When Apple first launched AirPods, it was questioned a lot, can true wireless Bluetooth headsets really replace wired headphones? Fast forward a few years, the true wireless headset market has become a huge market with annual shipments of nearly 300 million, and more and more consumers have got rid of the physical shackles of wired headphones and begun to embrace true wireless headphones.
However, it should be noted that the current true wireless headphone market has entered the era of "active noise reduction", many true wireless headphone products have supported the "active noise reduction" function, but you may find that these true wireless noise reduction headphones are not good to wear, and if you wear it for a long time, you will feel uncomfortable with ear canal swelling.
If you want to wear it more comfortably, you can only choose half-in-ear headphones, but most semi-in-ear headphones on the market do not support noise cancellation. Wearing comfort and noise reduction function is like the relationship between "fish" and "bear paw", which cannot be combined, because semi-in-ear headphones cannot closely fit the headphones with the human ear canal to form a complete enclosed space, and it is physically difficult to isolate noise.
In-ear headphones do perform better than semi-in-ear headphones, better closure can reduce sound leakage, reduce the interference of external noise on music, and the details of low-frequency sound can be captured more clearly. But the problem is that not everyone is suitable for in-ear, if you wear headphones with a strong sense of foreign body, then you can only choose semi-in-ear true wireless headphones.
Now, Xiaobian recommends several cost-effective semi-in-ear true wireless headphones for these unbearable in-ear headphones.
1. Huawei FreeBuds 4
Huawei released a semi-in-ear active noise-canceling true wireless headset FreeBuds 3 on May 19, 2021, taking into account noise reduction and wearing comfort, which can be said to have opened up a new track in the field of true wireless headphones - half-in-ear noise-canceling headphones. In May 2021, Huawei released an iterative version of the headset, FreeBuds 4, continuing to focus on wearing comfort and noise reduction functions.
Huawei FreeBuds 4 is a true wireless noise-canceling headset that supports Bluetooth 5.1 technology. Compared with Bluetooth 5.0, the maximum transmission speed and transmission distance of Bluetooth 5.1 are basically the same, which are 48Mbit/s and 300 meters, but the main advantage of Bluetooth 5.1 is that the power consumption is lower, the connection is more stable, and the battery life of the headset is higher and it is not easy to disconnect. Huawei FreeBuds 4 has a single battery life of 4 hours, and the maximum battery life with the charging case is 20 hours.
In addition, Huawei FreeBuds 4 also combines the characteristics of Huawei's Hongmeng system, which allows it to seamlessly switch between different devices. When using the Huawei Smart Life App to connect to the FreeBuds 4 wireless headset, you can better manage multiple devices, the app will display the 10 devices that the user has recently connected, and you only need to click on the corresponding device to quickly switch.
In addition, Huawei FreeBuds 4 also supports AEM human ear adaptive noise reduction and dual microphone hybrid noise reduction. The former can provide the best noise reduction scheme from more than 10 noise reduction parameters according to the contour of the consumer ear canal, and the latter can effectively reduce the interference of wind noise, improve the sensitivity of residual noise collection, and raise the active noise reduction function of semi-in-ear headphones to a new height.
However, it should be pointed out that Huawei FreeBuds 4 is after all a semi-in-ear design of headphones, the physical isolation effect is weaker than that of in-ear headphones, so the noise reduction depth of Huawei FreeBuds 4 is limited, and in the noisy environment of traffic, the noise reduction effect is not as good as Huawei FreeBuds Pro and Apple AirPods Pro. But in the classroom or library, Huawei FreeBuds 4 can easily filter out the sound of insects outside the window and the sound of air conditioning in the house, so it seems that filtering low-frequency noise is more than enough.
2. Samsung Galaxy Buds Live
Samsung Galaxy Buds Live is a more special true wireless noise-canceling headphones, neither in-ear design, nor the traditional semi-in-ear design, the overall shape is like a pea, but the wearing comfort is much better than the in-ear headphones, so it also falls into the category of semi-in-ear headphones.
Like Huawei FreeBuds 4, Samsung Galaxy Buds Live also supports ANC active noise cancellation, but the noise reduction effect is also not as good as the price of in-ear noise cancellation headphones, but at least it can provide the basic noise reduction effect, so that you can have a comfortable wearing experience and experience a certain noise reduction effect.
The sound quality experience of Samsung Galaxy Buds Live is absolutely a must, after all, there are AKG professional tuning, small partners with higher requirements for sound quality, you can consider Samsung's comfortable noise-canceling headphones.
3. Summary
Comfort noise reduction Bluetooth headset in the market is still a relatively niche product, other semi-in-ear headphones either do not support active noise reduction function, or only support call noise reduction, only Huawei FreeBuds 4 and Samsung Galaxy Buds Live can provide a certain active noise reduction effect, but also to ensure a comfortable wearing experience.
Considering that different brands of headphones have their own unique ecological advantages, Xiaobian recommends that Huawei mobile phone users buy Huawei FreeBuds 4, Samsung mobile phone users buy Samsung Galaxy Buds Live, and other brand users recommend giving priority to Samsung Galaxy Buds Live with better sound quality.