Emily Dickinson once said that “progress is a comfortable disease.” When I read this, it seems to me that the “progress” that society makes in some areas often comes at a cost to the detriment of what came before. In this case, we are talking about sound quality and Bluetooth headphones. With them, “progress” benefited consumers: wireless connectivity, active noise cancellation, water resistance, AI-powered smart features, and convenience.
So what have we lost and is yesterday’s technology worth resurrecting? To find out, I threw away the headphones I was living with most recently. Sony’s excellent WF-1000XM6and took Final Audio’s recently launched $80 A2000 in-ear monitors (IEMs).
What have I learned from the past three weeks using wired IEMs as a daily carry audio and communication device? Let’s talk about it!
But why?
As good as the aptX and LDAC Bluetooth codecs can be, they simply don’t compare head-to-head with a wired connection. In general, wired connections are a better choice for almost any technology. Wi-Fi and Ethernet cable is another example of this.
With wired audio connections, you will expand this soundstageget a more consistent chance of finding the details of missing songs, and don’t worry about charging headphones or earphones before a gym workout or packing a charger when you go on vacation.
Why? Ultimately, because they sound consistently better and there’s no battery to worry about.
My test subject(s).
Final Audio was releasing their new budget IEM, the A2000 for $80 and reached out to me to see if I would be interested in reviewing them. I accepted, but I thought I would do something different, which led to this article. Like the Sony WF-1000XM6 I’ve shelved for them, the A2000 has a large soundstage, delicious dynamics, delicious detail retrieval, strong mids, bright highs, and plenty of punch. blooming rising bass.
“A lot as” is an important distinction because although the A2000 as When it comes to sound, the XM6 improves on that in every possible way. The Final Audio A2000 comes with four pairs of silicone ear tips, including a pre-installed pair. You get a 1.2m oxygen-free copper (OFC) cable with a 3.5mm square end, which also comes with two clip-on earphones.
The A2000 cases are more stylish than the XM6. You get a two-tone ABS plastic shell with a Japanese-style Shibo (translation: crinkled paper) coating that resists fingerprints and adds texture.
The internals are vibrant blue, but the most important internals – the speaker in each – are Final’s f-Core DU speaker driver and all sound-producing internals made in-house by Final – something you don’t see very often.
These pods connect to the included braided OFC cable via standard 2-pin connectors, so you can easily replace the included cable with another depending on your use case.
My Experience: Traded Sony WF-1000XM6 for Final Audio A2000
You are probably used to its convenience Bluetooth headphonesand with good reason. There are no cables, so you can just pop them in your ears and keep moving! With the transparency modes, you technically only need to remove them from your ears to charge them. Getting used to all this convenience will require you to make some adjustments when you return to wired headphones.
It took me about a week to get used to hanging my wired headphones around my neck when not in my ears. Not that they weren’t comfortable, but my ears don’t have “pass-through audio” that would allow me to have a conversation with them.
Also, I have an older car, so no Bluetooth or USB-A connectivity, which means hanging them around my neck while driving or holding one to my ear for phone calls on the commute.
With wireless headphones, you simply remove them from your ears and place them in their case when needed. Now you’ll have wires to contend with, and unlike the WF-1000XM6 in their case, wired IEMs won’t fit in your coin pocket.
But what I gave up for convenience, I gained in superior sound quality. Music always sounds great on the Final A2000 IEMs, unaffected by wind or other atmospheric conditions that can make Bluetooth connections unstable. I never had to worry about whether I had left them on the charger the night before or how much charge they had by the time I hit the gym. And because I was attached to the wires, I was never afraid of losing them.
The A2000s rise above the $80 price point, sounding bright in the upper midrange, so vocals, podcast sounds, and movie dialogue sound full. Elements of some tracks vibrate in the sibilant, as there is definitely some lift in the upper treble, but my guess is that they’re tuned that way to give a stronger sense of detail than the $80 price tag.
Although transients are handled quite well, all things considered, the bass has a strong weight and is not soft! Many more expensive Bluetooth headphones will struggle to match the overall sound quality of the Final A2000.
As good as AptX Lossless and LDAC are, there’s a live quality to music that’s often missing when you compare it to wired playback of well-processed, high-quality audio files. That said, going back to wired will only be for certain people:
- Those who don’t want to shell out $200-$300 semi-annually for the latest Bluetooth technology, but want something that lasts longer than the headphones’ rechargeable batteries.
- Music lovers. If audio fidelity is important, and I don’t think it’s really effective for many consumers, you might want wired IEMs over Bluetooth if you can get past the lack of convenience that Bluetooth offers.
To sum up the experience, most people don’t care about battery estimates, which always show that the battery life of headphones is significantly reduced compared to using them mainly for audio playback. For example, my Sony WF-1000XM6 headphones with noise-cancelling turned off have an estimated five hours of “continuous talk time,” but that number increases to eight hours for all other uses.
So, if you spend a lot of time on voice calls, wired headphones might be a better option for you.
“You MUST COORDINATE!”
Like Final’s A2000 sounds, the IEMs aren’t specifically designed to ease the transition to wired portability, so you’ll need a microphone. Fortunately, there are good options on the market for replacement cables with two-pin connectors and built-in microphones. Even Sennheiser offers a microphone-to-cable upgrade for its line of IEMs, like the venerable IE900 I reviewed, and there are options from other brands as well.
I already have several mobile DACs at my disposaland the PR representative from JackRabbit Media, who organized the Final A2000 review, sent me modular cables from Deconi’s Audio Ensemble collection. The combination of the two made my transition to wired daily carry a bit easier.
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The Deconi cables have been a boon, allowing me to connect to the DAC of my choice or one of their own by simply crimping the bottom half of the cable connector, then crimping the ends of the cable I want to use.
I found myself reverting to one of the module ends connected to their USB-C DAC, which supports 32-bit/384kHz DSD256, and occasionally switched to another end connected to a 3.5mm connection, which I used to connect to the excellent Questyle M18i, which has a better microphone than most Bluetooth headphones.
I also took this opportunity to test the wireless connection as needed with the high-quality iFi GO blu Air Bluetooth DAC with a magnetically attached clip (and those magnets, too). strong!) and has a great microphone.
Final thoughts
One of the most compelling realizations I walked away with for regulators was that instead of buying a Bluetooth headset and learning about it, you can literally build your own ideal everyday carry audio rig. You can buy an IEM based on your budget or level of music appreciation, and if you want to keep things simple, some options include a microphone cable.
If you want, you can pick up one of the great mobile DACs that bridge the gap between Bluetooth headphones and wired IEMs, like the iFi GO blu, which can be used both wired and wireless, unlike the wireless-only GO blu Air.
Big sound, “low” price
With solid build quality, bright highs, good bass response, and an easier-on-the-wallet price tag, Final Audio’s new A2000 IEMs make for fun listening! Complete with just about everything you need to start your wired journey, they’re well worth a look.
