True Wireless Stereo Earbuds šŸŽ§

Thank you both @TrueCherry and @urs_lesse for your assessment. I have quite diverse taste in music: punk (mids important), hip hop, jazz and electronic music. So I also like bass, but it should not be too fat.
Letā€™s see what I make of it :wink:

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Just to note that frequency db drops off as a person ages and there is a significant gender difference.

So one personā€™s assessment is weighted by age and gender.

hearing4

A teenager may well hear 20K and they are used to that, at near 74 I doubt I can hear 10K and no doubt as itā€™s a gradual change I am used to that.
More and more I like bass, it was never so important when I was younger.

Still I rarely use earphones as they seem increasingly uncomfortable.

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In principle, you are of course right, but: if person A says: ā€œthe basses are not separated properly and sound dullā€, then I can at least deduce that the headphones do not separate basses well and are perhaps not so well suited for bass-heavy music. Then I donā€™t need to know whether person A actually likes a lot or a little bass and what the hearing curve of person A is like.
If someone would tell me on the other hand: " sounds good, just buy", I would be skeptical of course :wink:

But in any case, thanks for the links!

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I received the earbuds a week ago. So I had some time to test them. I came across a couple of issues and I was wondering if other users share this or whether I got a faulty pair.

  • On low volumes thereā€™s quite noticeable white noise (in all 3 modes).
  • When taking the earplugs out, they stop playing for a couple of seconds but then resume playing again. The only way to stop them is by putting them back in the box.
  • When plugging in the left earplug, I often trigger the voice control or accidentally turn the volume completely off.
  • The smallest sleeve is almost the same size as the cylinder its covering. And thus doesnā€™t provide much cushioning.

Iā€™m very pleased with the sound on medium to high volumes. But the overall experience feels quite ā€œbuggyā€.

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This is actually how they are designed (at the bottom, ā€œGood to knowā€ paragraph):

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Hi, does someone know if iā€™ll be able to use these earbuds to send voice messages on Whatsapp using a fairphone 4 ? i havenā€™t got either of these devices yet but considering both

and sorry if this has been mentioned already - iā€™m not very technical so donā€™t always follow what people have been saying here (although iā€™m v grateful!)
thanks in advance

Almost unnoticed (by me), iFixit also posted a text & photo teardown of the Fairphone TWS earbuds on tuesday.

Major spoller

They actuallly do score 1/10 (one point out of ten) for repairability. :frowning:

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So Iā€™m happy, that I cancelled my order. Thatā€™s not Fairphone like :frowning_face:.

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Well, recently I stumbled upon some discussion about the TWS on Reddit:

Now it is at least clear to me that the development effort was probably not too big, however I still donā€™t understand the concept behind this. Is this just to have an excuse for the missing headphone jack? Would be interesting to see if the ā€œoriginalā€ headphones are just as friendly to their batteries as the Fairphone ones claim to be or if this - next to probably other materials - is a differentiator.

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Well, I think they just needed something (dont give a sh*t what) to compensate for the lack of a headphone jack.

Then I continue to use my many years old headphones or buy samsung earbuds. :rofl: I never thought it would be like this again, but Samsung is better there.

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Even looking at the Samsung buds Iā€™m not sure if I could repair it without too much concern and imagine 99% of users of the Samsung earbuds would bother even considering it.

So at least for 99% of users they can buy Fairtrade buds from Fairphone, which in the long run is a wider ethical choice.

Still Iā€™ll be sticking to wired earphones, and over the ear where possible.

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I havenā€™t seen a reply to the question @aidan asked, but this is the go/no-go one for me as well:
Can some share their experience from using them as ā€œmicrophone devicesā€, i.e.

  • to take a call? @urs_lesse made a statement about ā€œradio communication soundā€ in this post . Have others who are using them more frequently to make calls observed that as well?
  • to make a voice recording (when no call is active, as in a voice message)?
  • to use them as a Bluetooth headset for a video conference connected to a PC?

Any insights greatly appreciated!

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Hi! I received mine yesterday. When I placed the order I had not yet seen the (really bad) iFixit repairability score, nor the Reddit discussion showing that they are probably a customization of a generic $33 earphoneā€¦ in any case, they are now mine, and I hope they will be useful to me for a long time :sweat_smile:.

Replying to your doubts:

  • I have not been able to send voice messages through the microphone of the ā€œTrue Wireless Stereo Earbudsā€ on WhatsApp or Telegram (the recording was done, but the sound was captured via the microphone of my Fairphone 3 and not from the earbuds mic)
  • I have tried a couple of normal calls with a friend: the microphone used here is the one in the earbuds and not the one in the smartphone itself. According to my friend, it sounded nice and clear, but with a kind of noise filter, and echo when changing rooms. I guess it is normal for this kind of earphone microphone sound to be worse than the phone itself, since they are quite far from the audio source, the mouth. By the way, no problem answering or hanging up directly from the airbuds, not touching the phone at all.

  • I have not been able to get my note recording app (Audio Recorder on Fairphone 3, from F-Droid) to use the airbuds microphone instead of the Fairphone 3ā€™s own microphone.

  • On my Windows 10 computer I could choose, through the audio settings configuration menu, to use the microphone of the Fairphone True Wireless Stereo Earbudsā€¦ so I guess you would have no problem using it in a video conference: I used it to send voice notes via WhatsApp web or to record directly in a dedicated app. In fact, I recorded an audio sample which I attach so you can see how it, the microphone of the True Wireless Steareo Earbuds sounds (sorry for my English! Haha). According to my friend, this is the same sound that he listeded in the phone call.

There might be a way to use them as a microphone in Android, but I havenā€™t found it at first. If you have any other questions maybe I can test them :blush:.

My opinion:

They sound fine to me. Iā€™ll use them mainly for listening to music, and with the tests Iā€™ve done at home I like the way they sound. I am not an expert, but I have had very cheap headphones with a lousy sound, and I like this one: for my taste they are balanced, it is a clear sound and the bass is present without being annoying. I find them very comfortable as well. I was afraid they would fall out of my ear, as I wear wired ones that always fall out, but these seem much more stable and comfortable for now.

I still need to try them on the street to see how the noise cancellation works and how good it is, since thatā€™s what interests me most: being able to listen to music on the street without having to adjust the volume too high. They are my first wifi earphones and also my first ones with active noise cancellation, so letā€™s see how they do for me.

Hope it helps. Greetings! :slight_smile:

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I can confirm @Mixigodo post concerning mic quality. I tried them on discord by calling my boyfriend: the sound file attached above is what I heard.
This week I tried to have a vocal group chat with people on discord with it and they said that the sound was horrible. I should try again.

It seems that they are okay for phone calls but not especially good (at least) when the quality could be better than what is needed for a phone call.

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You rock! Thanks a lot. The sound quality is definitely good enough to give it a try. :slight_smile:

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Hi there,

when I use both ANC modes, a noise can be heard on both earbuds. Ambient noise is still easy to hear. Is this normal behavior? I find it strange that they rustle slightly in the ANC mode.


:de: Hallo,

wenn ich beide ANC Modies nutze, ist auf beiden Earbuds ein Rauschen zu hƶren. UmgebungsgerƤusche sind immer noch leicht zu hƶren. Ist das ein normales Verhalten? Das die im ANC Modus leicht rauschen finde ich seltsam.

Steven

Ok, just read something. The noise floor is normal when the ANC is active.
Great headphones. :grin:

:de:
Ok, habe mich gerade etwas belesen. Das Grundrauschen ist normal bei aktivem ANC.
Super Kopfhƶrer. :grin:

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Must note that the right Erabud has a significantly shorter runtime than the left. After 35-90 minutes, loudness 50% or less comes the announced battery low. If I then recharge the right earbud and look for the battery level of the left, it still shows me 60-70%. is in the right erabud the battery smaller? And yes they charge when I put them in the charging case, the red LED is on. Use them mainly for training, 3 times a week and they have at least 1 1/2 days to charge until I use them again. That should be enough even with very slow charging.

Undocumented featureā€¦? With greetings from Bragiā€™s The Dashā€¦

I used to own ā€œThe Dashā€ Earbuds (first real wireless headphones, ā€œfitness trackerā€ and more)ā€¦
Since volume was controlled by swiping up or down on the right earbud I did so with my TWS.
Surprisingly it works kinda: swiping on the right earbud volume turns up, swiping on the left, the volume turns down.

I miss my Dash but it was end-of-life and end-of-company due to technical successā€¦ Nice to have this feature now fairlyā€¦ :wink:

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@GreenAndFair :

Must note that the right Erabud has a significantly shorter runtime than the left

I donā€™t monitor how much time I use mine, but what you describe neither happened to me or my boyfriendā€¦ For him, both earbuds where announcing battery low only after a 4 hours of RPG session (!).

I think yours can have a defect. Try contacting fairphone support?


@HYauser :
Yes, some people discovered that on reddit too or maybe here! Indeed an interesting feature. I just want to add that you donā€™t even have to swipe: touching the sensitive area of the left or right earbud enough time (~less than a second) works too.

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