By Avi Greengart
I met with Knowles at CES to discuss their components, and after a few demos I asked that they send over something that uses their balanced armature driver (tweeter) so I could hear it in the real world. A few days after I got back from Las Vegas Edifier sent over these NeoBuds Pro 2. I've been really impressed with the sound quality, especially after I turned off the bass enhance mode (EDM and rap listeners will want to keep it on -- it's good, just too much for me). That Knowles tweeter is nicely etched without getting fatiguing, and the 10mm dynamic driver provides controlled bass with enhanced mode off.
ANC is surprisingly good as well. It's not the absolute best I've heard (that would be the Bose QCII), but it's surprisingly close enough that you can use these as your only earbuds -- and these only cost $109 on Amazon. One sacrifice is battery life -- about 4 hours with ANC -- before you'll have to pop them back in the case to recharge. I also found the touch controls a bit finicky, but I'm not a fan of touch controls generally.
I found them comfortable to wear; your ears may vary. Edifier includes five different sizes of silicone tips, so most people should find something that works.
The feature set is full despite the mid-tier price point. High-Res audio, Bluetooth 5.3, wear detection, and spatial audio are all onboard. Wireless charging and multi-device pairing are not, but the sound quality is superb, the ANC is effective, and the price is right.
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