What do you look for in a truly wireless earbud? Comfort and fit? Sound quality and battery life? Size and connectivity? Reasonable price and durability? If you want it all, well, the technology is still on the upswing, and there always seems to be some sort of compromise when it comes to true wireless earbuds. The wireless factor is where the immediate appeal lies, but for the longest time, complaints remained that most earbuds disconnected constantly and the sound really never made the wireless part worth it.
We’re at that point where vast improvements are being made across the board, which leaves you with a lot of subjectivity in what the “best of the best” really offers. In terms of name and what was out there front and center early on, Apple of course has the Apple Airpods, which routinely rate high if you’re looking for all things Apple, and the obvious branding with Siri and the iPhone. They’re decent enough for the price when placed against other earbuds at a slightly higher price range, but the sound quality routinely gets dinged in comparison. If you want to go big on the cash spend – 300 dollars big – you might want to take a look at Bang & Olufsen’s Beoplay E8s, with sensory touch interface and high marks for lovely sound top to bottom.
If the idea of noise cancellation is key, Sony has routinely received high marks for their WF-1000X buds, and with an app in place, you can dial out what specific sounds might bother you, from voices to subtle ambient sounds. This may not be the best choice if you’re looking to run the city streets and need to be more aware of your surroundings, and maybe then comfort and durability take precedence. Bose SoundSport are designed with sports in mind, and examples like PaMu: Waterproof Earbuds give you extra protection if your environment demands it. Jaybird RUN earbuds give you even more of a specific use, protecting from sweat and, you guessed it, designed for the runner.
Sound quality remains fairly personal in the end, unless you are dipping into the cheap side of the spectrum, when there is an obvious drop in bass quality and everything sounds like you’re listening in a fuzzy tin can. Typical earbuds use a chipset from Taiwan called Airoha, and the higher end buds tend to use near-field magnetic induction technology to handle drop-out issues; good sound only goes so far when you’re getting crackles and deadspots. Alien High End Wireless earbuds https://www.hot-newtech.com/products/alien-high-end-wireless-audio-without-the-markup/ list graphene drivers as one of their selling points, and the latest from Pop Design called Aero True Wireless Earbuds https://www.hot-newtech.com/products/pop-design-aero-true-wireless-earbuds utilizes a 7mm driver and a large sound chamber to help push out deeper bass. POP Design has stated that sound quality is paramount to their designs – and yet still give you waterproof and hands-off automatic pairing. Battery life is usually a downside with the improved sound technology, but here you’ll get 15 hours of power out of the charging case.
Apple has the name to drive their buds and in ways put the true wireless earbud growth in motion, and the most recent introduction from Google could boast the same with their Google Pixel Buds. https://www.hot-newtech.com/products/pixel-buds/ Sound quality isn’t what these guys get the highest marks for, but they obviously carry over to their individual smartphone and app hubs, with Google boasting Google Assistant voice activation and real-time language assistance.
The selection is growing, the quality is growing, now it’s up to you to do a little digging for what suits your wireless earbud needs.