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

[clerkpalmer]

Just one guy's opinion on the Nura Pros:

https://www.tomsguide.com/opinion/these-are-my-favorite-earbuds-of-the-year

 

[clerkpalmer]

I still haven't found a pair of TWS's I enjoy as much as the Liberty 3 Pro's.
Bought the Nuratrue Pro's the other day and they can't hold a candle to the L3P's regarding sound, like not even close. Especially don't like how they (Nuratrue) sound with more guitar-based music.
The L3P's are just ridiculously good value for the money. But I like how they sound and how good they are for phone calls, bur I'm not crazy about their size (neither buds nor case), the wingtips, the mediocre ANC, etc.


So I'm really itching for an upgrade though... But I'm not sure where to throw my money at this point.
Fokus Pro would be good but it seems to be out of stock everywhere that seems trustworthy, Beoplay EX seems to be slightly too poor regarding ANC for the asking price.
Also kinda want to check out the Bose QC II's, but I'm only expecting ANC to be better, not the other parts.

I think you'll find the thrill of the hunt is often more rewarding than the upgrades themselves. TWS are a mature product at this point and there isn't much room left for innovation. We already know that changes to codecs don't even really improve SQ much. You're left with personal preferences for features and tuning and not much else. Upgrades tend to be side grades at best. I'm sure advances will happen, but it's slow and incremental. Basically not much different than a smart phone.

 

[Canabuc]

Freebuds pro 2 inbound. When the original model came out I was really enjoying must if what they offered.
The sound was good not great and needed EQing as sound was a bit warm. There was no in app EQ. So glad too use wavelet or the EQ in my Samsung which would not save to the buds on other devices.

Otherwise it has very good ANC and transparency. Qi charging. Asking first with connection to 2 devices at same time.

Well now they have upper the ANC by 8db. Added equalizer and custom presets. Added a dual driver setup with planar magnetic driver ( like oppo) and had been tuned by Devialet. LDAC also added and a claimed frequency response from 14-48khz.
So outside of mediocre battery life it has hit or improved all of the features I could want.
It also has an app for iOS users unlike Samsung.
I know people don't love Huawei but this seems like a very well designed tws. Not sure why not discussed more here. Will leave my impressions when they arrive.

If these aren't the ones then at this point I will wait another 6 months until the other big names all release their updates that take advantage of LC3 BLE.

 

[Canabuc]

I think you'll find the thrill of the hunt is often more rewarding than the upgrades themselves. TWS are a mature product at this point and there isn't much room left for innovation. We already know that changes to codecs don't even really improve SQ much. You're left with personal preferences for features and tuning and not much else. Upgrades tend to be side grades at best. I'm sure advances will happen, but it's slow and incremental. Basically not much different than a smart phone.

I disagree on a few of these points. Higher res Codecs do change the sound for me. Things open up a bit and I can sense more dynamic range in the music.
Also ANC has really improved over last 2 years as did multipoint connection. All of these have made true wireless buds much better.
I think back to my liberty 2 pro that aren't so old and they were big bulky no ANC or transparency. Poor call quality as well and controls on bud were limited.

 

[cresny]

Just one guy's opinion on the Nura Pros:

https://www.tomsguide.com/opinion/these-are-my-favorite-earbuds-of-the-year

No comment here on the product but the reviewer's tracklist was composed entirely of very tame vocals tracks. Just shows how much salt you have to keep on these reviews.

 

[clerkpalmer]

I disagree on a few of these points. Higher res Codecs do change the sound for me. Things open up a bit and I can sense more dynamic range in the music.
Also ANC has really improved over last 2 years as did multipoint connection. All of these have made true wireless buds much better.
I think back to my liberty 2 pro that aren't so old and they were big bulky no ANC or transparency. Poor call quality as well and controls on bud were limited.

What I said was codecs don't improve things much. I didn't say they didn't at all and in most cases, the drawbacks aren't worth the minute gains in SQ (poor connection, reducted battery life etc). I'll bet in a blind test, you'd be hard pressed to pick which one is hi res but I won't argue about it. Your ears may be much better than mine. To be clear, we aren't talking about the difference between SBC and LDAC. The jump from AAC to LDAC on the other hand - minor at best to the human ear and not a feature that most care about.

I also didn't say improvements don't happen, I just said that they are slow and incremental. You referred to a time period of 2 years which is proving my point. Yes, in 2 years, TWS will be better than they are today. But in 6 months, probably not. Just like my iphone 14 is somewhat better than my iphone 12 but probably not better than my iphone 13. ANC and multipoint have been around for several years. Nothing new there. Slow, incremental improvements.

The bottom line is at this stage of the game, it's mostly about features, tuning and personal preferences. With so many excellent products on the market, there literally is an option for everyone across all price points.

 

[Canabuc]

True multi point has not been around that long.
Decent or better ANC is only about 2 and half years out.

And AAC on Android does not sound anywhere close to LDAC. AAC on iOS is much better but do some research ( I think sound guys may have done an article) and you will see that there is significant fall off in the upper frequencies which really dulls the sound.

 

[helmutcheese]

I prefer SBC over AAC even after it was bastardised by QUALCOMM to remove a lot of features, AAC at 250k with CD Rips @ 320k does not match no matter what Apple claim 250k is not 320k so it will up-sampled but in Windows it can go to 300-330k or abouts, on Android it sucks.

I cannot agree AAC to LDAC is minor and I am not a LDAC Fanboy, aptX for most of my music and aptX HD or aptX Adaptive or LDAC for Hi-Res files.

 

[clerkpalmer]

I cannot agree AAC to LDAC is minor and I am not a LDAC Fanboy, aptX for most of my music and aptX HD or aptX Adaptive or LDAC for Hi-Res files.

For fun, I'd probably put $100 on a bet that you couldn't pick up the difference between LDAC and AAC (over IOS not Android) in a blind listening test. And even if you could, the differences would likely be related to something different than LDAC versus AAC. The most likely differences are in source material. There is a long scientific discussion over this in the Air Pods Max thread and people much smarter than me concluded that AAC over IOS is transparent to the human ear. But you're welcome to your opinions. I used to argue in favor of LDAC etc but I've since been persuaded that I was wrong.

 

[helmutcheese]

First I have extremely good hearing (it is a curse not a gift) and second I will never own Apple products, but I know I can hear the difference from CD Rips be it even Flac to 24/48 files and to lesser extent 24/96 (depends on the files/genre).

None of that matters is the actual devices are not very good esp. the actual speakers.

I have read all this so called "limit of human hearing" and same as a gamer I have also read "we cannot see more than 60FPS".

I just do my own thing, but I do not go for snake oil like the earthing boxes and £100's silver cables making it sound better.

I have lived over half a century and I find in general most people, talk a lot of

 

[clerkpalmer]

First I have extremely good hearing (it is a curse not a gift) and second I will never own Apple products, but I know I can hear the difference from CD Rips be it even Flac to 24/48 files and to lesser extent 24/96 (depends on the files/genre).

None of that matters is the actual devices are not very good esp. the actual speakers.

I have read all this so called "limit of human hearing" and same as a gamer I have also read "we cannot see more than 60FPS".

I just do my own thing, but I do not go for snake oil like the earthing boxes and £100's silver cables making it sound better.

I don't doubt then that you can pick up the differences. And perhaps with exceptional hearing, the differences are material. For 99.99% of the planet, any theoretical difference between LDAC and AAC is just not meaningful in the real world wearing TWS on buses, trains, gyms etc. So it's just not a feature that matters to me. I'm sure the tech will develop and eventually even Apple will go to a lossless format but it probably won't be leaps and bounds better than what we already have. Take care of your golden ears. And avoid hard rock concerts ...

 

[Canabuc]

Fact is more than half the world doesn't use iOS and AAC on Android is not very good.

 

[clerkpalmer]

Fact is more than half the world doesn't use iOS and AAC on Android is not very good.

Right. Swap Aptx for AAC if you are using android. Aptx and aac perform very
Similarly but AAC is more advanced.

 

[helmutcheese]

aptX matches or beats LDAC @ 330 (AAC does not), the same for aptX HD vs LDAC @ 660 going by many reviewers and IMO but LDAC had that 990 high end for a long while till aptX Adaptive came along.

Also, not as battery hungry though AAC does win that but not an Apple-to-Apple test as it is only 250k so obv not as hungry as 320+990k

One of the most advanced (at the time) AAC codec variant was Ahead Nero's back in the day, SBC had a lot of features cripple in Android so it was also a good/more advanced Codec one upon a time.

 

[erockg]

This is the streaming quality before bluetooth correct? Bluetooth will then be downsampled to standard AAC? Just want to make sure I'm not missing something on IOS.

No idea. But that is what shows on my phone when using my dongle. Hey now. Tried a bit yesterday, but can't figure out what is streaming from my device. All I found was that Nura says the dongle will stream the highest codec supported by your headphone.