice IMO. I weigh what it does best as really important features for the overall experience.

My ideal audio listening is with hardly any ambient noise, and ANC would give me that anywhere, so that's the convenience. This is especially important for people that do not have the luxury to have a very sound isolated room.

 

[dweaver]

I think it was @SilverEars who mentioned the GB3P not having a case battery level indicator anymore.

I also am noticing this missing. Doesn't seem to be anyway to tell what the battery life is anymore aside from the led indicator on the case. Frustrating as this used to exist in the wear app...

EDIT: Just found out if I put one bud back in the case it then tells me the case battery level. Somewhat silly implementation.

 

[SilverEars]

I think it was @SilverEars who mentioned the GB3P not having a case battery level indicator anymore.

I also am noticing this missing. Doesn't seem to be anyway to tell what the battery life is anymore aside from the led indicator on the case. Frustrating as this used to exist in the wear app...

EDIT: Just found out if I put one bud back in the case it then tells me the case battery level. Somewhat silly implementation.

I wonder how it generally works? How does Hauwei figure the case charge level as soon as you open up the app. Or even more conveniently, the Sony as soon as you put it on or even when about to place it in the case, which is the most convenient.

does the case have a bluetooth transmitter?