X2. Moreover, unprotected contact pins when earbuds are not attached to the charging case. No, thanks.

I think with the Freebuds 5 (as with all semi-inears), it depends on your ear anatomy. I have rather large ears, so they don't close off the ear canal at all for me. And subjectively, the feeling is no different from earbuds that sit entirely outside the canal. But thing is, the closer your...

That's odd, I have the Aviot Sound ME App installed from Google Play and it works on my older LG V30 ( German Version). So it doesn't seem limited to Japan only.

They'd definitely need magic for this, 'cause physics says the further your sound source is from your ear canal, the less low end you'll get. If you want open earbuds with proper low end, go for the Freebuds 5 instead. From a physical / acoustical pov, semi-inears have an undeniable advantage.

A fact is something that is objectively provable and can't be argued with. It's not sufficient to say the difference is "noticeable", that would be just your subjective opinion. I wonder how you (or anyone) would be able to provide objective proof for such a claim? You may want to reconsider...

I wonder if those who think that wired is miles better than BT have ever performed a precisely volume-matched A/B comparison? No, I'm not talking about blind testing, since that would be hard to do with wireless vs. wired. Just talking about a comparison at the exact same volume level. Because...

From what I've been gathering, Cypress will have enough sound pressure to work as a full-range MEMS driver for TWS, even with ANC. However, its tech is different from current MEMS, so we'll have to wait and see how it will fare regarding sound quality, power consumption, etc... Currently, the...

Subtitles -> Japanese (auto-generated) -> Auto-translate -> English

^ or consult this interactive frequency chart: https://alexiy.nl/eq_chart/

Pssst, the same applies to playing wired, but don't tell anyone. ;-)

It sure makes sense, 'cause they say that they won't pay any custom fees in advance when they ship the product. Which means that local custom / import fees will have to be paid for by the recipient.

I would expect to pay customs fees if they ship from Japan. I backed the Linner Deluxe on Indiegogo and had to pay customs fees when they shipped.

Strictly speaking, there is no "better" seal. Tips either seal or leak. There are varying degrees of leakage though, that's true. (In IEM measurements, you'd see distinct bass roll-off if the tips didn't seal. In the graphs I posted, there's no roll-off down to 20Hz.)

In which way? I'm not aware of any benefits apart from them maybe becoming more flexible and easier to get a seal with.

Good question! As for the comparison between "with and without burn-in signals playing between measurements": no, I haven't done that. Because it would require two brand new identical IEMs, which I simply didn't have at hand. However, I never used the supplied original tips for these "burn-in"...