When choosing headphones for travel, you usually choose between so-called pits and earplugs.
Pecky they sit in the ear with their plastic construction and play on the edge of the ear canal – the advantage is that you do not have clogged ears, the disadvantage is that the surrounding noise penetrates into the ear canals, and so reproduction is lost in it. Apple AirPods are a typical representative.
On the other hand plugs, more professionally called “in ear” headphones, you usually insert them with silicone extensions into the ear canals – the advantage is the isolation of the ear canal from ambient noise, so you do not have to increase the playback volume. The disadvantage is the more intensive contact of the earpiece with the ear, which does not suit everyone, and sometimes also excessive isolation from the surroundings – you have to replace the sense occupied in this way, for example in transport, with your increased attention.
Samsung has now introduced the Galaxy Buds Live headphones, which are to some extent a crossover between the two categories. Technically, these are seeds, but thanks to the system of active suppression of ambient noise, it tries to reduce the amount of noise that enters the ear canal.
The headphones are tiny, resembling beans in shape and, unlike most pips and plugs, do not look out of the ears, on the contrary, they lie inside the auricle. After a few hours of listening, I can add that surprisingly comfortable. You can choose from two sizes of attachments that fit around the charging connector and thus form a support for the headphones within the ear. The bigger ones fit me better, but in my case this also applies to T-shirts and shoes.
There is no button on the headphones, except for the charging connector, there are three barred vents on the baffle, two small holes and one transparent surface of the IR sensor. The technical equipment of the headphones is quite interesting. In addition to the 12mm speaker, which ensures reproduction, there are three microphones, an accelerometer and a bass reflex.
Tiny beans with lots of holes, quite essential for their function.
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The microphones are used as an input for an Active Noise Cancelation (ANC) system, where they pick up noise, the electronics turn it into antiphase and the speaker plays into the ear. Noise air waves thus meet exactly opposite waves in the ear canal, which cancels them out so that they do not reach the drum. So much theory. In practice, this will never work 100%, in the case of Galaxy Buds Live, there is an almost unsealed ear canal, so the efficiency is significantly lower than in-ear models. This is not a criticism on our part, it is a tax on the technical solution and the concept of the headphones, which the customer must take into account.
However, compared to the “seeds” without ANC, it is a big leap forward – the headphones quite well dampen especially deeper noise spectra, so higher noise and people’s voices penetrate into the ears more. We tested them on the train, subway and bus, and everywhere the ANC reduced the noise level so that we could only listen at the cost of a slight increase in volume. On a sidewalk in the city or in a busy open space, it usually does without increasing the volume.
Microphones are also used for telephoning, in which they get a helping hand from the so-called “Voice Pickup Unit”, which is a de facto accelerometer that detects the vibration of the skull, which also spreads your voice. And it probably works, because even in a relatively noisy environment, those I called called the sound as easy to understand.
The IR sensor acts as a “switch” – when you remove the headphones from your ears, it stops playback. You can start it again manually and the headphones continue to play, which I welcome – you can let the headphones play for a few hours after unpacking, without spoiling the first impression with their undefeated state.
The touch control works great, but I turned it off
The absence of buttons has an easy explanation – the control is touch. My greatest joy was that it can be turned on and off in the application at any time. Don’t get me wrong – it works great: one touch starts or stops playback, double-tap to play another song, or answer or end a call. Triple-tap skips to the previous song. The last instruction can be a long touch, and this option is user-selectable in the application. You can choose to activate / deactivate ANC, call up the voice assistant, decrease / increase the volume and start the Spotify application. Volume control is the only discipline where the right and left earphones have different functions. So far, everything is fine.
They just fit into small ears just like that.
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The problem is that whenever you want to move the tiny headphones in your ear, or just make sure they fit well, you activate a function. Reaching for them so that you don’t hit the touch surface wants concentration that you can’t develop while walking. If you do not touch the headphones out of control, then you will be completely satisfied, otherwise you will end up like me.
Great battery life
There are tiny batteries in the tiny headphones, so we were pleasantly surprised that the pips lasted us to play for 7 hours 20 minutes, while they were played at a higher volume and after about 2/3 of the time the ANC was active. That is a great result. Recharging them in the case will take about 35% of its available capacity, in other words, you can charge them in the case about 2× to full and once about half. In total, the headphones with the case have energy for about 25 hours of reproduction.
However, energy must be saved, so it offers a slightly below-average range – you can get away from the phone to about 10 meters (including one brick partition), the signal is no longer broken. During normal wear and with the phone in my pocket, I noticed a few unique drops, most of the time the transmission was completely without problems.
The case can be charged wirelessly.
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Thanks to the magnetic system, the headphones slide nicely into the case and you don’t have to point them at the connectors in any way. You can charge the case itself using either a USB-C cable from a standard USB charger, or place it on the wireless charging desktop – we tried it on the Acer ConceptD 500 desktop and in the Peugeot e208 GT, and in both cases the charging was successful (although the smooth box the car did not hold in place, so in the first sharp turn the charging was over).
Connectivity and applications
Headphones can only be connected to one device at a time, if you are logged in to one Samsung account on more than one device, you do not have to pair them with all of them – they will pass on the information.
Each handset can also be used individually, so if you want to have it as a handsfree and the other charged in the case, nothing prevents you.
You set everything essential in the Galaxy Wereable application, the notification of the state of charge of the case and headphones will land on the display even when headphones are connected.
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It is definitely advisable to install the Galaxy Wereable application, in which you can find out the battery status of individual headphones and cases, you can set the equalizer, activate and deactivate the active noise cancellation system, set up touch controls, read notification notifications by voice (incoming mail, incoming message …) , there is also a “find my headphones” function.
Bluetooth 5.0 and SBC, AAC and SSC codecs are used for transmission, which is an abbreviation for the proprietary Samsung Scalable Codec, in which we also performed most of the tests.
How do they play?
Pleasant and balanced. It fulfills the idea of non-tiring non-conflicting sound, which can be directed into your ears all day long, whether it’s music from a phone, the sound of videos from a computer or a conference with colleagues.
It’s not analytical audiophile listening, the dynamics are rather lukewarm, the bass is a bit slower, the treble is softer and overall the sound is more pleasantly rounded than having a more pronounced spark – yet it is reasonably colorful and fun. Definitely not offending.
If you are looking for headphones for all-day wear, telephony and scenic listening, which will not completely acoustically separate you from the surroundings, but also allow you to listen and communicate in a noisier environment, then Samsung Galaxy Buds Live may be a recommended choice.
It will go on sale on August 21 for the price of CZK 5,499.
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