These earbuds punch way above their weight. Jack Wallen/ZDNET
One of life’s little pleasures is listening to music in such a way that you truly “hear” it. By that I mean you can hear the separation between the instruments or voices to allow all the subtlety to come through. When that happens, you hear things in songs you might never have heard before…even though you’ve listened to that piece of music thousands of times.
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Generally, such listening pleasure is associated (at least in my book) with vinyl. When music is straight-up analog, the lack of compression can create space and fidelity that digital simply cannot match. But when you do find a digital device that offers up some semblance of audio quality, it can be transformative.
I’m not saying this $79 pair of earbuds (currently only $59.99, thanks to an Amazon coupon) can compete with my vinyl setup. However, the EarFun Air Pro 3 earbuds certainly do an impressive job. When I received the headphones, I assumed they would sound like every pair of earbuds I’ve tested to date. But instead, I was pleasantly surprised.
Instead of a flat, overly-produced, bass or midrange-heavy sound, these earbuds produced a delicate balance between bass, mid, and treble that suited many different types of music. I put the EarFun through my usual test of classical, vocal, musical theatre, rock, and metal to see how they’d perform. The song list was as follows:
- VOCES8 – Angus Dei
- Mozart – Piano Concerto 23
- Band-Maid – Before Yesterday
- Anthem – From the musical Chess
- Rush – Tom Sawyer
- Devin Townsend – Kingdom
I was very much impressed with how these sub-80-dollar headphones could handle that range of musical styles. Each piece of music felt fresh, alive, and exceptionally well-balanced. Rush’s Tom Sawyer felt particularly agile coming through these headphones. It was an absolute joy hearing the separation between Geddy’s bass, Alex’s guitar, and Neil’s drums.
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Every song on my shortlist was a delight to hear through the EarFun Air Pro 3 headphones, making them sound as if they cost considerably more. But what’s the secret behind the Air Pro 3 headphones?