Sony LinkBuds Clip - My Thoughts 🤔
Sony finally launches their own clip style earbuds, the kind of buds that you clip around the ear, open fit, so there’s no noise canceling or even noise blocking.
Personally, I don’t have anything against this type of earbuds. It may not be up my alley because not being able to cancel noise is a dealbreaker. But I think there is a market for it, people who prefer a non-plugged-in fit, whether for comfort, or whether they simply want total awareness.
And these types of open fit buds also stay on better than the type that hangs in the ear. For example, it will definitely stay put a lot better than the original Sony LinkBuds, you know, the weird one with the donut?
Also, usually you get a bigger battery because now, there’s a separate compartment which can accommodate bigger batteries better than the usual single housing earbuds.
That’s why, since Huawei launched the FreeClips, which are the first clip style buds to hit the market, you see more and more of such products from different brands, and now Sony has its own version. But what does it offer, and what’s missing?
Listening Mode
What’s interesting about the LinkBuds Clip is the different listening modes, which addresses certain issues that open fit earbuds often have, like being too soft to hear in noisy environments, and sound leakage because there’s no isolation, so people around you might hear your audio.
For that, there’s a Sound Leakage Reduction mode, which tones down the upper mids and highs so that the audio stays more private, and in noisy environments you can activate Voice Boost, for boosting mid range frequencies beyond the standard volume. Now, this will affect the tuning of the audio, so you might not want to stay in these modes for long.
Sound Quality
As for sound quality, until I test it for myself, I can’t say what it sounds like. But from what I can see, the Sony LinkBuds Clip does not support Hi-Res audio, since it only supports the standard SBC and AAC codecs.
It also has only the very basic version of DSEE, not the Extreme version we see in the WF-1000XM5. So it will still upscale the quality of lower resolution music, but only to a certain extent. However you do get a decent level of control over the sound quality.
There’ll be the usual 5 band graphic EQ with Clearbass dial in case there’s not enough bass. Most likely, you’ll have to max out the bass, as is the case with most of these open fits, because the sound pressure is not locked into the ear canal.
It’s escaping everywhere, so by default, I am expecting them to sound rather thin, actually. But there are exceptions. I have tested clip-ons with pretty good bass by default, like the Bose Open Ultra. So we’ll have to see how the Sonys will perform as well.
My Perspective
Something else that Sony’s doing a little differently from other brands, is the optional cushions on the bridge connecting both sides of the earbud. By default they don’t come fitted, but if your ears are small and cute, you can put them on to support the buds better, instead of them just flopping around.
So my first impressions of the LinkBuds Clip is, this *can* look interesting, but there are questions about volume, performance of the microphones in extremely noisy places, and whether it will be painful to wear after a while, because after all, it’s clamping on the ear cartilage. There’s so much I’ll have to test before I can recommend them.
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