Was in the market for some new buds and stumbled on this, apparently objectively some of the best wireless buds around.
Other colours available for about $10 more.
Next day free shipping with Prime.
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CamelCamelCamel.
PS: I recommend getting the white, as the purple and black has a rubber coating that degrades overtime.
ah shit.
YMMV, a year of heavy daily usage and no rubber degradation on the earbuds themselves. Been using a cheap case off AliExpress so no degradation on the charging case itself either.
Will the coating degrade before the battery making it become landfill?
paid $100 ish for buds FE in december.. not a bad deal
You can get it cheaper on Catch https://www.catch.com.au/product/samsung-galaxy-buds-2-pro-g… for $159.99 or price match with Officeworks which bring it down to around $152
Grey import vs Australian stock
I bought one myself from Officeworks with price match and they check the product code SM-R510NZAAASA which is matched with Officeworks' stock I guess I got lucky then if it is grey import
~$150 is where they tend to hover for brand new one people toss on Facebook Marketplace and Cashies as well, pretty good price.
got a pair price matched via officeworks for $152 as well, thanks for that
These are amazing for this price!
Whats the OzB consensus on these versus Google Pixel Buds Pro?
I have two pairs of Google buds and still pretty happy with them. I have just picked up a Samsung S24 Ultra if it makes any difference.
Thanks. I voted Pixel Buds Pro in that too.
I really liked the Pixel Buds Pro but they just wouldn't fit my ear. Wish they didn't make the tips bigger and remove the little rubber wing thing…..
Yeah, I'm quite surprised the Pixel Buds Pro fit me so well, it's only with vigorous exercise that the right hand side starts to come loose.
One shortcoming is the speaker for the "find my device" is really weak. I dropped one of my buds in the garden bed at the front door while getting my keys out of my pocket (silly me, should have had them in their case!), and despite retracing my steps for about 15 minutes, between the car and front door with the find my device alarm going off, I couldn't hear it.
Really annoys me as I had the OG Pixel Buds and they fit great, I think they had to increase the casing size to fit the new driver on the new ones though. Right ear just slowly pops out every 3 minutes, I think being a big long heavy bud doesn't help it stay in either… The actual sound and functionality on them was fantastic though…
Samsung keeps on (profanity) with the tuning however in between firmware version, especially with the treble. The worst was the first 2023 firmware, current one is decent but still not as good as the 2022 firmware (I have 2 pairs for A/B), which is what all of the glowing reviews (i.e. Crinacle) are tested on. Not looking forward to another rodeo when the new firmware with the Galaxy AI on the fly translation drop. I personally would look elsewhere if you're treble sensitive, unless you're willing to either downgrade your firmware and lose out on new functionalities, or spend time EQing it
Got a pair when I bought my S24U. I can't cope with the sound on them. I went from Buds Pro to Buds 2 Pro. The sound is atrocious. I tried changing the firmware around, messing with the EQ both built in and third party. I just couldn't get them to a usable state.
I sent them off to Samsung for repair as I wanted to give them the benefit that maybe there was something wrong with them. I got them back today, and nothing has really changed.
Going to request a refund. Maybe the Buds 3's will be better.
Audio quality is subjective and ultimately up to taste, but "atrocious" isn't exactly descriptive on what you find wrong with them (poor soundstage? bass separation? harsh treble? recessed mids?).
There's also a good chance they might have just sent the same pair back without doing anything, I wouldn't be surprised given their current stock issue, they might have just tested that both side produced sound and there's no balance issue and sent them back as is. Samsung's buds (as expected as they acquired Harman/AKG) tends to be tuned toward the Harman target, whereas typical mainstream headphones tuning is usually extremely V/U shaped, but given that you came from a set of Buds Pro and apparently have no issue with them that's probably not it. I suppose you can go to a Samsung store or another brick and mortar store that carries them and try a demo unit to compare and contrast.
You can also give this set of autoEQ profiles a try: https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/t9u72i/autoeq_p…, especially the IEF Bass Boosted target, I personally prefer it over the Harman target on most of my headphones (except the Buds2 Pro ironically enough)
XB4 firmware dropped earlier today, wasn't offered directly on my Buds so I grabbed the firmware file and flashed manually with Galaxy Buds Manager. And as expected, tuning changed again, but at least they rolled back the treble boost that was on the last two firmware. I thought I had to upgrade to XA2 first before being offered XB4, and immediately going from WF4 to XA2 there was a noticeable treble spike, whereas WF4 and XB4 sounds fairly similar to my ear
Anyone used this and airpods, can share their feedback?
Which AirPods specifically?
Pro
If you own a Samsung phone these, if you own an Apple phone AirPods, if you own neither consider looking elsewhere (i.e. Sony's XM3/XM4/XM5). Too many features and QoL convenience locked behind the ecosystem. Sound quality is close and up to tuning preference, AirPods Pro 2 has better ANC, and apparently Samsung nerfed the ANC on the Buds2 Pro on new firmwares as well as adjusting tunings (can't comment, don't use the feature personally).
many features and QoL convenience locked behind the ecosystem.
Would argue otherwise for the Galaxy Buds. These are more than fine for anyone with an Android device. You don't miss out on much, see comment below
Samsung buds don't have LDAC or AptX, so on non-Samsung phone where you don't have Samsung's proprietary lossless codec it falls back to AAC which is a significant loss in quality. The 24-bit audio bit of Samsung's codec is a marketing gimmick to justify it over using something more industry standard like AptX, and the difference between the three are marginal/subjective, but there's a big gap between them and the lower quality fallback compatibility mode (AAC)
@[Deactivated]: I don't know how much of a difference the average user is going to hear going from SSC to AAC over a Bluetooth connection. If you're listening to FLAC files, maybe? AAC isn't going to sound bad, if it did it wouldn't be the default codec for Apple's AirPods lineup. Happy to be proven otherwise though, this isn't an area I know much about!
@CrispyChrispy: AAC is fine on iOS (as obviously its Apple's own codec) not so much on Android. On Android it actually measures worse than the base SBC codec (or at least a while back, I haven't keep too up to date), which is designed for encoding voices and not music. Of course, it ultimately depends on your own perception, if you can't hear the difference then hey its your win, its suddenly a lot easier to shop.
I owned these for a while, these were great with my Samsung phone. It basically paired instantly and the sound quality and noise cancellation was amazing. Great for the gym. I eventually moved on to getting the Sony WH XM5's, and have better noise cancellation from those. By all means if you have a samsung phone and are after ear buds, these are an excellent choice. Only issue I ever had was battery life. I think at most I had 4-5 hours on a full charge. So it was a rough time when I was getting tattooed and had to just stare into the abyss after the 4th hour.
Got to do one ear at a time 8 hours.
Honestly you're not missing out on much if you don't have a Samsung phone. On the Play Store there's the Galaxy Wearables app that allows you to tweak as much as you'll ever need to such as touch controls, EQ, etc.
From Reddit:
The only things that I notice that are missing [if you don't use a Samsung phone]: the 360° Audio, anything to do with Bixby, the low latency for gaming mode, and the 24 bit sound mode.
Do these work well with a Pixel or is it like when I tried Airpods Pro? (horrible experience on Android…)
They work fine for all Android devices. Get the software off the play store and you're good to go.
AirPods with Android is sub optimal, given the lack of customisation.
$180.50 with OW PBG: https://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/samsung-ga…
RTINGS Review: https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/samsung/galaxy-bud…