There have been a lot of releases and a lot of tests, failures, send backs, and 2nd and even 3rd chances to earphones over this year. One thing I’ve learned with every single earphone I have ever purchased is that nothing is absolutely perfect. There is always going to be something you wish you had and didn’t have on every single earphone. And we get caught up by the race to find this perfect thing we look over the simple truth that it doesn’t exist. So I decided instead to give awards to different areas that might interest some people that might just be looking for 1 or 2 things and not the perfect earphone unicorn.
Subject 1: Comfort…
The Denon Perl Pro and Cambridge Audio M100 win the crown for comfort. While there are a lot of others that were comfortable, these two for my needs of venting and no pressure or hotspots deliver the best hands down. And if I had to go with one absolute winner …it would be the Denon Perl Pro for me but for others I would suggest the Cambridge M100 because I know everyone won’t fit the perl pros like my ears do.
Subject 2: Battery life
The winners here are the Cambridge Audio M100 and Earfun Air Pro 4. 52 hours is just flat-out sick. But more important is that this battery life is not at the cost of sound quality, ANC , quality, or other features just to say that they have battery life. Of the two, the Cambridge M100 takes the crown here because it delivers 16 hours on charge along with the 52 hours vs. the Earfun 11 hours.
Subject 3: ANC
As if you didn’t know. There is no conversation in this whole world for ANC that begins with any other name on planet Earth than BOSE. Anyone telling you anything at all, but this answer is flat out lying to you. Yes, companies like Sony, Apple, Technics, Earfun, and many others do a great job of ANC, too, but this is not on Bose levels period.
Subject 4 : SOUND
I know this is a very important subject to everyone, and no matter how much you want to argue and fight against… there is only ONE…the Denon Perl Pro! That’s right … nothing else in bluetooth is on their level. Not the Bower wilkins pi8, pi72, Bang and Olufsen, Master and Dynamics, or any other brand on this planet is on their total level of sound quality capabilities. It’s a complete game changer and truly stands out above anything you have ever experienced in the realm of bluetooth period. Yes, there are really great earphones that stand right next to them, but they don’t ever completely tie them or overtake them.
Subject 5: Reliability.
The most complete package of perfect operation with zero failures or problems and delivers on exactly what they promise lies in the hands of one single earphone…the Technics Az80! It is the ONLY bluetooth earphone I have ever experienced that didn’t have a single failure or compromise in my whole life of using bluetooth earphones. They might not be able to beat others as the best in any one category like sound or anc but they either are number 2-3 or tied in most cases. They deserve a lot of credit for being so dependable and actually doing the QC needed for dependable results.
Subject 6: Price
At a mere $80 the EarFun Air Pro 4’s are the kings here folks. There is really isn’t anything to talk about. They deliver more for you money than any single earphone I’ve ever had in my life. From Great ANC, Good phone call quality, Amazing Sound quality and soundstage. Amazing imaging, stellar battery life at 52 hours, and ease of wear with a great app. I mean it’s really not much you can ask of any other earphone that the EarFun doesn’t reasonably do great or good enough.
Subject 7: Phone call quality.
And lastly is phone quality and for me no earphone in the world today have ever defeated these even though they are older than a lot of other option on the market today. The Link bud S has always been the cleanest and clearest phone call quality I’ve ever experienced. Yes, there are other with above average sound quality like their big brother Sony wf1000xm5 and even sennheiser momentum mtw 4s to name a few, but nothing produced like the bud S.
To wrap things up, I get it. I know some people out there might find an offense that the wf1000xm5 was the champion in something. The Sennheiser or something else wasn’t a champion in a subject either. While these and others are still amongst the very best and would get my nod in cases for other people depending on their needs, they just didn’t make my list as the very best in this subject while other subject they would. Sony wf1000xm5, for instance, would make my tip choice for the earphone with the most features. Or the master and dynamic being the best built quality look. But these subjects just aren’t the topic today.
Tech-N-Things 