In the field of portable digital, which can compete with the degree of volume in the mobile phone market, in addition to true wireless headphones, it seems difficult to find "circle friends" who meet in a narrow way.
On the one hand, mobile phone manufacturers continue to fight for price and performance, compared to come and go, it is nothing more than who can get the first launch, who has a high hardware configuration, who has a low price, and can be recognized. High configuration and low price have become the main symbols of the "inner volume" of mobile phones.
On the one hand, the real wireless headphones in addition to the price configuration, but also in the spelling of various use scenarios. The "gap period" outside the price range of digital manufacturers and HiFi manufacturers, such as the price of 500-1000 yuan, is the competitive place for new white-label headphone brands.
The true wireless headset "inner roll" logo is more extensive than that of mobile phones. After all, compared with mobile phones, whether it is upstream technology or the layout of brands for products at different price points, true wireless headphones (hereinafter referred to as TWS) are still in a high explosive stage.
From the end of 2021, it is not difficult to see that the true wireless headset market is undergoing some new changes. For example, Sennheiser, Iron Triangle, JVC and other established manufacturers are iteratively upgrading their own high-end true wireless headphones at the same time, but also launching some products of about a few hundred yuan "cost-effective", which is obviously to "grab" the market of mass digital brands.
Digital manufacturers that did not start with audio have explored the high-end market through one or two "flagship products" with a price of up to thousands of yuan, hoping to seize the opportunity and occupy a place in the future next-generation TWS consumption upgrade.
There is also the new "white card" TWS with a price of 100 yuan to quickly conquer the entry market.
Just when the big manufacturers are desperately trying to make efforts in the entry-level market and digital brands are struggling in the high-end market, Sony's LinkBuds released on February 16, 2022, with a novel appearance and a price of 1199 yuan, posed a posture that did not want to go with the flow.
This headset is particularly "rebellious", in today's noise reduction has become the mainstream configuration function in the brand's various price points, and with "noise reduction" as the selling point, LinkBuds directly canceled noise reduction.
Note: The actual wear requires the fixing part of the "shark fin" to be placed in the ear pinna
The official directly said that this headset adopts an "open" design, a true wireless headset without noise reduction function dares to sell for more than 1,000 yuan, it is estimated that only Sony dares to do so.
The reason behind the lack of noise reduction
This is not the first time that Sony has launched "open" true wireless headphones, it should be noted that the "open" here is a special design through the cavity structure, so that the ear canal and the sound unit and cavity leave a certain "gap", and then let the external ear canal "expose" outside, this design is not into the ear earbuds through the earbuds and ear canal tight fit wearing way, but also different from the flat head plug directly "covered" the wearing of the inner and outer pinna.
Sony first announced its "open" headphone products in 2019, when the product named XEA-20 quickly became a hot topic of discussion at that time with its alternative appearance and "open" as a selling point. The sound of this headset is very special, it is through the rear of the sound unit, and then through a metal catheter to transmit the sound to the front cavity structure to achieve, which can bring a more comfortable wearing experience than the ear, but also due to structural problems, resulting in sound leakage. In addition, due to its size and battery life, the XEA-20 cannot be worn for a long time.
The open structural design allows the XEA-20 to only be able to hear the music played by the headphones in a relatively quiet environment, coupled with the problem that the battery life is not ideal, the application environment is too single, and this concept is too "advanced" Products were quickly shelved by me.
Judging from the fact that the LinkBuds naming method does not continue XEA, this is a completely new product of Sony. Sony's definition of this headset is: "suitable for long-term wear".
Wearing is actually more difficult to do than "sound quality".
The headphone case is very compact
LinkBuds can be understood as a flat plug "flattened" and then opened a hole
To achieve long-term wear, the first battery life problem is to be solved. If you want to achieve "long battery life" on true wireless headphones, the first thing is to remove the "power consumption" noise reduction function.
Although from the functional point of view, only the "noise reduction" is removed, in fact, for the headphone cavity, the hardware part is removed more. For example, the necessary pickup microphone, noise reduction chip and corresponding circuit in the noise reduction ear will make the entire cavity structure simpler after removal, which is beneficial and harmless for the long endurance of the headphones. This time to get the hand time is relatively short, so we will not discuss the endurance, and then separately carry out the scene-based endurance measurement.
Even without the noise-canceling pickup microphone and circuitry, this TWS headset does not combine the unit and cavity, but adopts Sony's "original" split design: the "Mobis Ring" shape where the sound unit and the circuit battery are separated.
In fact, the split design is reflected in the XEA20, such an advantage is to share part of the weight of the headset, plus LinkBuds circuit battery added a fixed accessory similar to the "shark fin", according to the user's internal and external pinna size, replace different models of shark fin, which is also the only part of the machine that can be "adjusted". Through the "insert" wearing method, the sounding cavity is close to the external ear canal to make sound, and then the "occlusion" of the rear circuit is used to reduce sound leakage.
Sony's first open-plan true wireless headset XEA20 image from Sony
But the actual performance is still not satisfactory.
The hollow design in the middle of the front cavity is used, which is similar to the degree of sound leakage of the flat head plug when playing music. Turn on the "adaptive volume adjustment" function on the APP, the headset can detect the surrounding sound intensity, to increase the volume of music when playing music according to the surrounding sound, such as the surrounding is very noisy, the system will increase the volume, and vice versa.
The seemingly high-tech front cavity cutout design is actually just to be able to hear the ambient sound, using this design to replace the "transparency mode" in noise-canceling headphones.
Sound commentary
This novel cutout design is bound to have an impact on sound. Sony's headphones and the current mainstream true wireless headphones are slightly different in the unit structure. For example, this hollow design is compared to the general dynamic headphones, reducing the diaphragm area, in addition to the LinkBuds unit and magnetic circuit structure, and remove the dust cover and use the external magnetic structure design of the speaker unit similar, but after all, it is a headset, the lack of top diaphragm and limited by the size of the cavity, to a certain extent, the stroke will also be limited.
This makes me wonder about the sound part of it, will this design lead to a lack of volume and diving in low frequencies?
And high-end true wireless headphones JVC FW1000T put together, the size is clear at a glance
After actual listening, it does confirm the conjecture, and indeed there is a certain gap between the low-frequency volume sense and the dive and the JVC FW1000T at hand, in addition, the dynamic and transient response is not as strong as the JVC FW1000T.
Simple and JVC FW1000T to compare, if JVC FW1000T low frequency can score 9 points, then LinkBuds can only score 6 points, in terms of quality and hearing, there are relatively big differences.
LinkBuds overall low frequency in the quality, the rebound speed is relatively fast, diving and cohesion in general, although the transient response is good, but because of the lack of a certain amount of sense, so that the entire low frequency is relatively thin, plus for the open design, so the low frequency advantage is not obvious, want to listen to the "rumble" is more "deafening" users can directly skip. In addition, although the low-frequency transient response is strong, it lacks the right density and atmosphere.
The intermediate frequency performance here is mainly based on the human voice, the vocal image distance is good, the female voice and the male voice are relatively high in the frequency density, but compared to Sony's traditional in-ear headphones such as exk, XBA series, the taste is not "strong", but fortunately, the vocal restoration is good, at least it will not sing Aunt Cai as Teresa Teng.
High-frequency extensions and overtones are at normal levels, but they are not successful. In addition, in the creation of the soundstage, there is still a difference from the earplugs, the overall sense of sound field space is closer to the MX985/980 Senhai flat head plug, the horizontal is wide and vast, and the longitudinal layering is not as clear as the earbuds.
Three-frequency distribution chart The sense of hearing is basically the same Picture from the B station up main destruction of people tirelessly の天木水
Of course, the advantage of the sound field is also due to the open structure, which is still stronger than the same price dynamic ring earbuds.
To sum up, the sound quality can not be compared with the wired headphones of about a thousand yuan, in addition to the lack of their own LDAC support, can only be SBC and AAC connection, but also from the side, this is not a headset that focuses on sound quality.
Although it is a different way, the market still needs to be verified
Sony wants to make this "lightweight" function of the true wireless headphones, become the daily can be normal communication "standard", this novel idea is really compared to other brands of true wireless headphones to be "smarter"?
LinkBuds in addition to listening to music, through this open design, in the daily work, life communication more "tool" attributes, seemingly reasonable, but actually think about it, to consider the "open" and sacrifice the overall noise reduction function, and only choose the noise reduction headphones are not commonly used "transparency mode", is it "picked up sesame seeds and lost watermelon"?
According to the survey of I Love Audio Network, among the potential factors affecting consumers' purchase of TWS headphones, the first three are: 1. active noise reduction, 2. listening assistance, high-definition music, and 3. lossless sound quality, accounting for 71%, 68% and 64% respectively. From this point of view, noise reduction and sound quality are still the main factors for consumers to buy TWS headphones.
Image from I Love Audio Network
With the upgrading of consumption, TWS headsets will be upgraded in 2022, and the empowerment of new features will make TWS more adaptable.
In addition, domestic mobile phone manufacturers join the true wireless headset market, with the deep adaptation of their own headphones, will be more prominent and the previous interconnection of the mobile phone, such as through the headset intelligent assistant to achieve the operation of the mobile phone interaction or the use of mobile phone shooting video, the use of headphone microphone for high-definition sound quality recording, the future of the interconnection between the mobile phone and the headset will make the consumer demand orientation more obvious, which is more innovative than the independent true wireless headset.
For Sony's LinkBuds, it can only be regarded as a "solution idea" to get rid of the current true wireless headphone roll.
In the face of a more competitive 2022, will this alternative solution succeed? See.