Very, very early impressions, just out the box, and bear in mind "shiny new toy" head on. These are very good.
I'm not great at describing how things sound, some of the terms used in forums and the hifi media to describe how things sound go right over my head, and I'm not brilliant with TWS, bluetooth and codecs in general although have a decent enough basic understanding.
Before getting to the sound I would say the charging box is a bit bigger than I would have liked, and I'd be surprised if anybody carried it in the lower half of their body, you would need moderately deep pockets on a jacket I reckon, or a bag obviously. The box is not as sturdy as UTWS5, but it's far from flimsy and more than sturdy enough for what it is designed to do, and I'd imagine wouldn't be an issue for most. Fit wise, the hooks are sensational. I found the UTWS5s were always a bit loose, not so they'd fall off but I regularly had to adjust them. Obviously other peoples ears might not find them as snug a fit as mines do, but this is a big plus.
Sound wise they just fill every corner of your brain and ears when partnered with my Meze Advars, and the old cliche of hearing things I hadn't heard before was definitely happening. And as I said earlier I also have a Mojo 2 so it's not like I'm comparing with a cheap DAC. The bass is perfect, deep but not overpowering. For example I had a pair of Focal Bathys and any time I played Hot Wax from Back's album Odelay the bass was boomy as hell, here it is very controlled. Treble is not bright or harsh which would be a massive red flag for me so that is a relief. I played tracks from Dubnobasswithmyhead by Underworld, Harvest by Neil Young, some Aphex Twin, Taxman by The Beatles, tracks from the new album by A Certain Ratio, David Bowies album Low, reggae by likes of Augustus Pablo and King Tubby (amazing bass as expected), a few from Lou Reeds album Transformer, some lo fi post punk from The Fall's album Dragnet and the shiny punk pop of Sulk by The Associates - so you can see the Pod's have been exposed to a wide variation of styles, but also a variation of how well recorded (or not) the source material is. And the main take away was the Go Pod and Advar combo handled it all incredibly well. Can't wait to try some jazz later.
As I said all this was just "out the box", haven't went anywhere near an app yet so I've that to look forward to. My phone is a Samsung S22 so looks like I can only get Apt X unless anyone knows otherwise. Like I say I'm not great with codecs so might ask for some advice later. I played the muic back on either Apple Music or Roon, and Roon was informing me that the most I could achieve was 48khz.
So unless something comes out of left field I will definitely be keeping them and selling the UTWS5s. Are they 3 to 4 times as good as the UTWS5's? I think most people will probably know the answer is no they aren't. The question is are they worth £400? In my case I reckon they are, the music I heard for the last hour or two was definitely the best sound quality I've ever heard from an IEM/DAC set up on a mobile phone.
