To what extent the TWS headphone market is involved is also obvious to all, especially in noise reduction, which seems to be a must-have function, whether it is the depth of noise reduction or the frequency range, each step by step squeezes the technical limit. But at this moment, Sony Dafa suddenly "turned around", the opposite way, came a you to the right and I to the left, released a "transparent" complete, suitable for all-weather wear TWS headphones - Sony open true wireless headphones LinkBuds
When I first saw the rendering of this product on the SNS platform, I had a thought in my heart: First, can this sound quality be good? The other is that I must play with this peculiar product, after all, we have not used a similar product.
1. Appearance & Wear
When I waited for the courier, I couldn't wait to open the same eco-friendly material packaging as the Sony WF-1000XM4 noise-cancelling headphones, and inside was the LinkBuds body.
Let's say that this box is really small, even if it is smaller than the AirPods series headphone box, but when preparing to open the box to take the headphones, because the box is small and slippery, the box itself is easy to accidentally take it and fall, hoping that the follow-up products will be optimized.
Then there are 2 headphones themselves, this kind of shape of headphones is really rare, open ring design to ensure that the ears are transparent and comfortable when wearing, after ergonomic design of the headphone center of gravity structure on the inside, will make the pressure in different areas of the ears further optimized, after wearing the squeeze will be reduced a lot.
Of course, it is also possible to change the bracket of 5 sizes according to personal needs to ensure the comfort and firmness of wearing. Because it is a hollow design, the ears will not be stuffy after wearing it for a while, it is very breathable, and I wear it for 5 hours on weekend afternoons without excessive discomfort.
Second, sound quality & call
Due to the use of innovative ring drivers, my expectations for sound quality are not particularly high, but after using it found that there is more than my expectations, taking this "Zombie" as an example, the addition of rubidium magnets makes the tension of the middle and high frequencies clear enough, not to mention Sony's self-developed integrated processor V1 with high signal-to-noise ratio and low distortion characteristics of the D/A conversion circuit, portable headphone amplifiers, all further make the expression of the middle and high frequencies sufficient, the overall look is more catered to the style of popular music.
The submergence of the bass will be limited due to the hardware physical level of the ring diaphragm, and the performance is comparable to the level of AirPods, but think about the positioning of this product - the true wireless headphones worn around the clock are naturally clear.
If you want to achieve all-weather wear, you have to face the use needs of various scenarios, and the natural mobile phone is the top priority to answer the phone. LinkBuds built-in deep neural network learns a large number of basic samples to match the current environmental noise reduction needs, effectively separate the ambient sound and extract the voice, and improve the call quality in both directions.
Such as in the noisy environment of the subway, I can still clearly listen to the voice content of the call object, and it is simpler to deal with the normal street and road environment, of course, it is not recommended to use headphones in an extremely noisy environment, and unconsciously turning up the volume will affect the sound health.
Third, intelligent & operation
In terms of intelligent experience and operation, this time LinkBuds won my heart.
Bluetooth specification is 5.2, supports Windows Swift Pair fast pairing, and supports pairing multiple devices.
In the form of operation, due to the small size, the conventional pressing, button operation of the headset is not realistic, and clicking on the outside of the headset has become the best option, but the outside is too small and not very good blind spot? Sony provides a "wide area click" function in place, which can be operated equal to the outside of the headset by clicking on the area around the headset, including but not limited to the ears and the area around the face at the edge of the ear.
We can set the double-click and triple-click functions on both sides of the headphones according to the needs, I habitually set the left side to double-click to pause/play, three-click the next song; the right side is set to double-click to turn up the volume, three-click to turn down the volume.
Adaptive volume control is more practical, and the sound can be automatically increased according to the ambient tone, without the need for manual adjustment.
For a headset worn all day, it is natural to avoid the problem of dialogue with people during the wearing process, take it off and wear it again? Or do you turn on transparency mode? In fact, there is no need, the headphones themselves are hollow design, the sound of the outside world can naturally enter the binaural, and the headphones also support the intelligent unpicking function, which is monitored that we will pause when playing during the dialogue, and continue when the dialogue is over, without manual intervention throughout the process. Of course, the smart pick-free function can also be turned off.
All of the above features can be adjusted according to your preferences in the Sony Headphones Connect APP, and you can choose from the most expensive and frugal.
After cooperating with QQ Music, with a little setting on the Tencent Xiaowei App, you can operate the headset to quickly play self-built song lists, collection song lists or "30 songs per day" recommended song lists; we can also use LinkBuds to wake up Tencent Xiaowei's "intelligent voice assistant" to broadcast information to enhance happiness for life.
Combine the above intelligent operation and wear it behind both ears. I work every afternoon and hardly need to use my hands or the wearer to do anything extra, which is the quality of a smart TWS headset.
4. Summarize & Purchase Suggestions
It can be seen from this headset that Sony does not want to classify LinkBuds to any kind of TWS headset today, but wants to use a new idea for consumers to wear and use, the ears will appear more intelligent and rich functional experience, which is the icing on the cake, voice assistant and Quick Access quick music playback, or rich intelligent experience operation, this is the product "all-weather wear" positioning to the extreme, not to mention his price is 1,199 yuan.
Above, if you use headphones very frequently every day, often need to wear headphones when you work or regular activities, and you also need to have a richer interconnection experience of headphones and mobile phones, then choosing this LinkBuds should not be a big problem. If you wear more for commuting, less for work or daily life, or need to work quietly, then comfortable noise-cancelling headphones like the Sony WF-1000XM4 are probably better for you.