Post by garbulky on Nov 17, 2020 1:16:49 GMT -5
Garbulky’s Amazon Echo (ear)Buds Review
[TLDR: Loving it sounds great ! Main gripe: Software loses connection occasionally and needs to be reopened.]
It’s been a while coming. Amazon teased us with this airpod competitor and it is finally here.
The results - pretty darn good, hampered a little bit by software that occasionally needs restarting
Sound quality:
These are the best sounding earbuds I have heard. Their soundstage is big. It’s surprisingly clear with the ability to distinguish individual instruments and voices easily. It has a fast sense of micro-dynamics most noticeable in things like quick trumpet playing where the sense of smear wasn’t there. It’s headspace is wide.
I compared them to the Sony WF-1000MX3 earbuds which did have a noticeably clearer midrange and what seemed like the ability to go a lot louder. But the Sony’s lost to the echo buds due to a more artificial tone in the treble and a narrower sense of headspace. The Sony’s also sounded more smeared overall with poorer separation of instruments.
Compared to more expensive headphones like the sennheiser HD600 and HD700, the sennheisers are superior. However the echo buds do extend significantly in the bass and they sound good doing it.
The Echo Buds are bassy and I would recommend using the inbuilt eq to turn the bass down a notch or two. The main weakness in the sound is that there is a veil in the midrange and the treble is laidback and not the most extended I have heard. Reducing the bass helps bring the sound signature closer to neutral. Also there’s only about three good levels of volume, 4,5,6, and maybe 7 before things sound not too good. Nevertheless, it still manages to engage, sound natural, and enjoyable.
The winning features:
You can activate alexa with your voice at any time. The same goes to Siri. That’s the win and edge it has right there. Chances are you have Prime if you have this which means you have amazon music. Therefore you can listen to a huge selection of songs without touching anything. In comparison the Sony’s also have alexa but...you have to raise your hand and touch it anytime you want to do anything. Because of this, I found myself almost never using it. With the echo buds, you could be taking a nap and still shuffle songs. It’s great.
Other things you can do -
Pause, play, switch between noise cancellation or passthrough mode. Do everything you could usually do with Alexa and your smarthome.
Noise cancellation
The noise cancellation really works and it’s not uncomfortable. Nor does it significantly impact audio quality. I take naps in my car in a noisy environment and this makes abig difference.
Just as important as noise reduction is the passthrough mode which you can switch back and forth either with your voice or by tapping on the headset. This amplifies the outside sound so you can hear what is happening outside, for instance if somebody comes up to have a conversation with you. Really neat trick is that if you switch to passthrough by tapping it pauses your music. If you tap again it goes back to noise reduction and starts your music back up.
Cons:
Sound quality: Though I think this earbud sounds really engaging, the sound does feel a little veiled in the mid range.
FIt and comfort: The earbuds have a slight bite to it in my ear that I have gotten used to. These are reasonably comfortable, but it’s obvious that there’s far more comfortable options in the market.
Charger case: Unlike the Sony’s that snap right in, it is easy to have the echo buds land in the wrong alignment. It is easy to fix, but it does get annoying to know that it doesn’t fit instantly every single time.
It takes about five seconds for the charger to connect to the phone. If you take echo buds out before then, it will not be connected to the phone.
Alexa App:
Though it offers a remarkable array of options like configuration of the touch button and eq and levels of passthrough amplification, the software needs some work. There have been many times that the alexa app simply loses connection and you have to restart the alexa app. That is probably its biggest downside right there. The software is not rock solid. Switching from cell to wifi data also causes the connection to be lost and the app needs to be restarted. There are other silly problems. For instance you can’t search for a specific artist in the app itself to find the other songs they play. For that you have to use the amazon music app. Once you play some music there, if you command the echo buds to play some different music, it will tell you that “amazon music is streaming on another device, stream from here instead” to have you say yes and then it will play. What this means is that the amazon music app is not integrated with the alexa app and it thinks they are two separate devices.
The other thing is that though Alexa features allow for passthrough mode, other non alexa features do NOT allow for passthrough mode or allow you to use alexa during the process. For instance if you are watching a youtube video, alexa will not work. Not because it can’t, you can hear that the echo buds do register when you say the wake word during a call or video by hearing the soft tone in the background. The software is simply not configured to let it happen. If you are on a phone call, passthrough mode will not work. That’s a big downside especially if you are doing something critical that needs you to be alert to outside noise.
Conclusion:
These are really nice earbuds with surprisingly good sound quality. Though not perfect, it is easy to listen to and has a nice punchy sound. I even chose it over the Sony WF-1000mx3. Its ability to do hands free alexa and play specific songs all by voice with the phone locked is its killer feature. Not to mention it does the same for the “hey siri” function. The passthrough mode and noise reduction works well and is easy to activate.
The software is not reliable and does have several times when the alexa app loses connection with the internet. This is one of the biggest downsides of the phone is its eccentric app. Having said that, one nice thing about Amazon is that they are well known for consistently improving their software and I have little doubt that in some time, they will fix these issues.
Recommended! I am really enjoying mine.
[TLDR: Loving it sounds great ! Main gripe: Software loses connection occasionally and needs to be reopened.]
It’s been a while coming. Amazon teased us with this airpod competitor and it is finally here.
The results - pretty darn good, hampered a little bit by software that occasionally needs restarting
Sound quality:
These are the best sounding earbuds I have heard. Their soundstage is big. It’s surprisingly clear with the ability to distinguish individual instruments and voices easily. It has a fast sense of micro-dynamics most noticeable in things like quick trumpet playing where the sense of smear wasn’t there. It’s headspace is wide.
I compared them to the Sony WF-1000MX3 earbuds which did have a noticeably clearer midrange and what seemed like the ability to go a lot louder. But the Sony’s lost to the echo buds due to a more artificial tone in the treble and a narrower sense of headspace. The Sony’s also sounded more smeared overall with poorer separation of instruments.
Compared to more expensive headphones like the sennheiser HD600 and HD700, the sennheisers are superior. However the echo buds do extend significantly in the bass and they sound good doing it.
The Echo Buds are bassy and I would recommend using the inbuilt eq to turn the bass down a notch or two. The main weakness in the sound is that there is a veil in the midrange and the treble is laidback and not the most extended I have heard. Reducing the bass helps bring the sound signature closer to neutral. Also there’s only about three good levels of volume, 4,5,6, and maybe 7 before things sound not too good. Nevertheless, it still manages to engage, sound natural, and enjoyable.
The winning features:
You can activate alexa with your voice at any time. The same goes to Siri. That’s the win and edge it has right there. Chances are you have Prime if you have this which means you have amazon music. Therefore you can listen to a huge selection of songs without touching anything. In comparison the Sony’s also have alexa but...you have to raise your hand and touch it anytime you want to do anything. Because of this, I found myself almost never using it. With the echo buds, you could be taking a nap and still shuffle songs. It’s great.
Other things you can do -
Pause, play, switch between noise cancellation or passthrough mode. Do everything you could usually do with Alexa and your smarthome.
Noise cancellation
The noise cancellation really works and it’s not uncomfortable. Nor does it significantly impact audio quality. I take naps in my car in a noisy environment and this makes abig difference.
Just as important as noise reduction is the passthrough mode which you can switch back and forth either with your voice or by tapping on the headset. This amplifies the outside sound so you can hear what is happening outside, for instance if somebody comes up to have a conversation with you. Really neat trick is that if you switch to passthrough by tapping it pauses your music. If you tap again it goes back to noise reduction and starts your music back up.
Cons:
Sound quality: Though I think this earbud sounds really engaging, the sound does feel a little veiled in the mid range.
FIt and comfort: The earbuds have a slight bite to it in my ear that I have gotten used to. These are reasonably comfortable, but it’s obvious that there’s far more comfortable options in the market.
Charger case: Unlike the Sony’s that snap right in, it is easy to have the echo buds land in the wrong alignment. It is easy to fix, but it does get annoying to know that it doesn’t fit instantly every single time.
It takes about five seconds for the charger to connect to the phone. If you take echo buds out before then, it will not be connected to the phone.
Alexa App:
Though it offers a remarkable array of options like configuration of the touch button and eq and levels of passthrough amplification, the software needs some work. There have been many times that the alexa app simply loses connection and you have to restart the alexa app. That is probably its biggest downside right there. The software is not rock solid. Switching from cell to wifi data also causes the connection to be lost and the app needs to be restarted. There are other silly problems. For instance you can’t search for a specific artist in the app itself to find the other songs they play. For that you have to use the amazon music app. Once you play some music there, if you command the echo buds to play some different music, it will tell you that “amazon music is streaming on another device, stream from here instead” to have you say yes and then it will play. What this means is that the amazon music app is not integrated with the alexa app and it thinks they are two separate devices.
The other thing is that though Alexa features allow for passthrough mode, other non alexa features do NOT allow for passthrough mode or allow you to use alexa during the process. For instance if you are watching a youtube video, alexa will not work. Not because it can’t, you can hear that the echo buds do register when you say the wake word during a call or video by hearing the soft tone in the background. The software is simply not configured to let it happen. If you are on a phone call, passthrough mode will not work. That’s a big downside especially if you are doing something critical that needs you to be alert to outside noise.
Conclusion:
These are really nice earbuds with surprisingly good sound quality. Though not perfect, it is easy to listen to and has a nice punchy sound. I even chose it over the Sony WF-1000mx3. Its ability to do hands free alexa and play specific songs all by voice with the phone locked is its killer feature. Not to mention it does the same for the “hey siri” function. The passthrough mode and noise reduction works well and is easy to activate.
The software is not reliable and does have several times when the alexa app loses connection with the internet. This is one of the biggest downsides of the phone is its eccentric app. Having said that, one nice thing about Amazon is that they are well known for consistently improving their software and I have little doubt that in some time, they will fix these issues.
Recommended! I am really enjoying mine.
