Moondrop Space Travel 2 Ultra KILLED the TWS Market? 🤔 vs Space Travel 2 and Space Travel 1
I bought the Moondrop Space Travel 2 Ultra believing that it can finish off the budget TWS market once and for all.
At $40, it costs a bit more than the Space Travel 2, but it uses planar driver technology and the Ultra supports LDAC codec, which is great, except that if you did activate LDAC, you cannot use its multipoint pairing feature, and you cannot EQ it with Moondrop’s graphic EQ.
But if you do decide to use the custom EQ, you can only stream over the standard AAC. So the question is, does the Space Travel 2 Ultra sound so good that you don’t need to EQ it in the first place? What about its active noise canceling, microphone pickup and transparency compared to the Space Travel 2 and Space Travel 1? And did it really KILL the budget TWS market?
Microphone Quality
In terms of microphone quality, All three Space Travels are exactly the same. Decent voice pickup in quiet conditions, but in noisy, windy conditions they’ve got average noise filtering, and my voice is not amplified so well. Not very impressive, but hear it for yourself.
👉 Listen to the mic quality samples
Active Noise Cancelling
In terms of active noise canceling, the Space Travel 1 and 2 are quite identical in terms of noise canceling performance, and the Space Travel 2 Ultra is quieter. As you can see in these measurements, it cancels more in the upper bass to lower mids region compared to the Space Travel 1 and 2, which is where humans are generally more sensitive to noise.
But if we’re being honest, I’m not impressed with any of them, because I’m more used to powerful noise cancelers in the premium range. But they’ll do a fair job of reducing the sound of public transport, the air conditioning and general ambient chatter. If you’re playing music at the same time, it will be even more quiet.
👉 Listen to the ANC quality samples
Transparency Mode
In terms of transparency, the one with the poorest transparency is the Space Travel 2. It’s got a severe rolling off in the passthrough above 1.5khz. This means that compared to the Space Travel 2 Ultra, or even the 1, ambience sounds more occluded, and your own voice will sound muffled. The Ultra has the brightest transparency, but the Space Travel 1 isn’t too far behind even though it’s darker in the upper mids.
Sound Quality
If there is one sound quality criticism for all of them in general, it’s that all three models don’t have much airiness in the soundstage so you don’t get the sense of space.
The Space Travel 2 however, is tuned extremely poorly. Very dry, thin sound with loud and shrill upper mids and highs, not much bass extension, texture or even depth. It’s not so responsive to EQ, so it has to be heavily EQed to sound decent, and I had to choose high gain mode because tuning cuts its volume down by a lot. And even then, it still can’t have much bass. Even the Space Travel 1 sounds better, and closer to the Ultra in terms of bass response and having smoother, laid back mids.
Space Travel 2 Aaron X Custom EQ settings. Settings for Space Travel 2 Ultra in review video.
Not that the Ultra is perfect. It still has sibilance in the upper mids that must be tackled in EQ settings by pulling back the 4khz, but if I had to rank them based on default sound signature, it will overwhelmingly be the Ultra taking first place, then the 1, and then the 2. Now, the Ultra still won’t please bassheads, but at least it has a more pleasing, wetter, smoother sound with proper bass-mids separation. After tuning, they sound even better, and if you search Aaron X’ in the Moondrop app, you can probably find my settings after it gets approved by Moondrop.
👉 Listen to the sound quality samples
Verdict
Both the Space Travel 2 and 2 Ultra is an upgrade over the 1 in terms of their sound being more customizable, being able to toggle between ambient modes in the app, improved battery and Bluetooth 6, which, in a nutshell, promises quicker, more secure streaming for audio with devices with Bluetooth 6. But in my opinion, the true successor to the Space Travel is not the Space Travel 2. It’s the Ultra.
People who loved the original Space Travel sound will not like the 2 because its transparency mode is weaker, and it sounds too different, but they may find the Ultra familiar, and in some ways, sound slightly better in terms of separation and detail retrieval. It’s also much more customizable, and I dig that.
So did the Space Travel 2 Ultra kill the Budget TWS market? Somewhat. They don’t have top notch performance, but as of now, the Ultra is very easy to recommend for something that costs under $40, since they have all the basics people need like a 5 band graphic EQ. And with the right EQ, these can sound pretty great.
But their mic pickup and noise canceling is average at best, so if you’re not a simp, and you don’t need anime girl voices whispering in your ear, which all 3 Space Travels are guilty of, I suggest looking at the CMF Buds Pro 2 for a budget option. It costs a bit more, but it’s one of the best budget earbuds, and is even more feature rich than the Space Travel Ultra.
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Moondrop Space Travel 2 Ultra - Link TBA
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