![]() You’ll have to pay two, three, times the price of these buds to get better audio in the true wireless form factor, so that’s also worth mentioning. If that’s your bag, then the Arq’s are worth a flutter. Clear vocals and highs are often swamped by the heavy bass. The buds themselves are okay, but could do with some EQ work or the sound signature tweaking in a future release. Okay, for under $55 right now on Amazon, the Wicked Audio Arq earbuds are tempting. There aren’t many sets of true wireless earbuds that are immune to this though, so it shouldn’t put you off, not at this price point. The reconnect only took a split second but it was enough to annoy. The only minor annoyance was some dropouts of connectivity, where one bud dropped out, then reconnected. I mean, Beats got famous on this sound, right? The bass can be over-heavy at times, unfortunately, making some tracks hard to listen to at volume. The story changes when you start listening to rap/techno/pop, where the sound signature comes into its own. Bluetooth has gotten better, but it still can’t show the nuances of lossless music. I mean, I’m using Spotify for testing, partly so I can link to the same tracks, partly because that’s what the majority of buyers of true wireless headphones are going to be using. The kick drum on RaTM’s Wake Up sounds better balanced than on the earlier Placebo track, so maybe it really is down to EQ settings on the original tracks. Oasis with D’you know what I mean sounds fantastic, better than I remember the Manc’ boys being in their heyday. The rest of the song comes through pretty well though, so I can forgive the minor issue, especially after a bit of EQ tweaking. The bass is over-muddy, with the kick drums on Placebo’s Nancy Boy really sounding muted against the angst of Brian Molko’s vocals. ![]() The overall sound is pretty good, with a fairly v-shaped sound signature with heavy lows and tweaked highs, and toned-down mids. Handy if your smartphone starts to run low, although it could mean carrying more cables around. That extra power can be used to charge other devices, via the USB-A port. It’s also worth pointing out that the extra “junk in the trunk” in the Wicked Audio earbud case is a pretty hefty 2,600 mAh battery. It doesn’t make up for the weird press-button-to-charge setup, but it’s a nice touch I’ve not seen before. That’s not a bad touch at all, stopping you from having to open the case to see if they’re charging or finished. The section of the case that flips out to let you get the buds is slightly translucent, so you can see the charging lights through the case. You can also connect just the right bud to your phone if you prefer, or if you want to stretch the battery life by using them purely as single buds. When both are paired, the left bud is the one in charge both for Bluetooth pairing and controls. ![]() Pairing is automatic when taking the buds out of the case, and Bluetooth pairing couldn’t be easier – if they haven’t been paired already, the left bud will go into pairing mode (flashing red/blue light) so your phone can see it. No volume controls or fancy things like voice assistant invoking here, but we are talking about budget earbuds. This could do with moving to the end corner, or even automatic recharging being added to a future revision.īoth buds have a button on them, this has multiple uses including on/off, pairing, and music/calls start/stop/etc. It’s also worth noting that the earbuds won’t automatically charge when inserted into the case – you have to press the difficult-to-reach button right between the buds. The case itself takes 5 hours to charge via USB, and I found this pretty close in terms of timing. It does take 30 minutes or so for the case to recharge the buds from empty, something that’s worth keeping in mind. Battery life is rated at 3 hours for the earbuds, with another 60 hours (so 20 full charges) in the battery charging case That should serve well for use in the gym, where the low price also comes in handy for the inevitable lost bud. The earbuds are fairly unobtrusive, fit into my (fairly large) ears well, and crucially – didn’t shift a millimeter when I shook my head vigorously. That said, what you do get is pretty impressive. For a third of the price of AirPods, you can’t expect too many bells and whistles.
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