I’m not a fan of open-fit earbuds, because they could not allow me to listen to musical details. But there are undeniable benefits, and with that mindset, I reviewed the Soundpeats Truebuds true wireless earbuds. They retail for USD 49.99 on the global website while the local Soundpeats Singapore Official mall at Shopee and Lazada retails at SGD 79.90 (launch offer).
Unboxing and Design
Check out the unboxing video of the Soundpeats Truebuds:
The Truebuds come with bare accessories. After all, it is an open-fit earbuds design hence there is no need for ear tips.
The charging ports are exposed, unlike the Soundpeats TrueShift2, though the Truebuds are IPX4 rated.
The charging case has a 2600 mAh battery which can be used as a power bank to charge your USB devices. Or you can save all the power to charge the earbuds, giving you 70 hours of listening, or 3.5 hours per charge.
Operations
The Soundpeats Truebuds supports auto-pairing when no device is being connected. To pair to another device, just disconnect from the current one and you can discover Trusbuds in the new device. To manually re-pair, press-hold the earbud touch panel for 6 seconds.
The earbuds operate via touch controls.
- Change volume: tap left earbud to reduce, tap right earbud to increase.
- Change track: tap-hold left earbud for 1.5s to go back, tap-hold right earbud for 1.5s to skip to next.
- Play-pause: double tap either earbuds.
- Voice assistant (Google, Siri): triple tap.
I find that the touch sensor area, where the logo is printed, is too small. As a result, sometimes I fail to press the sensor right the first time, resulting in some incorrect gestures. The long stem helps in handling the earbuds without touching the sensor, hence no accidental triggers.
To reset the earbuds due to any operational issues, place the earbuds back in the charging case, and press both touch sensors for 10 seconds until the LED flashes red and white twice on each earbud. When you remove the earbuds, both will blink and after that, one earbuds should turn solid white as the other remains in pairing mode. If both earbuds are in flashing white-red mode, then it means both earbuds are not paired to each other and you will not get stereo sound.
Occasionally, I find that one side of the earbuds did not auto power-on when I remove from the case, hence only one earbud is playing. You can easily resolve this by press-hold the earbud without sound for 1.5s to turn on manually.
Audio Quality
Running on Realtek RTL8763BFP Bluetooth chip, the Truebuds support SBC and AAC audio codecs. It uses 14.2mm bio-compound diaphragm drivers, and given the open-fit design, it is expected that the earbuds would lack intense bass compared to in-ear ones like TrueShift2. I tried to apply EQ over it and this is what I managed to get after some tweaking. I couldn’t push the bass any more as it could cause distortion.
From the above, you can guess that the treble is overpowering the bass responses, which warrants me to bring them down. For dialogues, the earbuds are great, so if you use them mostly for podcasts, YouTube or K-dramas, the Truebuds will bring out the speakers’ emotions a lot more.
As the earbuds do not isolate environment noises, it can be hard to hear at noisy places, while turning up the volume would intensify the treble harshness. But a great advantage is that they sit on my ears comfortably without any ear-canal pressure. I paired it to my laptop during this work-from-home period and works really well, while leaving the earbuds the whole time. This allows me to keep aware of what’s going on around the house.
I am also impressed at how instantaneous the earbuds switch from stereo to mono back to stereo whenever one of the earbuds is placed on the charging case. During the call, the microphone also switches immediately to the master earbud if the other earbud is in the charging port. This eliminates any listening disruptions. As for the call quality, the Truebuds works rather well thanks to the long stem that puts the mic closer to the mouth. It’s not HD quality, but loud and articulated enough. Due to the aggressive noise-cancelling, the mic may miss some of the initial consonants, and it certainly won’t pick up your breathing sounds either.
Verdict
The Truebuds are not the perfect earbuds for audio listening, but they are excellent for conversations and whole-day wearing if your type of work requires to be aware of the surrounding. For instance, use it while driving, at the office, at home. The power bank case benefits mobile warriors in charging USB devices or to keep the Truebuds going for 70 hours.
The official retail price on the global website is USD 49.99 while the local Soundpeats Singapore Official mall at Lazada is selling now at SGD 79.90.
Visit here for the official product page of Soundpeats Truebuds.
