[tan1415]

Guys, I am considering the JBL 230Tune or the Samsung Buds live. Both great for me and comfortable enough tonsleepmon. And there is the problem…I fall asleep with it and when I wake up it’s empty. No problem with it, but just realize it’s actually bad for the internal battery to recharge it from empty.

How often can you empty and recharge an earphone before it starts going bad battery wise

 

[erockg]

No fancy features, aimed at good SQ.

Saw these on B&H a while back. They look EXACTLY like the Noble Fokus H-ANC. Same shell, same case, same driver setup etc. Hmm. I'm still always wondering how this happens. The FHANC were out waaaaay before these. Do companies go to a manufacturer and pick from a certain batch of shells, drivers and say "Do this." Or are folks just stealing other folks designs (I'm guessing that is it). So Gamesky is trying to tell us Mackie rocks but he needs to do his research and realize Noble did it months ago. Sigh...

 

[helmutcheese]

Yes, that is exactly how it works. and mentioned in this recent video:

 

[FullCircle]

Saw these on B&H a while back. They look EXACTLY like the Noble Fokus H-ANC. Same shell, same case, same driver setup etc. Hmm. I'm still always wondering how this happens. The FHANC were out waaaaay before these. Do companies go to a manufacturer and pick from a certain batch of shells, drivers and say "Do this." Or are folks just stealing other folks designs (I'm guessing that is it). So Gamesky is trying to tell us Mackie rocks but he needs to do his research and realize Noble did it months ago. Sigh...

I don't think it is a matter of theft (just my take.)

Some housings are "open mold" meaning a manufacturer has invested time/money/effort in designing the housing and the housing is open to anyone wanting to buy their tws. The TWS will be tweaked to certain specifications, color schemes, internals parts etc according to the manufacturers / buyers requests.

TWS products are built by the 1000s at a factory larger than some college grounds. Getting involved in the TWS industry requires a lot of start up capital as the minimum order requirements are high, which I guess is why there are "go fund me" campaigns for such products.

That said, some housing can be 100% unique, which requires even more time & money to build the tws. Another possibility, is the final housing is a derivation of an open mold. The Falcon Pro, was a hodge podge of open molds combined with unique molds as well.

The FoKus pro is all unique, which was easy to do, as the housing was 3D printed.

 

[Ghisy]

The fact that there is a new chip roll out every few months or so, keeps prices suppressed as manufacturers fear their products will become obsolete.

This is partially why I'm not investing in TWS. They are disposable IEMs unfortunately, given their battery will die sooner or later. This and no lossless codec for now.

I'll be waiting and seeing what happens in a few months/years. I just got the Final ZE3000 a few weeks ago (less than $100 for them, like new) and they sound good enough. I can see the convenience of not having wires but SQ isn't there yet.

 

[erockg]

I don't think it is a matter of theft (just my take.)

Some housings are "open mold" meaning a manufacturer has invested time/money/effort in designing the housing and the housing is open to anyone wanting to buy their tws. The TWS will be tweaked to certain specifications, color schemes, internals parts etc according to the manufacturers / buyers requests.

TWS products are built by the 1000s at a factory larger than some college grounds. Getting involved in the TWS industry requires a lot of start up capital as the minimum order requirements are high, which I guess is why there are "go fund me" campaigns for such products.

That said, some housing can be 100% unique, which requires even more time & money to build the tws. Another possibility, is the final housing is a derivation of an open mold. The Falcon Pro, was a hodge podge of open molds combined with unique molds as well.

The FoKus pro is all unique, which was easy to do, as the housing was 3D printed.

I appreciate the insight. Thank you. This all makes sense and happy you clarified my thoughts.

I remember the Falcon Pro and the Lypertek had a similar mold. Had them both at one time. Falcon Pro were tuned so much better IMO.

 

[natalieann]

The fact that there is a new chip roll out every few months or so, keeps prices suppressed as manufacturers fear their products will become obsolete.

 

[natalieann]

The suss thing here is how they made a tws their cheapest product on the roster, surely it's more expensive to design a tws than wired iems?

SUSS...Oh dear lord!

 

[C_Lindbergh]

Well, usually a new SoC just offers modest improvements, but chips that supports LE Audio/LC3 will be a game changer for this product segment. That's why I'm looking forward to TWS next year with the latest Qualcomm SoC!

Give me a premium TWS with:

https://www.qualcomm.com/products/application/audio/qcc5100-series/qcc5171

 

[dweaver]

The only issue I have is that many of these new standards are just not adopted. This reminds me of Betamax vs VHS or the 2 DVD standards. Looking at APTx a lot of companies have started to abandon it due to licensing costs. Companies that were supporting APTx have switched to LDAC or stuck with just AAC and SBC. This also is caused by the phone side of the fence too. Samsung not supporting anything higher than APTx for example.

Snapdragon doesn't seem to have a large support base on phones etc.

 

[SynaestheticA]

Had a thought on source material and sound quality. If your music is mostly electronic made on a computer (let's ignore real hardware like the Roland 303) is the track only ever going to sound so good?

Would a $2,000 wired over ear with that light bulb looking DAC box convey more of a track or does the software the music was made on become the limiting factor without all of the intricacies of a physical instrument?

And to bring it back to TWS, would a tws become just as good at sending SQ through as something wired?

 

[Caipirina]

Thanks, I will look into both suggestions. So far this week we have tried the JBL 130NC, Kenwood WS-A1, Creative Outlier Gold, Sennheiser Momentum 2, RHA True Connect II, and a few other cheap no-name really small TWS models. Some fit ok but none really isolated very well, even with ANC active.

looks like the B6 can still be found on AliExpress
US $53.70 | High quality B6 TWS Earphones Qcc3020 V5.0 Apt-X Wireless Earbuds Noise Cancellation CVC 8.0 Built-in Mic Hands Free Headsets
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mOk19hC

 

[Caipirina]

i was not supposed to, but too weak to resist at this price

Nice! I am only able to get them down to just a tad under 40$ ... I have the original ones and they are great for that price area . hearing they now even have better ANC, at that price makes them a winner ... but alas, I really have given up on hoarding more and more cheapos .. I keep rotating my higher end models and there are some that should get more play time, but just don;t ... so, no more new stuff for me for a while ... maybe the APP 2 in 3 weeks ..

 

[tiagopinto]

Well, usually a new SoC just offers modest improvements, but chips that supports LE Audio/LC3 will be a game changer for this product segment. That's why I'm looking forward to TWS next year with the latest Qualcomm SoC!

Give me a premium TWS with:

https://www.qualcomm.com/products/application/audio/qcc5100-series/qcc5171

Exactly. I keep stalling my impulse (and need) to get better sound on a TWS simply waiting for this to hit the market. CA MT still goin’... (sigh)

If I didn’t know about it, maybe I’d already have gotten the APP2 or the TWX9 or the Free Byrd... but I don’t want to spend 250 to 300 bucks on something which would become (for me) instantly obsolete. (Same for full size cans. Still rockin’ the A50, wishing for the PX8 kind of sound. And here we’re looking at 700 bucks)

 

[helmutcheese]

Skip the Free Byrd trust me.