[Blueshound24]

In my experience, having owned the MTW, sony XM3's, Liberty 2 Pro, Liberty 2, and Nuarl NT01AX - and evaluating for SQ (#1), portability, and call quality (matters a lot to me):

MTW sound was *good* but veiled in some way - and the bass was very present but masked. - the case wasn't very portable, and calls were horrible (I had them before the firmware update).

XM3 - I was very disappointed with the sound. Felt as though the sound was constrained in all dimensions, had a little bit of white noise floor (not much, but like what you hear with ANC even with ANC off) - but I was disappointed by the sound overall - bass, highs - I didn't like listening to the Sony's as much as I had anticipated, being a fan of Sony house sound. Way too expensive, case wasn't portable. Calls were not good.

Liberty 2 Pro - I couldn't stand the crossover from the BA to DD - treble was peaky with recessed mids and bombastic (but enjoyable) levels of bass. Loved the case, call quality.

Liberty 2 - Better than the Pro imo - for cheaper. Better mids and, honestly, highs than the Pro (for me) though they are a teensie bit sibilant to my treble sensitive ears. . Same great case as the Pro. NEEDS A MANUAL EQ

Nuarl - I've had these the longest, they are the simplest, but they are my favorite sound out of all of the above - out of the box, no EQ. Some others have said they have white noise, I have virtually none. The case is tiny. I have never had a single complaint with calls and they isolate better than the Liberty 2.


My suggestion is the Liberty 2 from Amazon to try them, and then plan on buying the successor to the NT01AX from Nuarl with me: https://www.atpress.ne.jp/news/195600



@hifi80sman I like the L2 better than Pro for SQ and cost. However, I still love my Nuarl.... have you owned them? Given our tonal preference similarities, I'd suspect a bad pair if you didn't enjoy these..

Thanks for the great mini reviews!

If one was looking for a good budget TWS I believe someone mentioned the EarFun Free, Kissral UFO, SSK TWS, as having good balanced but yet dynamic sound. Is that still the consensus? Out of those I mentioned or some other recommended which would be the most dynamic, yet balanced sound?

(I don't care about call quality, I put sound quality as more important, if that makes any difference on recommendations)

 

[hifi80sman]

In my experience, having owned the MTW, sony XM3's, Liberty 2 Pro, Liberty 2, and Nuarl NT01AX - and evaluating for SQ (#1), portability, and call quality (matters a lot to me):

MTW sound was *good* but veiled in some way - and the bass was very present but masked. - the case wasn't very portable, and calls were horrible (I had them before the firmware update).

XM3 - I was very disappointed with the sound. Felt as though the sound was constrained in all dimensions, had a little bit of white noise floor (not much, but like what you hear with ANC even with ANC off) - but I was disappointed by the sound overall - bass, highs - I didn't like listening to the Sony's as much as I had anticipated, being a fan of Sony house sound. Way too expensive, case wasn't portable. Calls were not good.

Liberty 2 Pro - I couldn't stand the crossover from the BA to DD - treble was peaky with recessed mids and bombastic (but enjoyable) levels of bass. Loved the case, call quality.

Liberty 2 - Better than the Pro imo - for cheaper. Better mids and, honestly, highs than the Pro (for me) though they are a teensie bit sibilant to my treble sensitive ears. . Same great case as the Pro. NEEDS A MANUAL EQ

Nuarl - I've had these the longest, they are the simplest, but they are my favorite sound out of all of the above - out of the box, no EQ. Some others have said they have white noise, I have virtually none. The case is tiny. I have never had a single complaint with calls and they isolate better than the Liberty 2.


My suggestion is the Liberty 2 from Amazon to try them, and then plan on buying the successor to the NT01AX from Nuarl with me: https://www.atpress.ne.jp/news/195600



@hifi80sman I like the L2 better than Pro for SQ and cost. However, I still love my Nuarl.... have you owned them? Given our tonal preference similarities, I'd suspect a bad pair if you didn't enjoy these..

I actually picked up the Nural, but ended up returning. No complaints, really, other than the price I just felt was too high. I expect some kind of metal...somewhere! I'm fickle, I know.

 

[actorlife]

Anbes-SSK Joy.
SSK were a gift from an awesome Head-Fi forum member. I am most grateful and thrilled with this surprise gift. Thank you Sir. I will say these SSK sound just as great as the Anbes with a tiny I mean tiny bit brighter with the SSK. Enjoy the pics.

Thank you for indulging me.

 

[XGUGU]

Oh i agree. My question is will they fit in the case? Not worth taking them on and off for daily use. Most manufacturers are trying to keep the case so small the stems are so small you can’t make any adjustments and still for the case.

Oh! We have to see that in person or see some close pics but actually I'm afraid they got proprietary eartips or irregular. Not even a nozzle. Comply or any other tip wont fit them.

 

[Minarets]

Oh! We have to see that in person or see some close pics but actually I'm afraid they got proprietary eartips or irregular. Not even a nozzle. Comply or any other tip wont fit them.

of course they would. No clue why I didn’t assume Apple would do that.

 

[Caipirina]

Oh! We have to see that in person or see some close pics but actually I'm afraid they got proprietary eartips or irregular. Not even a nozzle. Comply or any other tip wont fit them.

Replacement tips will cost arm&leg. But Chinese clones will be on AliX soon

 

[XGUGU]

Oh i agree. My question is will they fit in the case? Not worth taking them on and off for daily use. Most manufacturers are trying to keep the case so small the stems are so small you can’t make any adjustments and still for the case.

Oh! We have to see that in person or see some close pics but actually I'm afraid they got proprietary eartips or irregular. Not even a nozzle. Comply or any other tip wont fit them.

Replacement tips will cost arm&leg. But Chinese clones will be on AliX soon

Of course. Lol. I just see impossible fitting longer tips.

 

[SilverEars]

Oh! We have to see that in person or see some close pics but actually I'm afraid they got proprietary eartips or irregular. Not even a nozzle. Comply or any other tip wont fit them.

About time they implemented a sealing system. I don't know what took them so long? I will be checking out how well the ANC performs for sure as I'm curious how well Apple can implement ANC (very practical feature that I'm looking for in TW iems). WFXM3 was a disappointment. Also, I'm wondering what the performance of the mic will be. Will there be a good performing ambiant noise filering implemented? I was quite impressed with Bose NC 700's mic ambient noise filering, and if both ANC and ambient noise filtering are implemented to be top performing, I would really dig it.

Does airpods work fine with Android phones, and are there features that's not on Android phones that are on iphones?

 

[bubsdaddy]

I ordered the new AirPods pro. Because I took them up on the free engraving I won’t get them until next week.

 

[clerkpalmer]

Does airpods work fine with Android phones, and are there features that's not on Android phones that are on iphones?

I am going to use them with android. They should work fine. Some features like the ar, battery meter and pairing will not be as good Hopefully all the good stuff works. They have touch controls so hopefully the compromise will be minimal. Edit - i hope apple can pull off what sony couldn't.

 

[SilverEars]

I am going to use them with android. They should work fine. Some features like the ar, battery meter and pairing will not be as good Hopefully all the good stuff works. They have touch controls so hopefully the compromise will be minimal. Edit - i hope apple can pull off what sony couldn't.

65t is still my gym iem, and what's interesting is when I pull out the earpiece and put it on, it automatically connect to my Android phone (if bluetooth was turned on already), or when I turn on the bluetooth.

Does Apple take another step further only with iphones? When you open up the case, iphone connects with the earpieces automatically? Is this one of the purpose of the W1 chip?

 

[clerkpalmer]

65t is still my gym iem, and what's interesting is when I pull out the earpiece and put it on, it automatically connect to my Android phone (if bluetooth was turned on already), or when I turn on the bluetooth.

Does Apple take another step further only with iphones? When you open up the case, iphone connects with the earpieces automatically? Is this one of the purpose of the W1 chip?

Yeah that's what I meant by pairing. It's not as seamless across devices.

 

[micr0be]

A question for this thread, I own the new KZ E10 TWS and my bluetooth connection to them (from all devices) is horrendous, I mean It connects fine to everything I own so far but every single thing loses signal if its not ludicrously in front of my face or at an angle where it can see both ears otherwise I only hear one ear. I tried going outside in case of severe interference but It was at best just as bad.
I even tried disabling aptX hoping it would make some kind of difference but not really.

Maybe my ears are so big that they're covering the receivers, I don't know anymore.

 

[erich6]

I ordered the AirPods Pro. I’m very interested to see how well the fitting algorithm, adaptive EQ and noise cancelling works. Apple didn’t Rush this so I’m hoping they keep the AirPods excellent legacy going.

 

[rhsauer]

A note for those of you with an iPhone 11:

I just "upgraded" my iPhone 11 Pro Max from iOS 13.2 beta 4 to the final release of 13.2, connected my Sony WF-1000XM3s to my iPhone 11 Pro Max, and tried to record a voice memo -- and the Bluetooth connection dropped almost immediately. And a second time ... and a third time. This is a problem that happened with some regularity before I upgraded last week to 13.2 beta 4, when it seemed to get better -- but with the final release of 13.2 the problem is worse than ever.

The problem is persistent but happens randomly. If I record a few voice memos, the Bluetooth connection will eventually drop -- and the Bluetooth connection will randomly drop during phone calls too, making these earphones essentially useless on this phone. So whatever seemed like Apple fixed in 13.2 beta 4 is now certainly broken again in the final release of 13.2. I've been having the same problem with the Liberty 2 Pros.

Also, when I connect Bluetooth earphones to my iPhone and check the connection speed on my Mac via Console I find that the earphones are generally connecting at very low connection speeds -- 160kbps or 192kbps (in the case of the Soundcore Liberty 2 Pros) or even as low as 127kbps (in the case of the Sonys). (The Jabra 65t's connect at 256kbps, so not all headphones have horrible connection speeds.) The effect of these low connection speeds on the sound quality is very noticeable -- Apple Music sounds like it's transmitting 128kbps MP3s from 2004.

To demonstrate that the problem is with the iPhone 11, I connected the same earphones to my 10.5" iPad Pro and the connection speed is generally rock solid at 244kpbs or 256kpbs. Also, about a week ago I exchanged my iPhone 11 Pro Max for a second iPhone 11 Pro Max because the first was just as bad -- so something is very wrong with Apple's Bluetooth implementation on the iPhone. Frankly, I'm not optimistic that this can be fixed with an OS update -- since these problems have persisted through several iOS updates, it feels more like the problem might be a hardware flaw in the iPhone's Bluetooth implementation. Ugh.

I have the new AirPod Pros coming on Thursday, and I'll bet the connection on Apple's own earphones is rock solid -- but we'll see. Unfortunately, I have numerous pairs of non-Apple bluetooth earphones that are essentially borked at this point. Very disappointed in Apple.

Are others with an iPhone 11 having any of the same issues?