We’ve come across a long way watching the best of the best earbuds in the market. To be precise, we’ve seen the revolution of the earbuds market. There are options for pure audiophiles, mobile gamers, athletes, or even people who like to live a minimalist life without tangling themselves around wires. Since the growth of the earbuds increased exponentially, some of the companies, who happen to be great audio companies, played smartly with the consumers with not a competitive but very aggressive price tag. And the Danish company Bang-and-Olufsen is one of them.
Well, even though this brand is considered a high-end tech company with premium audio technologies, it seems like they’ve been just kidding around with the audiophiles. Here’s an example- Bang-and-Olufsen is going to release their upcoming earbuds, the Beoplay EQ, on 19th August 2021. And looking at the news already, visually the company has not disappointed us at all.
B&O has said that to achieve maximum noise-canceling, they have implemented an Adaptive ANC solution, which they claimed to be the first time on a pair of earbuds. Essentially, it’s a more sophisticated ANC variant that involves a dedicated ANC DSP Chip and Six Microphones (Six Beamforming Microphones), which is, as a matter of fact, very standard in terms of the past releases from other different companies. These six directional beamforming mics should be able to provide crystal clear call and speech quality.
The Beoplay EQ is going to be released in two different color variants- Black Anthracite and Sand Gold Tone, and there’ll be four different sizes of interchangeable ear tips to suit a range of ears. However, the technical specs are almost totally unbeatable, like- aptX adaptive, the latest Bluetooth 5.2, an IP54 Dust-and-Splash Proof rating, and of course, a straightforward set-up process that should be a breeze for both Android and Apple devices.
Now about the playtime, you can expect an immersive musical session for up to 20 hours, including the charging case and a straight six and a half hours of runtime from each of the buds with ANC, turned on. Now, if you compare this with the industry leaders like the airpods pro or the 1000xm4, it’s safe to say that Bang-and-Olufsen failed to compete regarding the battery life, which is a great bummer. And then again, a quick 20-minute charge will give you up to 2 hours of runtime, whereas the 1000xm4 can provide an hour of playtime from a 5-minute fast charging. However, the charging case is Qi-certified, crafted from Spacecraft-grade Aluminum, and I think this is one of the significant reasons behind pricing this pair of earbuds to the most luxurious extent which might bring justice to some state-of-the-art enthusiast. And this whopping price tag is not only from Bang and Olufsen at all.
Another company named Bowers and Wilkins also takes pride in creating highly competitive priced audio products, including earbuds. Like, their recent release PI7, being the flagship earbuds, is priced at 399 dollars as well. Within this price range, you can get Sony’s over-ear headphones, the WH-1000XM4 at around 300 bucks, or a good smartphone like the Google Pixel 4A or the second generation of iPhone SE. From that perspective, I think getting this pair of earbuds is definitely overkill. Because if you are already getting some promising specs from some great-sounding earbuds under 300 dollars, why on earth would you buy a gold mine like this? It’s maybe because you care about the aesthetics, the comfort more than you care about just listening to music. You’ll definitely have a great experience when using these Beoplay EQ earbuds only if you don’t care about the pricing scheme at all. Other than that, getting it will be just fine.
