Hello everyone,
I have the opportunity to buy the old generation of the Fairbuds XL used for €80. However, I’m not sure if it’s worth upgrading to the new generation. I know there are improved drivers in the new model, but I could also put those into the old generation myself. Does anyone know if anything else has been changed that would justify the higher price of the new version (€250)? For example, better ANC, better materials, etc. I honestly don’t see much difference.
For 80€ I would’t doubt to buy the old generation. If somethings get broken you can always change the parts that need to be.
The only thing I’m worried about right now is wind noise. I really like wearing my headphones outside with active transparency mode so I can still hear something, and the 2023 version is supposed to be extremely sensitive to wind, and I don’t know if that might have improved in the 2025 version.
Hello everyone,
I’m currently considering whether I should buy the Fairbuds Max V1 (2023). They are known to be very repairable, and in theory it should be possible to upgrade them to the Fairbuds Max V2 (2025) without any major issues, right?
From what I understand, the replacement part for the right speaker contains almost all of the electronics (except for the battery). Would that mean that if I replace this part, I would essentially have a V2 device, including the firmware and all related features? For example, one of the new V2 features is that the headphones automatically power off after 30 seconds.
Or is the firmware stored on a separate chip in a component that cannot be replaced, meaning certain V2 features would still be unavailable?
Thanks for your Answers
To upgrade the old ones to have the new firmware & quality you’d need to change both speakers. While everything is more or less compatible, one old and one new ear speaker don’t work together:
Then you might have read it already, at some point in the production of the old version, the headband base was improved for stability, and I guess you can’t really know which version you’d buy with the old one.
Also note that the ANC did not get improved. So the wind issue will persist as with the old ones
This seems to be saying they did improve ANC, but the drivers are the same. I couldn’t find any more reliable info regarding improvements to ANC (imo, in the first version it is acceptable in mid- and high-range, but weak for low frequencies).
Interesting. The official blog post, also linked here in the forum, does not say anything about ANC improvement, I’m pretty sure if there was any, they would have mentioned it.
I could not find anything specific on ANC in the article you linked.
Other features include dual microphones, advanced noise cancelling with active and ambient modes, up to 30 hours of battery life, connectivity via Bluetooth or USB-C, seamless dual-point connectivity, and Auto Power Off. I don’t believe the last model had the latter.
This list includes both new (improved) and old features.
A bit puzzling, no? Such a pity the FB XL aren’t better… (sound is ok, but ANC not, main reason to return them and enquire here).
I’ve now bought the old model new(Since there are no differences between the old and new models in terms of wind noise.) , not used (the used pair for €80 had already been bought by someone else). I paid €150 for them. I’ll try them out, and if they don’t work for me, I’ll return them.
In my everyday life I spend a lot of time outdoors with transparency mode enabled, so if the wind noise is really as bad as everyone says, I’ll have to send them back. Repairable headphones unfortunately don’t help me if I can only use them 30% of the time in daily life.
First of all, thank you all for your answers. I picked up the headphones from the post office today and tried them out, and unfortunately it’s as bad as I read.
There was very little/no wind today, and even with the very light wind, there is wind noise in ambient mode. However, it is still tolerable.
But as soon as I start running in light wind or even without wind, it gets quite loud (both in ambient and ANC mode). Of course, the music drowns it out in most cases, but it’s not particularly pleasant.
At least the wind noise is relatively low and not as shrill as with my sister’s Soundcore Life Q30s (but there you only hear wind noise in very strong winds).
Unfortunately, the headphones are unusable for me, as the wind noise is guaranteed to annoy me extremely in the long run, and we always have at least a very light breeze, which is unfortunately enough.
However, I am sure that Fairphone will eventually get this under control with a firmware update or a new generation. I will continue to monitor this, as the concept of repairability and fair manufacturing are still extremely good, and I would like to see others do the same.
Please do report it to FP support and on Trustpilot. Fairphone thinks their audio products are top of the line because of good reviews. But I think many complaints came in on the FP support desk, but because of the heavy load, they closed many without doing anything with them. Many of my old tickets also never reached the devs and were just closed. The wind noise is a true problem that needs to be addressed. But they honestly think it’s fine.
Picked up the 2025 refresh. Generally I use my AirPods Pro 3, but I wanted a set of headphones for my PC and laptop. Overall I like these, they’re light, they are comfortable (for me), my ears fit inside of the cups and they feel ventilated enough that they don’t get muggy.
The ANC is terrible. If I walk through my not-drafty flat I’ll hear wind swooshing. Didn’t buy them for the sake of the ANC though, and I’m satisfied with everything else so I’m still satisfied.
My only complaint is that the app isn’t available on F-Droid. I don’t use Google Play on any of my Android devices, and I don’t particularly care to pair them with my iPhone. Would love to see the app available on F-Droid so I could tweak the settings and do firmware updates on my laptop via Waydroid.
Side note: they smell like horse. Like, a chemical imitation of horse.