Most TWS earphones sound disgusting. I stated this 5 years ago, and nothing has changed in these 5 years: everything ‘true wireless’ that came into my hands by accident (like, a colleague let me try it on) sounded very, very bad. However, there were always some people who would appear in the comments section with a take like “why are you messing with your wires when there are OK wireless models?”
Another chance. I decided to give MoonDrop’s TWS earphones another chance, and it was a tough decision because MoonDrop Alice were shamefully poor in terms of connection stability and proprietary software.
When it comes to MoonDrop Golden Ages 1979, my attention was drawn to their design, low cost, and a planar driver. And I also had a glimmer of hope that at least MoonDrop managed to bring the software to the users-don’t-get-sick-and-tired state, after all.
The TWS headphones are difficult to make. The Moondrop couldn’t, and the Noble couldn’t, too. This is why the WF-1000xm4 always were and still are an excellent model for me: the Sony managed to match some good sound, rich feature range, excellent ergonomics and software stability. And then Linkbuds S were released: ‘they’re the same picture’, though much cheaper. These are great, really the best TWS headphones to date, which I honestly stated. Did I expect much from the WF-1000xm5? Heck yes, I did!
Russian version of the article. The first TWS Noble Audio headphones I’ve ever laid my hands on – the Falcon Pro – turned out to be pathetically shitty. Their sounding was actually something you could argue about, but the number of bugs and twitches… Oof! And, as I said some reviews ago, just don’t ever…
Market analysts can make mistakes, it’s true. They mostly do it when they try to sell us something already existing but very slightly modified as a revolutionary product. And all that ‘cutting-edge’, ‘unleashed’, brand new experience’ nonsense, you know. But sometimes the analyst goes to the other extreme by totally underestimating the product and thus setting a completely inadequate price. I mean, lower than it should be. And this is exactly the case of the Sony Linkbuds S.
The Moondrop brand owned by Shenzhen Audio manufactures some uncompromising ALICE audiophile-grade TWS headphones. These use a super-linear proprietary dynamic driver with a carbon aperture, a progressive QCC5151 chip, and a VDSF+ technology to expand the soundstage. And, most importantly, you can customize their sounding all you want with a parametric equalizer via a proprietary app.
Other reviewers say they’re like ‘the new TWS’s benchmark’ and ‘the end of Sony’s monopoly’ and stuff, so why wouldn’t I want to review those myself! So I was working round and round these headphones, and then a follower of mine unexpectedly offered me their pair to use for a review. Like, to send them to my place. So I can make a review.I agreed before that kind person could generate any second thoughts.
Well, why Sony WF-1000xm4? Believe it or not, it’s insanely hard to find anything decent, that’s why. All of the TWS headphones models I’ve tried (about 30 of them) didn’t fascinate me in any way, and it just so happened that the WF-1000xm3 I once owned were cool. I really enjoyed them, but then the battery capacity decided it’s time to go.
Let’s get straight to the point: the Noble company managed to make some completely wireless headphones with very good sound. Like, phenomenally good sound. But are these Noble headphones themselves? This is actually a big question.
