Review: Soundpeats GoFree 2 Open-ear Earbuds
Review sample provided by Soundpeats
Soundpeats GoFree 2 is an affordable pair of open-ear earphones designed for comfort. The main selling point is the design for people who prefer not to use in-ear earphones.
Retail price is SGD 84.99 (USD 64) and is available on Amazon SG, Shopee SG, Lazada SG.
Bottomline
I wear spectacles and even so I could wear the earphones quite comfortably.
The open-ear design that lets you hear the surrounding can be consider an upside or downside. The upside is you can hear the surrounding. The downside is it's kinda difficult to hear your audio with ambient noise, e.g. on a train, unless you increase the volume up to 75% to 100%.
Sound quality is good enough for the price but it's definitely not at the advertised Hi-Res Audio level (compared to high-end headphones). I just wish there's more soundstage and detail at the highs.
Pros and cons at a glance
+ Design looks good
+ Comfortable
+ Bluetooth multi-point
+ Loud
+ Open-ear design
+ Decent audio quality
+ Affordable
- Soundstage could be better
- Customisable EQ does not work
Specs
- Bluetooth: V5.3
- Profiles: A2DP1.3/ AVRCP1.6/ HFP 1.7/ SPP 1.2/ GATT
- Chipset: WQ7034MX
- Driver: 16.2mm
- Bluetooth code: LDAC, SBC, AAC
- Battery capacity: Earbuds 60mAh x 2, charging case 450mAh
- Charging time: Earbuds 1.5hr, charging case 2hr
- Charging port: Type-C
- Total playtime: 35 hours
- Single earbud weight: 9g
- Charging case with earbuds: 71g
- Control type: Touch
- Waterproof rating: IPX5
Things included
- Earphones
- Type-C charging cable
- Charging case
- User manual
Design
Design looks quite stylish. It doesn't look like a hearing aid at all, and you can search Google to see for yourself. Colours available are white, black and beige. There's also IPX5 waterproof rating.
The hook will hook onto your ears and the end is heavier and will balance the earphone. Weight of a single earphone is just 9g. Comfort is good.
I wear spectacles and didn't experience any discomfort. Actually I could barely feel I was wearing earphones.
The two main reasons to consider an open-ear earphones is because you dislike in-ear earphones and or you want to hear the surrounding. When listening in a quiet environment, 50% volume is too loud for me. When listening on a train while commuting, I had had to increase volume to 100% due to ambient noise. It's difficult to enjoy what you're hearing when audio is mixed with ambient noise. This is where noise cancelling earphones will provide a more satisfying experience.
The earphones support multi-point Bluetooth pairing that allows you to switch between 2 connected devices easily, depending on which is outputting audio. Multi-point pairing has to be enabled through settings. Multi-point pairing is a must-have feature.
The charging case is compact and lightweight enough.
The charging case has a nice matte textured surface and is quite susceptible to fingerprints. The earphones is said to support up to 9 hours of battery life and the charging case can provide a total of 35 hours of battery life.
Controls
The earphones support touch sensitive controls and they work well enough.
Audio quality
Bluetooth codecs supported are LDAC, SBC, AAC. The driver is 16.2mm.
FYI, the reference gear I'm using for comparison are the Mark Levinson No 5909 wireless headphones and Sennheiser IE600 wired earphones, both have 5/5 stars audio quality, and the Samsung Buds2 Pro with 4/5 audio quality.
The sound quality of the SoundPeats GoFree 2 is good for wireless earphones at this price. The sound is clear, not hollow, and the high, mids and lows sound alright. There's a decent amount of bass.
What's lacking is more detail with the treble and I really wish the soundstage was better. Voice isolation is way better with the above mentioned reference gear with the singer being able to occupy a very centralised spot in my headspace. I find it best not to compare this with high-end audio equipment because you can really hear the difference. Having LDAC with high-res capability here doesn't really make any difference.
The audio quality probably gets a 3/5 stars from me. Note that I no longer give more than 4/5 stars for Bluetooth earphones.
Below are other reviews you can check out for more opinions:
App
The app is quite basic and provides the essential features. There's game mode if you need better latency performance. Dual device connection has to be enabled if you want to use the earphones with two devices.
Many of the EQ presets don't sound that great to me. And the customisable 10-band EQ did not work at all.
Battery life
Battery life is around 6 hours which is shorter than the advertised 9 hours, but that's typical of wireless earphones and is quite sufficient. The charging case will provide 2 times more battery life.
Conclusion
The three main selling points for these earphones would be comfort, the open-ear design that lets you hear the surrounding and multi-point pairing. If you're not buying the earphones for the open-ear design, going with more affordable wireless earphones with noise cancelling would probably make more sense.
The limitation of the SoundPeats GoFree 2 would be the sound quality. The audio sounds alright, just like they are from USD 64 or SGD 84.99 earphones. The High-Res Audio label is just for marketing. Let's be real here, there's a limit to sound quality with affordable and wireless earphones.
If you don't like in-ear earphones and have limited budget, you can consider these open-ear ones. Do note that you'll get better user experience when listening in a quiet environment.
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