Terrible, terrible terrible!
These earbuds came as a free gift bundled with one of the Samsung items I purchased. The retail price on the box was RM699. With this price, I expected this to be of some good.
The earbuds came in a nice box. Box opened, there were the earbuds, charging cable, 1 set of thin covers and the usual reading material with any new item.
The earbuds looked pretty nice, sort of a pearl grey – black. Samsung calls this “Mystic black”. The other colors offered were Mystic Bronze, Mystic white and Mystic Onyx. So, expectations were high that the sound coming out of it would be good.
I am not going to go into its specifications. The general users which are most users aren’t really going to delve into the speaker cone size, how many mics each earbud has, etc. All they want to know is how long can the battery charge last, does it look good and the price.
Everything good so far.
Pairing the Buds Live to my phone was quick and easy.
Using them. From here on, it was downhill all the way.
I am an above average user, meaning I enjoy good quality sound. OK. More than good quality sound. Great sound.
These Buds Live were a let down.
The first issue I had was placing them in my ears. They did not fit snugly in. The size of the buds size is reasonable. You would think that they will then fit in snugly. But I was not confident that they would. I kept on worrying that these things may just fall out of my ears at any moment.
All it was capable of was pumping out sound. Terrible sound. Some sort of sound. It’s range was flat all the way. You would keep the bass and treble settings at 0 if this was a class A amp. However, this was not a class A amp or earbuds. My RM100 Redmi earbuds was way better on all fronts.
Its volume at the loudest level sounded like they were around 75% loud when compared with the Redmi.
To be fair, I did not test these buds with incoming calls or outgoing calls. I cannot comment on its performance in this area.
I also cannot on how this pair would have sounded if they were connected to the Samsung Buds app. I guess I was peeved by the fact that they sounded terrible right out of the box. The EQ settings on the Buds app is nil. You just choose between normal, bass boost, soft, dynamic, clear, and treble boost.
Noise cancelling? That seems cancelled.
Overall, I think these buds’ price is quite steep for what they have to offer. As I mentioned before, a fraction of the Buds Live’s price, Redmi, seems to offer more for bang for its buck.
However, if you want to have a “branded” set of earbuds and you are not expecting too much or are not too concerned on how these stack up against others; if you like them; then go for them.
Maybe, just maybe the set I had was faulty and not living to its image. Seems to have many caveats.
Final note is what does not work well for me may work well for you. My choice of music may differ from yours or your primary purpose to have a set is to be handsfree; sending and receiving phone calls, then, once again, this may be ok.
If you are looking to be seen with snazzy earbuds on, this Samsung Buds Live shiny earbuds may be the set that fits in your style of dressing.
