EarFun Air Pro 3 review

Pardon me whereas I stand and salute EarFun’s new flagship noise-cancelling earbuds, the Air Professional 3. These feature-filled mighty mites ship dynamic, detailed, and full-bodied sound. Whereas they’re only a bit shy in bass articulation, they ship a lot of what you’ll get from buds with a lot greater worth tags.

Consolation degree is sweet — I can put on them for hours — and the lively noise cancellation (ANC) is improved in comparison with the corporate’s earlier efforts, wiping away a goodly quantity of airplane, practice, and bus noise in addition to walk-about wind noise.

What actually units the Air Professional 3 aside from its mid-priced competitors is a futuristic characteristic set that might develop in usefulness and repair for years to come back. Tapping the brand-new Qualcomm QCC3071 audio chip, EarFun outmanoeuvred the majors to ship the very first earbuds to assist the next-generation Bluetooth LE Audio structure, working hand-in-hand right here with the equally new LC3 (Low Complexity Communications) codec. Collectively, these upgrades might present a rash of user-friendly enhancements — if {hardware} makers on the playback facet of the equation additionally undertake these requirements and play to their strengths. Because it stands, nevertheless, that’s a really massive “if.”

EarFun additionally affords the Air S – equally styled nozzle-tipped buds which are additionally way more inexpensive alternate options to the “true wi-fi” choices from Apple, Bose, Jabra, and the like. Whereas I loved the battery options, worth, and general sound profile of the Air S, I had gripes: These buds are slippery in my ears and wish periodic readjustments to remain seated in primo place. In addition they have mediocre noise cancellation and flakey contact controls.

The Air Professional 3 addresses and largely fixes these points, making me really feel just a bit prescient.

The curvature of the brand new buds’ enclosure has been shaved and reoriented, so this stuff sit nonetheless and preserve a tighter seal in my ear canal — which is essential for each passive and lively noise cancelling — they usually ship fuller bass efficiency.

The newly planted dimples on the prime of the earbuds’ pipes aren’t only a cute ornamental design ingredient, they assist the wearer land a finger on the appropriate location for some thermal contact management operations. EarFun’s consumer information, nevertheless, nonetheless doesn’t adequately clarify learn how to get the quantity up (utilizing the right-hand bud dimple management) and the quantity down (on the left-hand bud) to cooperate. The instruction to “faucet as soon as” ought to actually counsel “shortly flick your fingertip up (or down)” within the thermal contact zone. Let your finger linger and the bud’s sensor will interpret the gesture as a double-tap, pausing the music. It’s very unusual. And its very annoying.

On the upside, I’m completely satisfied to report that the Air Professional 3’s noise cancelling has been upgraded with a six-microphone-array (the sooner mannequin used 4 mics) and I discovered that it really works fairly nicely at suppressing a wide range of whining/roaring motor in addition to wind noises. It’s nonetheless not a lot assist at shushing the sound of different individuals chatting in your presence (dwell or on TV), or for suppressing extraneous environmental noise when answering cellphone name. Callers have mentioned I sound muffled and requested “Are you outdoors?” even once I wasn’t.

These points aren’t discovered on at this time’s most refined ANC earbuds — the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II, the Apple AirPods Professional (2^nd era), and the Sony WF-1000XM4 — however you’ll pay three or 4 occasions extra for a set of any of these.

How do the EarFun Air Professional 3 sound?

Jonathan Takiff/Foundry

The EarFun Air Professional 3 cosy up kindly in your head, with a really clear and current midrange and well-articulated high-end response. There’s a tad extra bottom-end kick right here than within the Air S, though the wooly heat bass continues to be not as nuanced as you get in top-tier buds.

I’m additionally completely satisfied to report that the factory-set equalising of the three noise-cancelling modes has been adjusted, so the sound contouring of probably the most energy-efficient “Regular” setting is now extra balanced and fewer trebly.  

A less-than-ideal most quantity degree stays an ongoing EarFun subject with the Air Professional 3. They play loud sufficient for me indoors, however on a loud city-street stroll, I actually craved extra kick from a brand new assortment of rock live performance performances I discovered on Amazon Music: Glory Days, Glory Exhibits!, compiling tunes from Springsteen (after all), Bowie, The Doorways, Genesis, Speaking Heads, Chuck Berry, and Roger Waters. As I found with the Air S, it’s potential to compensate, to circuitously crank up the quantity of the Air Professional 3 no less than a pair decibels by opening the EarFun app’s EQ display and pushing up the digital sliders on all six frequency bands to the max place. Try this and also you’ll discover there’s greater than sufficient quantity to play with, albeit with some sign compression.

This sonic squeezing is hardly noticeable or troublesome when listening open air; however in quiet zones, with much less distraction, my crude trick blunted the intimate charms of Melody Gardot’s cooing chanteuse vocals and arty-acoustic ensemble on the aptly named The Absence, till I remembered to hit the EQ-reset button. That returned all of the frequency sliders to the “flat” place, restoring the candy sonorities to Ms. Gardot’s sonic panorama.

Jonathan Takiff/Foundry

What else is new with the EarFun Air Professional 3?

EarFun’s top-of-the-line earbuds assist Bluetooth 5.3 — they must, to work with Bluetooth LE. Their deeper bass response is due to their 11mm wool composite drivers. They ship run time of about 7 hours with ANC on, 9 hours with it turned off. And their charging case can ship 4 full recharges. The case itself might be recharged with its USB-C cable or on a Qi pad (present your individual). You may monitor each the buds’ and the case’s battery degree within the app.

Activating Recreation Mode reduces the audio lag time to 55ms (from 100ms within the Air S) to enhance gamer twitches and video lip-synching; however within the “no free lunch” division, Recreation Mode reduces battery run time.

I used to be stunned to find the absence of 1 frequent characteristic of contemporary earbuds, which is able to robotically pause the music while you pull them out of your ears. The AirFun Professional 3 hold taking part in and can shut down provided that you disconnect them the paired system or return them to their case. They will pause the music and briefly swap to a cellphone name, even in the event you’ve been streaming music from a distinct Bluetooth supply. That’s how the multipoint connection works: You may pair the buds with two gadgets on the similar time, one lively and the opposite in standby.

Jonathan Takiff/Foundry

A phrase concerning the subsequent era of Bluetooth

In improvement since 2015, Bluetooth LE’s developments are a number of and important. Begin with decrease energy consumption for longer battery run time. And the Bluetooth SIG says the brand new LC3 codec can compress a 1.5Mbps audio stream to only 160Kbps, in comparison with 345Kbps utilizing the SBC codec that arrived with the unique Bluetooth spec.

Another promised Bluetooth LE options have but to be delivered, however the greatest downside is the basic “Which comes first, the hen or the egg?” dilemma happening right here. There could be just a few not-ready-for-prime-time points, too. Even with Bluetooth 5.2 and 5.3 compatibility baked into a number of new smartphone fashions, and notations of “LE Audio” popping up in just a few spec sheets (e.g. the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4), smartphone makers have but to totally embrace the brand new normal.

Are the EarFun Air Professional 3 good worth for cash?

The EarFun Air Professional 3 retail for $79.99/£79.99. You should purchase them straight from EarFun US and EarFun UK, or from Amazon US and Amazon UK. Amazon usually has reductions on this product, bringing the value all the way down to as little as $59.99/£59.99 (US readers can use the code AP315OFF within the coupon subject on Amazon).

Even when your playback system can’t take full benefit of the EarFun Air Professional 3’s superior Bluetooth options, these wi-fi earbuds ship a complete lotta efficiency utilizing applied sciences together with the AAC and aptX Adaptive codecs – that are extra extensively supported at this time. They usually do it at a really cheap worth. Add within the lengthy battery life and superb audio efficiency, and you’ve got a powerful worth in private audio.

Try our charts of one of the best earbuds, and one of the best finances earphones to see how rivals evaluate.