Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

First, sound quality. It is fantastic. They really sound like they're worth a lot more than they cost. I have bought many wireless and wired in the past that cost more and don't sound as good (some which I still have so I could actually compare them). The only buggy things about the sound is that: 1) if you don't put them on properly, they can sound weird. This is true for most earphones out there, and our ear canals are all different so it's not really the earbuds' fault, but these seem to exaggerate the issue more than any others I have had. One may sound more muffled than the other, or you'll notice how the sound changes as you tilt your head one way or the other, usually losing presence, and similar. I got to a point where I know how to insert the left one and know that none of these issues will take place, but I haven't figured out the right one yet. Once I do I'll probably be extremely happy and disregard the following. 2) They seem to do something to the stereo image to enhance it, perhaps the "binaural" feature? Some companies use the term "binaural calls" only to say they each bud has a mic, but perhaps these actually have binaural playback? Or maybe, since these link to each other and not both to your device directly, there's a bit of latency, and the sound hits one ear before it does the other, creating an extended stereo effect. I definitely feel that the center channel is spread out, so either of these hypotheses can be true. Some may find it cool, but I am an audio engineer and I like to hear exactly what the mixing and mastering engineers were going after when listening to music. You notice this a lot more during calls. I haven't found this to be a huge deal, though, just distracting at the moment. People who don't pay attention to such details may not notice anything at all. In terms of battery life, I'll be honest, there's very little chance I personally will wear these for more than the 3.5 hrs top they would run on a full charge, so keep that in mind when reading this review. I have 3 sets of earplugs and 6 headphones, and 2 sets of mixing/mastering-graded speakers. Ear fatigue is real when you work in audio, and even when listening for pleasure I switch headphones and speakers, or stop listening all together, every few hours. (When working on a mix I switch every few minutes). Even my workout sessions don't last more than 1 hr; my train trips don't last more than 2.5 hrs; and even if they did, again, I wouldn't be able to stand ANY headphone or speaker for more than the 3.5 hrs these would last, not my Bose nor my Shure headphones, not my $6K Dynaudio mixing and mastering station. All that being said, I got these last week and I have charged them twice, but really I had no need. I have used them a lot this week while testing them and put them in their base after each use. Both times that I put them to charge, both buds and the station were fully charged in like 10-15 mins, so it seems I could have gone a lot longer without charging. I would definitely recommend these above anything else in the market, unless you wanna go with the new, upcoming Sony ones. Those link directly to your device, so there would be no latency between either ever. Of course, those cost over $200, and these are hard to beat at the price. Also, these are already Bluetooth 5 enabled. Bluetooth compresses (read *degrades*) the audio information so it can travel wirelessly, but if you didn't notice anything when you got your first Bluetooth stuff 8 years ago, don't worry: it is almost unnoticeable when it comes to consumer-graded stuff. Being gen 5, this means these degrade sound less than previous generations. After all, if you are listening to Spotify, you are already listening to an mp3 at 320kbps at best, which is already very compressed (again, *degraded*, this is the reason why no actual pro audio, studio applications use Bluetooth, it's not ready for that yet). I used to have a rule of not buying anything Bluetooth for more than $20-30 for these very reasons, but I broke the rule of course for the true wireless situation, the charging base, the gen 5 thing, AND these are actually my second SoundPeats earplugs. The first ones I bought a couple years ago for like $18, Bluetooth 3 I believe and both joined by a wire and, truly, for the price they were also amazing. I lost them, I bought others from other brands in a similar price range but they all sounded terrible (as they should, to be honest!). So I went back to SoundPeats and yup, these are some of the best things you can buy for the money. ---- Update: I using the smallest ear pieces included still holds them tight in my ear AND eliminates all other sonic problems. I can move my head around freely without the sound changing and now the stereo image has been "fixed". This makes sense actually because when you change the eq of one side only, either digitally, with analog eq, or mechanically (as it was occurring by my head movement shifting my ear canal and how the ear piece bended, all affecting how the sound traveled until it reached my ear drum) there will be phase issues in relation to the other side. The center channel in particular (what sounds center when both L and R channels are playing at equal distance from the listener) will be affected, frequencies can get cancelled out partially or even totally, giving a sense of separation on both sides of the stereo field that isn't quite desirable. So yeah, buy these, and experiment with the ear pieces.