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

[jant71]

I see the DUNU is up on ebay... https://www.ebay.com/itm/154972465894?hash=item2415142ae6:g:7O0AAOSwKaBibUsQ
At least they list the controls and they do everything on board including volume, ambient, and gaming mode.

 

[erockg]

I see the DUNU is up on ebay... https://www.ebay.com/itm/154972465894?hash=item2415142ae6:g:7O0AAOSwKaBibUsQ
At least they list the controls and they do everything on board including volume, ambient, and gaming mode.

I just picked up a pair of the S6 IEMs. Incredibly good, except my Fostex adapters have a static hiss with them in the left bud. FiiO and Shure adapters work flawlessly with them. Thinking it's the adapter and not the buds.

Also, for all those who want to try the TWS IEM adapter world. FiiO has a Prime Day sale on the UTWS3 adapters which work well: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08R75X3BC/ref=crt_ewc_title_dp_1?ie=UTF8&smid=A22OHGD9UPLCGU&th=1

 

[dweaver]

I thought I would start up an impressions thread for the Linkbuds S. That way I won't inundate this thread with to many posts about them.

 

[bladefd]

I own both products and currently prefer the Linkbuds S over the AZ60.

AZ60

Pros:

• good multipoint connectivity
• decent battery life
• excellent fit kit with lots of tip sizes
• premium build quality and materials
• nice small case
• decent large sound stage

Cons

• a bit on the big side.
• a bit uncomfortable at times.
• bass has a bit to much bloom for my liking
• midrange is slightly to warm for me
• treble lacks a bit of detail and sparkle
• occasional complaints from people when using these for phone calls in noisy places.

Linkbuds S

Pros

• very small in ear making them the most comfortable TWS I have bought, so far no hot spots from them at all
• quality of life features work well if you take the time to train and use them.
• app offers good insight into usage.
• nice small case
• Sony hybrid tips are always super comfy
• charging from case is pretty fast
• extremely balanced signature that is not boring by being flat or too analytical. to my ears it has none of the sonic cons I listed for the AZ60. This is Sony's best bluetooth based headphone I have owned in regards to signature and balance in the past 4 years or more.
• mic quality on these are better than any other TWS I have owned. My mother is a big gauge for the microphone if she complains about not being to hear me because of to much background noise I know I have an issue and so far she has never complained with these and if I ask her how I sound she mentions I sound good even if there is wind or a far amount of back ground noise.

Cons

• battery life is definitely shorter than AZ60 but features like auto stop sensors, setting up ANC to not run for certain activities or location help improve this issue.
• case battery life is shorter than AZ60
• sound stage is slightly smaller than AZ60

So, if you struggle with the AZ60 being uncomfortable or have any issues with its signature like I have listed, or find the microphone not quite good enough, the Linkbuds S may be a good alternative. If you need multipoint pairing, a bit more battery life, or look at my sonic cons for the AZ60 and think to yourself "he is so wrong!", then the Linkbuds S would not be a good option. In regards to 3D presentation I think they are very equal.

Do Linkbuds S leak sound? I recall the regular Linkbuds were open.

 

[dweaver]

Do Linkbuds S leak sound? I recall the regular Linkbuds were open.

Nope they are more traditional so no leakage. They get the Linkbuds name because through tech features your supposed to not need to remove them and that sort of thing.

 

[Tenlow]

Couple of Free Byrd updates after some usage time:
- They are bulky but still comfortable for me even over a longer listening period. I have big ears, mind you.

- They do stick out of the ears quite a bit which I usually don't like too much.

- There are voice prompts in English or German when you activate transparency mode or ANC which you cannot deactivate as of now, it seems. Doesn't bother me, though. That way at least it's easier to know which mode you just activated while listening to music. To be able to deactivate the voice prompts would still a nice "feature" for an upcoming firmware update.

- Early reviews mentioned a faint hissing sound when ANC is active. I don't hear that. It's basically silent for me, which is good. I hate ANC hiss

- You cannot switch of ANC completely on the buds. It's only possible to switch between ANC and transparency mode on the buds. For ANC off, the app is needed. Another possible addition for a firmware update, imo. Neither the ANC level, nor the transparency level can be manually adjusted. They're just active or off.

- I do like the sound after (brain-) burn in and having listened to these for a couple of hours. The sound personalization does really make a difference for me. They sound really powerful and loud. I haven't used them beyond 60-65% volume yet.

- In single bud mode, each bud can only do what it would also do when both are used simultaneously, e.g. the right one can only raise the volume and not lower it somehow. Likewise, it can only skip tracks forward and not backwards in that scenario.

Touch controls are like this:

1 tap left or right --> play / pause
1 tap and hold left or right --> voice assistant
2 taps left or right --> ANC / Transparency toggle
2 taps and hold left --> lower volume
2 taps and hold right --> raise volume
3 taps right --> next track
3 taps left --> previous track

For calls:

1 tap left or right --> accept call
1 tap and hold left or right --> decline / end call.

So far, the Free Byrd seem really good, actually. Multipoint would still be nice, though.

Oh and one little extra info: Out of the box they have no tips attached at all. They're all in the box. So, people are "forced" to find ones that fit their ears

Update: surprised by how good they sound with the included orange foam tips. I usually feel like foam does muddy the sound quite a bit for me (killing details in the highs and boosting bass) but they are very good sounding ones here. Try it out, in case you buy them!

 

[bladefd]

Snap, the linkbuds s are back to 158... Was 138 yesterday. Waited too long...

 

[Tenlow]

And some final (for now at least ) findings on the Free Byrd:

- They don't have multipoint but at least switching between previously paired devices is easy. Just press connect on the new device - that's it. It will disconnect from the active device and connect to the other one directly.

- The audio personalization seems to only work on the device(s) where the app is installed. When I switched over to my MacBook, they sounded "normal" again.

- I was walking around town a little bit with them today and they handled wind very well. It does not get amplified or anything when the Free Byrds are in ANC mode. There is no specific wind noise reduction feature, but they don't seem to need it anyway.

- ANC is mediocre outside. I could still hear cars passing by quite easily. So they are no ANC king contenders.

- Transparency mode is also just average. Nowhere near as good as AirPods Pro or even MTW3 level.

- Had some more calls with them. They work very well, even outside. No problems there.

- Battery runtime is officially great. They do charge slowly though, at least when they are completely empty (3:45h if case and both buds are depleted, which rarely happens, I guess, but still).

- USB-C port is at the back of the case where it belongs (Hi Sennheiser!)

- Fit is still very comfortable and stable especially. Could be problematic for small ears, though.

- Sound quality is pretty great still as well. I wouldn't say they are better than the EX as the tuning alone is so different. The EX are more "beautiful", "relaxed", "melodical", and "confident" sounding, if that makes any sense. The Free Byrds are more "in your face", "bassy"and "forward" sounding. I would still say that the mids are taken back a bit while the upper mids and highs are more prominent. That can be a little fatiguing on loud volume levels with some recordings but they are a lot of fun and still have a great soundstage, great instrument separation and positioning. It feels a bit 3-dimensional at times, especially with the sound personalization turned on. And, again, they can get incredibly loud.

- The Bluetooth connection so far has really been rock solid. Have not yet experienced one hiccup or dropout yet. Range is very good as well. They did well on my usual Bluetooth range test, better than the MTW3 and the EX.

All things considered, this really is a very solid first TWS from Beyerdynamic at a fair an reasonable price point. The downsides remain the size of the buds and no multipoint support yet (however many brands seem to implement that via firmware these days later down the road, so maybe Beyer will as well), as well as no user customizable touch controls (I would change "next track" to two taps instead of toggling ANC with that e.g.) but controls do work well generally. That and the music doesn't pause when toggling transparency mode (like on the MTW3 e.g.).

ANC and transparency mode remain in the neutral part of the "review". Both could definitely be better.

And on the plus side of things we have: sound quality with sound personalization, battery life, fit, volume, call quality, bluetooth connection/and a huge variety of tips.

 

[cresny]

I dusted off my 1.5 year-old Devialet Gemini this morning. Though they still sound great, the right bud no longer holds much of a charge. I called Devialet and they are replacing it without issue. I expected I'd need to use my "Devialet Care", but this was just standard 2-year warranty service and they will transfer the Devialet Care to the replacement. I'm not sure I ever had better customer service!

 

[Caipirina]

Snap, the linkbuds s are back to 158... Was 138 yesterday. Waited too long...

141.99 € on amazon DE prime deal right now ... for the next few hours ...

 

[erockg]

I dusted off my 1.5 year-old Devialet Gemini this morning. Though they still sound great, the right bud no longer holds much of a charge. I called Devialet and they are replacing it without issue. I expected I'd need to use my "Devialet Care", but this was just standard 2-year warranty service and they will transfer the Devialet Care to the replacement. I'm not sure I ever had better customer service!

Have mine here in front of me. Every time I think about selling them (overstock here), I pop them in and go hmmm these sound awesome and the ANC is great!

 

[Juturna]

Okay, so I couldn't help myself, so I picked up the Soundcore Liberty 3 Pros today, and my first verdict (without even enabling LDAC yet): damn what a bargain for $79, I'll tell you all that!

Sure, without EQ they're kinda doodoo, but using Wavelet I really feel like these sound pretty fantastic, and I know that I haven't even dialed them in 100% to what I want yet, but despite that... still great!
I was worried that this would be another Devialet Gemini scenario for me where there was no way to make the mids sound anything other than extremely unnatural and scooped out even with EQ... fortunately, I think these sound about 5x better than the Devialets overall. I still feel like I'm tripping when I hear people on here giving praise to them... they are probably one of my least favorite TWS buds that I've ever used, without a doubt the most disappointing purchase if you account for price, at least.

I was worried, as someone who's treble sensitive and don't generally like when a bud is too V-shaped.
With the Devialets I literally can't get the sibilance to go away, here it was no worries at all. Some preset EQs in the soundcore app were pretty awful and hurt my ears but it was easy to get rid of here.

The separation and sound stage seems pretty damn good for a TWS here, if not the best at least close to the best i've heard.

ANC is decent, maybe even good. But it doesn't impress me that much either.

The negatives so far:
- They are NOT pretty.
- The wingtips I put on kept them SOLID as heck in my ears, I think they would stay put in a tornado, but my outer ear hurts a lot after using the biggest wingtip... will try to go back to the ones that came preinstalled and see if that helps.
- They don't sound effortlessly great like the Galaxy Buds Pro where the default tuning is top notch, and they (the L3P) might lack a little warmth in the mids/vocals, but it's not nearly as "metallic" or artificial as reviews have made me think, even if I certainly could imagine them sounding even better.
- Volume seems somewhat low in comparison to the GBPs, where I can listen to the GBP at around 50-60%, these seem like I need to put them at 65-75% for the same volume, not terrible by any means and I can still get uncomfortably loud if I want to.

 

[assassin10000]

The linkbuds showed up this morning. Charged them, updated and now using.

A pretty good fit, better and more stable for me than the buds live.

They do have decent mids and highs, not overdone and not dark either. Unfortunately these lack way more bass/sub-bass than I was expecting and I wasn't expecting much. Using them between +5 to +10 on clear bass.


Granted the earbuds I normally use have excellent sub-bass extension (custom diy) and the buds live at least have some.

Edit: for reference, my preferred sound signature is DF neutral (etymotic like).

 

[assassin10000]

A quick listen to a frequency sweep confirms my initial thought on the bass. At my normal listening volume (low to med) bass starts being audible around 75-80hz and climbs slowly until 150-160hz where it picks up and levels off in the 3-400hz range.

Not to say these are bad sounding. Just don't expect them to do 100% justice to anything with deeper bass notes/lines.

 

[ElKabong]

Nice heads up on the Fiio TWS Adapters

I just picked up a pair of the S6 IEMs. Incredibly good, except my Fostex adapters have a static hiss with them in the left bud. FiiO and Shure adapters work flawlessly with them. Thinking it's the adapter and not the buds.

Also, for all those who want to try the TWS IEM adapter world. FiiO has a Prime Day sale on the UTWS3 adapters which work well: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08R75X3BC/ref=crt_ewc_title_dp_1?ie=UTF8&smid=A22OHGD9UPLCGU&th=1

Nice heads up on the Fiio TWS Adapters, at that price imma snatch a pair.