I've been shopping around for some decent LDAC enabled headphones to pair with my Fiio M6 audio device. I previously bought the Edifier W820NB and they sounded quite decent for a lower-mid priced pair of headphones. I had only heard of Edifier because I own a pair of their speakers, which I'm pretty happy with. These were almost a keeper, but I decided to spend a bit more on something with more separation and crispness.
I don't consider myself an audiophile by any means, but I'm all for spending a bit more for a clearer, more defined sound in my audio devices. I have a friend who has a degree in audio engineering that always asks me why I spend more than I need to on my audio choices and I always ask him why he's so cheap with his. I just always thought it was weird, considering his previously chosen profession.
Anyway, I obviously had heard about the WF-1000XM4 and XM3 Sonys, but I wasn't sure I needed to drop that much money on headphones that I would only occasionally use. Don't get me wrong, I love music, but generally, I'm listening to it on my turntable or in my car. I just haven't found a pair of headphones that I'm comfortable wearing for hours at a time, these included.
I read some other reviews about the comfort factor on these, and on that note, I was slightly disappointed, but not that surprised. Maybe I have Elven ears and they just aren't made to house headphones for too long, I don't know. Having said that, they're comfortable enough. I didn't find myself fidgeting with the cups as much as I have others in the past.
The box was well packaged and actually looked pretty fancy with a little sticker seal over some wax type looking paper to cover everything. It comes with a USB-C charging cable, an airplane airline headphone adapter and a 3.5mm audio cable with volume control. The 3.5mm cable seemed to be a little bit on the cheap side if I had to nitpick, but otherwise, it was fine. I'd mostly be using it for the Bluetooth capabilities. The case was pretty decent as well, although the plastic insert was kind of odd. It looked like it was meant to stay in with the case, but it was so thin and cheaply made, that I have to think it was meant to be tossed. It basically shows you how the headphone sits in the case and the reason why I think it was meant to be tossed is because under it, there's an etched drawing of how the headphones should sit in the case. I'm getting the feeling people have tried to cram these headphones into their case in weird ways and end up complaining that they snap. :)
Primarily, I listen to metal and all sub-genres of metal. I almost bought some headphones called "Heavys" that were supposedly designed specifically for metal, but it was on a Kickstarter and I'm hesitant to go that route. I'd rather wait to read reviews of it later after release and pay a little more if it's something I can't live without. In the meantime, I wanted to try these as my brother bought me some Anker Liberty Neo earbuds a while back and I liked the quality of sound I was getting from them. I'm not typically a fan of earbuds, though, so I use them sparingly.
After charging the headphones to a full charge, I promptly booted them up, holding the power for 5 seconds to pair them with my Fiio. It paired quickly with no issues and sounded an audible "boop." I started playing a song. I didn't have as much of an issue with the default preset sound as much as some others did, but I can also see how it wasn't everyone's cup of tea.
After unsuccessfully trying to sideload the Soundcore app by copying the APK file to my Fiio (didn't seem to do anything when I tried to run it from the file manager), I decided to test out the multi-pair capabilities by pairing it with my phone to tweak the default preset. While my test song was still playing, I double-tapped the power and successfully paired to my phone. Unfortunately, as I was fiddling around, I bumped my hand on the headphones and it stopped the music. I already knew that I would more than likely find the whole "pause your music detection" feature annoying. I fidget and adjust the cups too much for this to be practical. After the music stopped, I wasn't able to resume it and hear it playing for some reason. It was paired to both my phone and the Fiio, it showed as playing, but no sound came out.
I was fairly annoyed for the first few minutes of owning this thing, but I calmed myself, switched off the bluetooth on my devices, switched off the headphones and started over. Then it worked fine. I was able to load the "rock" preset and it stayed loaded after I unpaired with my phone.
Even though my preferred genre of music is metal, I also listen to others, so I ran it through a battery of FLAC files ranging from Halsey/Clairo/Eilish/Adele/Juice WRLD/Led Zeppelin/Rush/As I Lay Dying/Heaven Shall Burn/Behemoth, etc. Everything sounded excellent. There was enough instrument separation, crispness and clarity for all of the different genres for me to conside...