Sony LinkBuds Truly Wireless Earbud Headphones with an Open-Ring Design for Ambient Sounds and Alexa Built-in, Bluetooth Ear

10 reviews for Sony LinkBuds Truly Wireless Earbud Headphones with an Open-Ring Design for Ambient Sounds and Alexa Built-in, Bluetooth Ear

1. 

   Rated 3 out of 5

   Carlos B. – November 11, 2022

   
   The short version of this review is that I think this is a product that will make a very limited set of people happy that are looking for something very specific or don’t care about a lot of the trade-offs that come with making a product like this. It is tough to recommend for a general audience. For that small group, maybe it is four stars, but for everyone else, I’d say it’s two stars, so three overall. Let me get into the why…So to start, I’m big into music and headphones, and I own a total of 12 pairs. Four of those are “consumer” headphones like AirPods Pro 2, AirPods Max, Sennheiser True Wireless 3, and all of the rest are true HiFi headphones like Audeze, Focal, Fostex, Denon, etc. and all of the accompanying amplifiers and DACs. I generally enjoy lots of different genres of music – rock, alternative, R&B, hip-hop, pop, some classical. I just point this out, to point out I do a LOT of detailed sound comparisons and appreciate lots of different types of music and how different headphones may impact the experience.So, with these, I think there are only a few specific reasons one should even consider these, as if you don’t fall into BOTH #1 AND at least one of the other reasons below, there are far better options for this price.#1 – you really don’t like the “closed” feeling of buds and want a more “open” sound (and as such don’t care at all about noise isolation – both from outside and others hearing your listen, which is standard for any open setup)#2 – you don’t care about sound quality much but want some wireless buds that are stable enough to do light workouts in or just want some really small/discrete buds#3 – you primarily listen to music like jazz and classicalNow onto the logic and trade-offs.First, with respect to the sound. The tonal balance is extremely lacking in low end. The reviews that have said that these are a “balanced sound” are simply wrong. If you search around the net, you can see some sites have actually measured the frequency response of these, and not only is the bass very rolled off, it creeps up into the lower mids as well. This results in a very hollow listen. Music has nearly no low-end impact at all. Even with every bass setting cranked all the way up, it makes almost no noticeable difference because the drivers and design simply can’t handle it (which I’ll get back to). Further evidence of this, the EQ in the app only even goes down to 400Hz, which should be a sign, as most wouldn’t even consider it true “bass” until maybe 150Hz, and humans can hear down to 20Hz – yet the EQ doesn’t even let you adjust these frequencies. To call this balanced is just wrong. Good balanced headphones simply do not OVER-emphasize bass or let it bleed into the other frequencies – these lack bass, period. This is a very big difference if you listen to basically any Top 40 type music – hip-hop, pop, R&B, EDM, even rock or alternative. There will be no bass. This CAN be ok, however, if you’re a classical music listener or jazz or music that doesn’t have a lot of low-end (including bass drums, bass guitar, etc.). These would also be OK if you’re primarily going to use them for listening to voice stuff – podcasts, audiobooks, news, etc.The rest of the frequency response is overall just OK. You can adjust the mids and upper frequencies to your liking, and those adjustments make more of a difference than the bass adjustment, as I mentioned. So you can tone down or up the brightness to your liking, for example. They do an OK job at brining out detail, about what I would expect for buds in this price range. The semi-standout in the overall sound is the soundstage, or the way the music is presented in terms of position in space. Because of the “open” design, they are somewhat more natural sounding in terms of airiness and don’t have that “dome in your head” kind of feeling. That said, the stage itself is not hugely bigger than “regular” buds (goes ear to ear, maybe a tad outside the ear), it’s just a slightly more open stage. Because the buds are still sitting in your ear, versus when an over-ear open headphone has a driver sitting outside your ear, i would call these only semi-open sounding. The inside your head feeling is gone, but you still don’t get that great open naturalness of a true open-back headphone. The positioning is also good, meaning, individual pieces of the mix are fairly separated and identifiable, for this price range. The question is it worth the trade offs…Open back headphones of all types (buds, over-ear, etc.), all else equal, have less bass response than closed-backs. This is because there’s less pressure build up and resonance for the bass to build (in simple terms). So the tradeoff for losing that “in your head” feeling is less bass. Bigger, over ear headphones can counter this by using bigger drivers that can pump more bass and by still creating somewhat of a seal around your ear with the pads. in this case, these buds just sit in your ear, create no seal, and the drivers are tiny, so you get basically no bass. This is the biggest trade off of these. Whether that trade off is for you or not…your call.The other tradeoff is size. Smaller size leads to smaller drivers, which as I discussed means less bass, and it also means – way small batteries. Although the “up to” five hours of battery life may be accurate, there are some big issues with this. First, you have to turn off all of the electronic conveniences to hit this target – automatic voice detection, automatic volume adjustment, wide area tap – which are all pretty cool. Keep these on, and battery is more like two hours, which is FAR below, by more than half, what most buds get nowadays.Call performance is decent, and fit for me is also decent, though individual ears always vary with fit. The smallest included piece is what got me the best fit, and they are stable in my ears.What these actually remind me of are the first AirPods that were released, then upgraded to the AirPods Pro. The original AirPods also had a “sit in your ear” plastic design that was somewhat like this. While they were wireless and packed with nice new apple “magic” features, many had a view that they really still sounded like the $30 wired buds that came with iPods/iPhones at the time, but they were wireless. Then Apple released the AirPods Pro that claimed “far better sound”, and the biggest change was that they used a silicon tip to create a seal in the ear – and that added a way more appropriate low-end to the sound that was missing before, and NOW and AirPods Pro and Pro 2 are known as a mostly balanced set of buds. These are the opposite – by having no seal, combined with tiny drivers, I would say these have the sound profile of a $50 or less pair of buds, but you are paying for the true wireless stuff and fancy features. They MAY be worth it for you if you don’t mind the trade offs, but that’s not most.

2. 

   Rated 4 out of 5

   K. Baldwin – March 6, 2022

   
   Let’s get this out of the way: These are not your all-purpose earbuds. I have TMJ issues (jaw joint) that have made it effectively impossible to wear normal headphones while using my computer – like I had for years – without pain, so I use these instead. Normal earbuds closing off the ears for hours at a time is uncomfortable and not great for the ears. My point is, if you do not have a specific reason to need this design, you should not buy them. They are a compromise compared to regular true wireless earbuds costing half as much. With that said, for their intended purpose, these work pretty well.AUDIO:Sound quality is excellent, detailed and well-balanced (as long as they’re not pushed too hard… see below on volume). You will not get a lot of bass. You can hear the bass tones, especially if you add some boost, so the dynamic range isn’t lost – but it’s not going to thump in your ears. I did find that enabling bass boost (in Windows for my use case, or in the phone app for phone use) helped the overall sound balance. Music sounds slightly hollow to my ears without it.I see the popular review about volume – I have not experienced this in my quiet apartment use case. They have plenty of volume even though Windows bass boost cuts the overall volume down. I keep them at 50-60% volume on my computer, and I tested them on my phone (Pixel 6 Pro, for what it’s worth) and settled on roughly the same volume. 100% volume is uncomfortably loud, and also noticeably affects quality (at least on PC, I can’t recall if it was the same on the phone). If you are trying to use these in a particularly loud environment, they might not work well.BLUETOOTH:I have had no issues with connection quality within a short range (i.e. typical usage range). However, if I walk to my bathroom on the other side of my tiny 1-bed apartment, which places the utility closet (and thus quite a bit of metal) between me and the computer, the connection starts dropping in and out. I have cheaper earbuds that are able to maintain a connection there. Not a big deal, and most people use earbuds with their phone which is on their person, so this is pretty unique to me.They do not have multi-point. While I am not the type of person to field many phone calls, I can see this being annoying for someone who does if they’re using them the way I am, on the computer. Teleworkers in particular might consider this a deal-breaker if they take a lot of work calls. As it is, you’d have to pop one earbud out and answer the phone normally, or use speakerphone, rather than the convenience of the earbuds providing both sound from the computer and calls from the phone.These do not support LDAC. With the audio limitations inherent to this design, I suspect it simply wasn’t worth enabling – LDAC uses more power.BATTERY:Speaking of power, the battery life on these is… not great, not terrible. To be fair, Sony isn’t hiding anything here – look at the battery life ratings between their true wireless options and it is obvious that these are not designed to have a particularly long life. I haven’t precisely measured, but I would guess that they are true to their 5+ hour rating.I do wish they lasted longer, but it’s not the end of the world. The fast-charge feature makes it so that occasionally taking a short break and sticking them back in their case is sufficient to keep them going effectively indefinitely. If your use case involves really long periods of uninterrupted use, these might not be your jam.FIT / COMFORT:The big one. Fitting these properly is EXTREMELY important. I cannot overstate how much proper fit matters for both sound quality and comfort. Until you learn how to fit them, you cannot just pop them in and go, like traditional earbuds. They will sound bad, be horribly uncomfortable, and/or fall out.I suspect reviews related to extremely poor sound quality (tinniness), falling out, etc., are mostly related to not taking the time to find the correct position and fit ring, minus the rare exceptions for certain people’s ears just not working with these. Play around with them, try out different size fit rings, adjust the positioning to find that sweet spot where they’re comfortable and the sound isn’t tinny. This wasn’t something I succeeded in doing on the first day I had them. It took a few days for me to figure it out. But now that I’ve learned, I *can* just pop them right in (mostly… maybe a tiny bit of fiddling). They are comfortable enough for me to wear for several hours, but I wouldn’t say they entirely disappear.FEATURES:I do not use the few music apps that support their 360 audio, nor do I use them for phone calls, nor do I use them where I would need the speak-to-chat pausing or adaptive volume, so I can’t speak to any of those features. They’re all there though!The phone app has an equalizer, it does equalizer things. As mentioned in the audio quality section, it has a separate bass boost, which I recommend playing around with if you’re using them with your phone.There are only two tap functions (double tap and triple tap), which honestly sucks. I don’t understand why so many otherwise competent earbud designers refuse to offer more functions. Since I use these with the computer, I rarely need to actually use the tap functions, so it doesn’t really matter in my use case. It probably will matter for most people, though.The Wide Area Tap feature is theoretically very cool and responds to taps well. That might sound great, but the problem is that it also false triggers constantly for me. Eating something? Okay, track skipped. Several tracks, actually, because you didn’t stop eating. Yawned? Got it, you want to pause your music. I went to the trouble of installing the app and temporarily connecting them to my phone *just* to turn the feature off. It was driving me nuts.VERDICT:See the title. These are compromised by design, but the design exists to accomplish a very specific goal, opening up the ear. If you need that, you should give these a try. If you don’t, there is no reason to buy these.

3. 

   Rated 4 out of 5

   Les – April 3, 2022

   
   I love these earbuds! They are my go to for when I want to listen to music, podcasts, or generally anything I don’t want to bother anyone else with but still be able to listen for doorbells, or have a conversation with someone.Sound Quality: Remember when we used to have those wired earbuds from Sony or JVC or Panasonic that came with those foam covers that we always used to lose? That’s what these sound like, but slightly better – very slightly. Mids and highs are good, don’t expect much, if any, bass. There is some low frequency response but it’s very airy. These are no audiophile earbuds folks! Only audio codecs available are SBC or AAC. These are akin to Apple’s Airpods – they are completely open, no sound sealage, no noise cancellation, but sound quality is definitely not bad if you know what to expect. But if you do get a chance to listen with these it’s a different experience. Like music or voices are only playing for you, but you’re not completely sealed off from the world. Your own personal soundtrack can play in the background as you go about your day. As mentioned before, the LinkBuds only offer SBC or AAC audio codecs, which is fine. Why waste AptX or LDAC capabilities on open earbuds? You lose more detail with the earbuds designed to be completely open. With the Headphones app you can turn on the function to upscale compressed audio via AI with the DSEE option. I honestly didn’t notice any huge difference with it being on or off.Build Quality: ABS material, though they feel very sturdy. The recycled plastic look has its own charm. Definitely a different look and feel, but you can tell Sony really tried to go environmentally conscious with everything, from the materials to the packaging. Besides the silicon inside the buds, it feels like it could be recycled again (if that makes sense). They don’t feel cheap by any means. The buds are lightweight, probably some of the lightest I’ve used. Overall good build.Battery Life: Battery life is good. I would say average. About 4-5 hours of continuous music listening, with an additional 2-3 full charges from the case. Just recently got the Xperia 1 III which they added battery share (reverse Qi charging), which is interesting to me since the case for these earbuds didn’t include Qi charging capabilities. Sony s WF flagship does, but these do not. Hopefully if they make a LinkBuds ver. 2 they add it.Fit and Comfort: Just like any new earbuds, getting the fit right requires some trial and error (and sometimes a little bit of discomfort). The LinkBuds come with 4 (I think, can’t remember) different sized wings that help keep the earbuds in place. My ears are somewhat smaller, so I typically use either small or medium eartips and wings. For these I had to switch the preinstalled mediums for one size smaller. At first the wings are a bit too stiff and uncomfortable. But after breaking them in they’re perfect! The LinkBuds stay in place, even with more than normal head shaking. Although the shape of these earbuds are unorthodox, once you understand how they need to be placed in your ear they fit well. Compared to the Samsung Galaxy Buds Live I find these MUCH more comfortable but a little more pressure than Airpods.Features (Headphones App): The Wide Area Tap apparantly isn’t a new function, but it is a niche one. The way it works is instead of tapping directly on the buds themselves, you double or triple tap an area around an earbud for it to trigger an action. In the Headphones app you can assign area taps for each side, but only limited to a specific function. For example, for the left area you can assign the Volume function, so 2x tap will be set to Raise Volume and a 3x tap will Lower Volume. And for the right area you can set something like Playback Function, where 2x tap will Skip Song Forward, 3x tap will Previous Song. You cannot, however, set left area to function as 2x tap volume up 3x tap previous song. It’s only left/right area tap set functions (Volume, Playback, Assistant, etc). There is Adaptive Volume Control which raises the volume automatically when you’re in a louder area such as outside where there’s traffic, and lowers volume when you’re in a quieter are such as a library. Then there are your typical earbud functions, such as Auto Power Off when nothing plays through the earbuds after a certain amount of time passes, or Auto Pause when earbuds are removed from your ears. In the app you can mess around with the equalizer, set up 360 audio, set voice to speech, and set voice notifications.Connection: Now this is my biggest gripe with the LinkBuds. I have the Headphones app set to prioritize a good connection at the sacrifice of sound quality, but noticed if there are any large masses that get in between my phone and the earbuds (like, say, my fat body) the earbuds cut out. This especially happens outside, I’ve noticed, while I’m gardening or washing the car. Sometimes the interference also cuts out audio in the left earbud. And it’s not just for a second or two, it could be until I pause my music and try reconnecting the buds, needing to place them back in the case and restarting the connection to my phone. It can be very frustrating at times – hopefully there’s a patch coming.Overall, very good first foray into this design by Sony. I hope they continue to refine this line of earbuds. I know their flagships have settings to allow passive audio but normally those sound too robotic – having open audio is more my preference.

4. 

   Rated 2 out of 5

   ZVB73 – March 3, 2022

   
   I am the type of person who is alone most of the time and needs to hear my surroundings. I’m not ever in a noisy environment, so noise cancellation isn’t necessary for me. On top of that, I can’t stand not being able to hear the world around me. It increases my anxiety, and I’m always paranoid when I can’t hear.Enter the LinkBudsOn paper, these are the perfect earbuds for me. No better “passthrough” audio than literal holes cut in your earbuds. I feel like these earbuds were created with exactly me in mind, so I decided to give them a shot. Unfortunately, almost every good thing brings something bad with it.The unique design will obviously be interesting since there’s nothing else like it. I like the creative problem solving for making open earbuds. They include many different sizes of silicone rings so that they can try to fit any ear size… But they definitely will not fit everyone. They just won’t. Unfortunately for me, apparently my inner portion of my ear is too small (which is shocking to me because I’m 6 feet tall and have a giant head). The smallest size ring creates a prominent bump on the top that feels like it is stabbing my ear after more than 5 minutes. I also can’t remove the ring because they won’t stay in without it. I’ve had to compromise by using a too large size and kind of just cram it in there for extra padding. Not idealThey are designed for all day usage since you can hear your surroundings while wearing them… But they aren’t comfortable enough for me to wear them for more than an hour or two. There are no soft parts unlike normal buds, so the hard plastic constantly being crammed in your ear can definitely hurt after a while. Unfortunate.The design gives them more of an “open back” feel. Obviously the sound will never be as good as over ear headphones, but honestly, they are very clear and have solid sound quality. I find that most buds don’t satisfy my audio quality standards, but these do satisfy me most of the time… But they also have practically no bass. Not a huge problem for my types of music and for podcasts, but I sometimes feel like I’m missing parts of the songs, especially when comparing with Sennheiser open back headphones. If you only listen to bass heavy music, do not buy these. You will hate them. For the average user, I suggest downloading the app and turning on the EQ settings so you can compensate better for the missing bass.The case is compact and the buds snap in securely. It’s also made out of recycled plastic which hopefully is a plus for our planet… But the case feels hollow and very slippery. I wish it had a better texture so I wasn’t afraid I’d drop it at all times. I wish it had a more premium feel for the price.One note about my ear shape. My ears are odd in that they kind of have a slope to them where the earbud would rest. I have a problem with *every* earbud I have ever used and trying to get them to stay in. Because of that, each ear fits differently with these. The unfortunate side effect is at times the audio can sound slightly different per ear which can make the audio experience unpleasant at times.The final incredibly unfortunate problem that is probably exclusive to me: because of my ear shape, the left bud sits at an angle and actually plugs my ear completely…. Which means the hole literally does nothing for my left ear except when I reposition it to a really specific way, but it always goes back to plugged after a while. I will continue working with it to see if I’m doing something wrong, but I seriously think they just don’t work properly with my ears.ConclusionI’m giving this 2/5 stars because the idea is excellent, the sound quality is good (except for the bass), and that these buds are incredibly useful in situations where normal buds wouldn’t work.Unfortunately, the execution was not done as well as I hoped. The discomfort I experience in these is incredibly disappointing. I hoped these would be buds I could use almost constantly, but they hurt me too much to do so. And with the left ear problem as listed above, it kind of negates the whole purpose for one of my ears. Just know these are not made to fit everyone, and if you’ve ever had issues with buds fitting, be cautious with these.I am considering trying to return them because I can’t justify the price if they don’t work for me 100%. I hope I can find a solution because I want them to work.I think these will be amazing for some people, but I’m honestly devastated I’m not one of them.

5. 

   Rated 4 out of 5

   Michael – April 28, 2023

   
   TL;DRCons: not a lot of battery life, the signal is weak and will cut in and out with normal use.Pros: works as advertised, you can hear your surroundings well and adaptive volume through the app helps keep a nice balance. Very compact and comfortable.I bought these because I work in an environment where it’s a hazard to not be aware of your surroundings and I’ve very much enjoyed having them. It has a lot of aspects I like about it, but each positive feature comes at a cost and you should weight what you want and need properly before buying these fairly pricey headphones.The case is very small, the smallest I’ve seen on wireless buds. It fits so well in my pocket, I hardly notice I brought them. This is very neat if, like me, you carry a lot of keys and don’t have much pocket space left. The cost of this, however, is that the case itself doesn’t hold much charge. It will charge my buds from dying to full one time with roughly 20% charge left in the case.The buds are comfortable, designed specifically for “all day comfort” so that you technically don’t need to remove them at all through the day. This design was executed well and I really could wear them all day; if only the batteries in the buds themselves lasted longer. I get between 2-4 hours a charge, so at work I charge them during my break. This works out for me, but as mentioned the case doesn’t hold much charge either, so if you expect to need them for more than four hour bring a charger.The sound is natural and quality, it almost sounds like I’m listening to a radio while holding a conversation. They have a little trouble with heavy base sounds and get a little wavey, but the natural environment and open air make it sound like you’re not just in a studio. I like that but for some that might be more of a flaw than a feature.They connect to multiple devices well. I love playing my steamdeck and getting both my games sound and audio from the video playing on my phone. The drawback here is that the signal for the headphone is the weakest I’ve experienced. I can’t place my phone on a desk and walk to the other side of the wall without losing connection. Sometimes my audio cuts out even when my phone is in my pocket, although I’ve only experienced this while moving. If little cutouts bother you, these headphones arnt for you.All in all I like them. I feel like I need to be more mindful of them than my previous Skullcandy buds, but they offer me a lot of perks and I can live with the downsides.

6. 

   Rated 3 out of 5

   Marcos Bravo – August 24, 2023

   
   I think these earphones are a really good idea, I realize that Earbuds tend to have “ambient” modes so you can hear people with earbuds on however, I often feel like they sound very odd since most earbuds I’ve worn do full isolate sound to begin with. Since the Linkbuds just have holes on them, this is the best way for me to listen to people and have some music in my ears. Obviously these will not isolate sound, they have holes, I have a different pair of Earbuds or IEMs or Headphones if that’s all I’m aiming to do. I think these are great if you still want to hear what’s going on like in a work setting and such without the jarring feeling of everyone sounding a bit “off” when you wear traditional earbuds and hear them through the earbuds mic.That said, I love the idea of these earphones, my only issue with them right now is that they aren’t comfortable for long use. Because these aren’t normal earbuds. The way they’re held together in your ear is by pushing two parts of your ear and that creates problems for me. Regardless of which lobes I use or whatever they’re called, the eventuality of pain from these things pushing into my ear (the tragus?) will come and I really hope that Sony makes more of these and improves the design. Ears are weird and they come in too many shapes and sizes so earbuds like this that fit everyone seems like a gargantuan task, but they’re a large company, surely they can figure it out.3 stars is not a bad rating but considering that I have to wear these to use them for what they’re made for, the comfort-ability of these earbuds are worth losing 2 stars.