A media person once said such a sentence: "True wireless headphones have turned us all into fools." In my opinion, this sentence is more positive, think about smart phones have also turned us into fools, but it makes our lives more convenient; and true wireless headphones are caused by smart phones, and now the sales of true wireless products that occupy the head of the market must be counted in millions or even tens of millions. In other words, as long as you are using a smartphone, you will most likely need a true wireless headset, which is the current market situation we see.
Wanderer NeoBuds Pro
So the question is, among the many true wireless headphones, how do we choose the right one for ourselves? Of course, the publicity of the manufacturer is not reliable, so this time we have selected the 4 true wireless headphones with the highest attention in the near future, and the retail price is in the range of 500-1000 yuan, which supports active noise reduction. This time, we will conduct a horizontal evaluation from the user experience to see which headphones are suitable for you, and we hope to bring a little help to everyone's purchase.
1
Comfort
What is the most important thing to say about true wireless headphones: sound quality, noise reduction, latency? One thing that must not be overlooked when we talk about these core functions should be – comfort. The biggest difference between true wireless headphones and headphones in the past is that there is no shackle of the wire, which can take over more of our use cases. In other words, we usually use it for a longer period of time. So comfort becomes even more important.
First of all, in terms of weight, in addition to the FIIL CG Pro being the lightest, only 4.2g, the weight of the other three headphones is around 5g, which is not much different. However, it should be emphasized that light weight does not mean good wearing comfort, but is closely related to the cavity structure of the headset and the sense of intrusiveness when wearing. Therefore, we should evaluate the comfort of headphones from the perspective of "foreign body feeling" and "pressure feeling".
FIIL CG Pro
Among the four headphones, the large feed-forward noise-cancelling microphone opening on the Cavity of the Wanderer NeoBuds Pro headphones can well balance atmospheric pressure while picking up external noise, which also greatly reduces the sense of pressure. In addition, NeoBuds Pro's silicone earbuds invade the ear canal at a short distance, and when worn, in addition to the earbuds, the plastic part of the headphones is almost not attached to the ears, there is no obvious foreign body feeling, which is the most comfortable of the four headphones.
Xiaomi True Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones 3 Pro
Beats Studio Buds
The most uncomfortable to wear is Beats Studio Buds, as the only "bean pie" among the four headphones, when wearing, you need to tuck the entire headphones into the ear, the foreign body feeling is the strongest, and after wearing for an hour, the ear will have a more obvious sense of pressure, you must take it off and rest for a while.
Fiil and Xiaomi two headphones are not much different in wearing feeling, comfort is acceptable, and there is no obvious sense of pressure, the difference of 0.6g weight is difficult for the ear to perceive; but between FIIL's silicone earbuds in softness than Xiaomi slightly better (skin-friendly slightly better), so in terms of wearing comfort, we give the ranking is: Wanderer NeoBuds Pro > FIIL CG Pro > Xiaomi True Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones 3Pro > Beats Studio Buds
2
Operational experience
In terms of operation, the Wanderer and FIIL are the same touch operation, Xiaomi uses pressure-sensitive buttons, and Beats Studio Buds is a traditional physical button. However, in terms of actual operating experience, Beats Studio Buds is the most comfortable, mainly because it is the quietest and fastest. Both the Wanderer and The Fiil have a degree of "stethoscope effect", and xiaomi's pressure-sensitive operation is quieter, although it is slower (requiring the thumb and index finger to pinch the ear handle at the same time). In addition, Xiaomi is the only headphone that supports wearing detection this time (take off any one of the headphones to pause the music and put it on to play), which brings great convenience to the user's operation.
FIIL and the Wanderer are touch-operated
First of all, let's talk about wanderers and FIIL, the advantage of touch operation is convenient, no need to press, but when we tap the ear stem with our fingers, it will make a "bang" sound because the ear canal is sealed, which is the source of the "stethoscope effect".
Xiaomi operates with pressure sensitivity and Beats as a physical button
Relatively better is the Wanderer NeoBuds Pro. When this headset is designed, it does not let the main part of the headset directly contact the pinna, but uses silicone earbuds to hang the headset, so it will not be as stuffy as other headphones, and the stethoscope effect is weaker than FIIL. In addition, the operation sensitivity of the FIIL CG Pro is general, such as the operation of tapping twice to play/pause music, and there are often unrecognized situations, which need to be criticized.
Finally, beats Studio Buds, although it is a physical button, it is very convenient to operate, the response is also very sensitive, and there is no uncomfortable stethoscope effect, but unfortunately it does not support wearing detection, and the ease of operation is not as good as Xiaomi. So in the operation experience section, we give the ranking: Xiaomi True Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones 3Pro > Beats Studio Buds > Wanderer NeoBuds Pro > FIIL CG Pro
3
Bluetooth connection experience & latency
The four headsets in this horizontal review all support Bluetooth 5.0 or above versions, and they perform well in terms of transmission distance and stability. Usually used for commuting, in the subway car, crowded transfer station, this daily has been more extreme, only occasionally appear once or twice stutter, so the daily use of the four headphones is basically no problem, will not give you off the chain.
In the connection speed of Bluetooth and mobile phones, the four headphones also support opening the lid after the first pairing, often the headphones are taken out of the charging box and have not been worn to complete the connection; after wearing the headphones also have voice or prompt tones (Bluetooth is connected), in this regard we think that the four headphones are doing very well. Therefore, in this link, the four headphones are a draw.
Since it comes to the Connection Experience of Bluetooth, we may wish to talk about a pain point of the current true wireless headphones - delay. We know that the reason why Bluetooth has a delay is because Bluetooth data needs to be saved and sent out when transmitted, and the delay of the game is more complex, involving the underlying processing of multimedia, Bluetooth encoding, and the decoding of headphones. For the delay of the game itself, the headset manufacturer is more difficult to control, so the optimization of the delay is mainly in the processing of the underlying multimedia and the encoding and decoding of Bluetooth.
In general, the delay below 200ms is an upper limit that is difficult for most users to perceive. The delay is less than 200ms, and the delay in firing a gun is usually less easy to feel, of course, this also varies from person to person; after all, in the game, the lower the delay, the better.
At present, the industry's benchmark product AirPods Pro latency is 170ms, although the three headphones of FIIL, Xiaomi and Beats in this horizontal review did not find this data, but the actual experience is not much different, the delay of shooting is felt, but in the acceptable range, basically does not affect the overall experience of the game. Relatively speaking, the Xiaomi True Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones 3Pro has a lower sense of latency than the other two headphones.
The best lag performance is the Wanderer NeoBuds Pro, a headset specially designed with a "game mode" that can be as low as 80ms when turned on, which will be very friendly for mobile gamers. Playing games with this headset, the sound and picture are always in sync, and the experience is very smooth. So in the delay section, we give the rankings: Wanderer NeoBuds Pro > Xiaomi True Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones 3Pro > FIIL CG Pro > Beats Studio Buds
4
Periwinkle blue
Among the four headphones this time, the Wanderer NeoBuds Pro is a circle iron dual unit, the other three are dynamics; bluetooth audio decoding, the Wanderer supports LDAC and LHDC HD encoding, and the other three headphones only support AAC and SBC. Of course, the above parameters are only for reference, and it is necessary to verify the manufacturer's tuning ability for sound in terms of hearing.
The wanderer, FIIL and Beats headphones are relatively close in sound style, and they all belong to the more typical pop tuning style. Xiaomi's voice is relatively flat (boring), and there is a clear shortcoming in the three frequencies, which will be elaborated later.
From the sound point of view, FIIL and the wanderer's sound characteristics are the closest, low frequencies are relatively thick, but the problem of FIIL is that the low frequency gives more, some headshots, and the brightness of high frequencies and the clarity of the human voice are general, which is not as good as the wanderer NeoBuds Pro; the latter's circle iron mixing unit makes up for the lack of medium and high frequencies, and under the blessing of LDAC and LHDC HD encoding, the sound details will also have a more obvious improvement, and the amount of information of the song is richer.
The sound quality of Beats Studio Buds is very gripping at first, especially pop music, the low-frequency volume is sufficient, elastic, and does not blow the head, and at the same time does not cover up the details of the middle and high frequencies; although the amount of information in the song is slightly insufficient compared to the wanderer NeoBuds Pro (LDAC and LHDC decoded), but the overall sound feel is very comfortable, and there is no obvious shortcoming in the three frequencies.
Finally, the xiaomi true wireless noise-canceling headphones 3Pro, the problem of this headphone is that the low frequency sense is insufficient, the music lacks a sense of power; although this will make the vocals more prominent to a certain extent, but the three frequencies are not balanced enough, and the overall sense of sound is not strong. There is also a small sound of the headphones, the same as 50% volume (mobile phone), obviously smaller than the other three headphones, you need to further increase the volume. So, the rankings we give in the sound quality section are: Wanderer NeoBuds Pro > Beats Studio Buds > FIIL CG Pro > Xiaomi True Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones 3 Pro
5
Noise reduction effect
The maximum noise reduction of FIIL, Wanderer and Xiaomi three headphones is around 40dB, beats Studio Buds although the data was not found, but the use of the same as the other three, should also be in this order of magnitude. Regarding the noise reduction experience, the first thing to say is that these four headphones are very good products in this level (price point) of noise reduction true wireless headphones. In our actual measurements in the past few days, the noise reduction level of the four headphones is difficult to open the gap, but there is still a "hard injury" in one of the headphones, which is still put at the end.
In fact, most of the external noise we usually live in is low frequency, usually most of the noise reduction headphones filter is mainly the low frequency noise below 400Hz band, while retaining the 500-1KHz human voice band to ensure the safety of users when using noise-canceling headphones outdoors.
Taking the subway cars with the highest daily commuting frequency as an example, these four headphones can more obviously filter out the continuous low-frequency noise in the carriages, and at the same time, you can hear the sound of the station clearly, without sitting on the station because of listening to music. In addition, the four headphones also support a transparent mode, which is turned on when talking to people briefly, which we think is still more practical, eliminating the trouble of having to take off the headphones every time.
This time the problem is the Xiaomi Mi True Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones 3Pro, using this headset in the subway, once my finger inadvertently touched the noise reduction microphone hole on the ear stem, and then the headphones emitted a harsh "la-la-la" sound; more confusingly, the fingers continued to touch a few times, and the noise reduction mode was automatically turned off and needed to be turned on again. After repeated verification, this problem still exists. In addition, when you are in conjunction with the opposing train, the noise reduction will disappear in an instant (possibly caused by the change in atmospheric pressure), and then recover immediately, but this time it is also uncomfortable enough.
Later, I also checked on the Internet and found that the noise reduction problem of this headset is not an isolated case, and there are also users on the Internet who apply for return and exchange because of noise reduction problems. The above situation has not appeared at least in the other three headphones in this horizontal review, so the noise reduction experience part, we give the ranking is:
Beats Studio Buds ≈ Wanderer NeoBuds Pro ≈ FIIL CG Pro > Xiaomi True Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones 3Pro
6
Endurance performance
In the noise reduction mode, the single battery life of both the Wanderer and Beats headphones reached 5 hours, and the Xiaomi, which has the shortest battery life, also reached 4 hours. In our opinion, as long as the battery life reaches 4 hours, daily use will not be too much of a problem. After all, the in-ear headphones themselves will not be worn for a long time, and they usually have to be taken off to let the ears rest for a while.
The total endurance reaches 20 hours, and there is basically not much power anxiety in daily life, which the Wanderer and Xiaomi have performed well, and FIIL's 18-hour battery life is barely qualified. The more general battery life is Beats Studio Buds, only about 15 hours, this performance is really a bit of a stretch.
Xiaomi True Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones 3Pro support wireless charging
Fiil CG Pro supports wireless charging
In terms of charging interface, the four headphones are equipped with USB-C ports as standard, which brings users a relatively friendly charging experience. In addition, it should be emphasized that the charging case of fiil CG Pro and Xiaomi True Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones 3Pro is equipped with wireless charging, which must be commended. In our opinion, wireless charging you may not need to use every day, but there is better than nothing. So on the whole, the ranking we give in the battery life section is: Xiaomi True Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones 3Pro > Wanderer NeoBuds Pro > FIIL CG Pro > Beats Studio Buds
7
Summary & Buying Advice
Comparing the experience of the four headphones, our feeling is that the mainstream domestic headphones have made considerable progress compared with the past in terms of function, experience and comprehensive product strength, especially in the competition with foreign mainstream big-name products, and many aspects of the performance are more advantageous. Of course, in some product details, domestic headphones still need to be further improved and improved, and this part we have also clearly pointed out in the text. It is also hoped that manufacturers can absorb feedback from consumers and the media to continuously improve the product experience.
Combined with the above product strength, combined with the price of each headset, we believe that the Wanderer NeoBuds Pro is the most comprehensive performance of the product in this cross-review; in terms of comfort, delay, noise reduction and sound quality, the performance is better than the other three headphones. If you have enough money, we also recommend this headset. FIIL CG Pro comprehensive product strength also has a good performance, and also support wireless charging, and the price of 499 yuan is to make this headset very cost-effective, very recommended. Beats Studio Buds performed poorly in the more important aspects of comfort, latency and battery life, and the price was also the most expensive of the four headphones, and the price was average. Xiaomi True Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones 3Pro is a more "partial" product in our opinion: comfortable wearing and pressure-sensitive operation, compatible with wearing detection and wireless charging functions, these are its advantages; however, there are obvious shortcomings in sound quality and noise reduction, which is really regrettable. If the follow-up can make up for these two shortcomings in the product replacement update, it will undoubtedly be a very competitive product. (Source: Zhongguancun Online)