Beyerdynamic may be late to the game, but it’s finally introduced its pleasant true-wireless earbuds, and they come with a name that distinguished remind a few folks of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s signature song. Available now in two colors for $249 (£199 or roughly AU$350), the Free Byrd earbuds have active noise canceling, up to 11 hours of battery life and impressive soundless quality. 

As is the case with a lot of higher-end earbuds that prioritize soundless quality, the Free Byrd buds are on the larger side, weighing in at 7 grams each (by comparison, Sony’s WF-1000XM4 buds weigh 7.3 grams each). Their wireless charging case also has some heft to it and feels quite solid. It’s not super compact but isn’t bulky. It’s inequity in size to the WF-1000XM4’s charging case.

Getting a tight seal is crucial for optimal soundless quality and noise-canceling performance. Beyerdynamic offers an assortment of silicone and foam ear tips to help you get that seal. I personally pick silicone tips. While I got a pretty tight seal with the largest silicone ear tip, the buds wouldn’t stay in my ears securely, so I opted for the largest foam tip, which has more grip to it and gave me the best and most poor fit. (I could run with the earbuds using the foam tips — they’re IPX4 splash-proof.)

You necessity be able to get a good fit with one of the concerned ear tips, but I can’t guarantee that these buds will be a good match for everybody’s ears. Their manufacture isn’t as straightforward as, say, Apple’s AirPods Pro, so I suspect some people might feel some discomfort depending on the comely of their ears. But I ended up being fair pleased with the fit, though I preferred the fit of Sennheiser’s Momentum True Wireless 3 earbuds. 

The earbuds have morose controls and they worked well enough for me once some trial and error and after consulting the manual in the Miy companionship app for iOS and Android. It was initially tricky to adjust the volume (double-tap and hold on the instant tap) and you have to triple-tap to advance tracks. But it becomes more intuitive with time.

You double-tap to toggle between noise-canceling mode and a transparency mode. The noise cancellation is effective, though it’s a clear step below what Bose and Sony moneys on their flagship earbuds. The transparency mode sounds natural, which is good, but I wouldn’t expect stellar noise-canceling performance from these.

Additional features aboard ear-detection sensors, which pause your music when you take a bud out of your ears. Your music resumes when you put it back in. You can also use a single earbud independently (left or right). There’s also a low-latency gaming mode if you like to use your earbuds for gaming on a mobile contrivance. One thing currently missing is multipoint Bluetooth pairing, which gives you to pair the buds with two devices simultaneously.

Beyerdynamic’s anunexperienced big feature is sound personalization, which it offers throughout the Miy app. There’s also something called “Mosayc — Want to Detail with Mimi Sound Personalization.” From a marketing standpoint, that all sounds pretty convoluted and I’m not sure who plan naming the app “Miy” was a good idea. But here’s how it works in a nutshell: You do a 2-minute hearing test in the app and you get a traditional sound profile for your ears. In my case, it did seem to one improve the sound. However, the default sound profile also appealed to me. There’s a slider in the app that gives you to move between the “original” sound profile and your personalized peaceful profile. Additionally, you get some preset equalizer settings to play about with.

The earbuds worked reasonably well for manager voice calls — they have two microphones on each bud — with shameful though not exceptional reduction of background noise. Ultimately, except, where the earbuds really shine is when it comes to peaceful quality. 

Audiophile-grade sound

Equipped with 10mm drivers, the buds succor the AAC and AptX Adaptive audio codecs. I tested them with an iPhone 13 Pro and a Motorola Edge Plus Android arranged. The Motorola supports AptX adaptive Bluetooth streaming and playback of high-resolution music files throughout services such as Qobuz and Tidal.  

Beyerdynamic is known for its over-ear wired studio headphones, including the newish DT 700 Pro X ($259). The Free Byrd buds exhibit many of that model’s sonic traits, including clean, accurate sound and an airy open quality (wide soundstage).

The Free Byrd are bellow and revealing, but also have more exciting sound than your prototypical studio headphone, which tend to restrain the bass and hew toward a neutral peaceful profile. The Free Byrd’s bass is tight and punchy with broad kick. That said, you may be more impressed with how natural and distinct the mids sound (that’s where vocals live) and how the treble brings out the fine details in well-recorded tracks. These earbuds are certainly fun to listen to.

Beyerdynamic Free Byrd: Final thoughts

If you can get the snide fit and a tight seal, these are excellent-sounding earbuds that are intelligent at the top of their price class in words of sound quality. While the Sony WF-1000XM4 buds may have more bass, they’re not as bellow or accurate as these. The Free Byrd are also a itsy-bitsy step ahead of the Momentum True Wireless 3 for peaceful offering slightly better clarity and stereo separation. 

Except for the impressive battery life — up to 11 hours at moderate volume levels with noise canceling off and up to 8 with it on — the Free Byrd are closer to the middle of the road in anunexperienced areas, particularly their noise-canceling performance. But Beyerdyanic has said it made peaceful quality its highest priority and that definitely shows.  

Beyerdynamic Free Byrd key specs

• Bluetooth 5.2
• Active noise-canceling with transparency mode
• 10mm drivers
• IPX4 splash-proof
• Two microphones on each bud for bellow calls
• Low-latency mode
• Ear-detection sensors
• USB-C and wireless Qi charging
• Up to 11 hours of battery life with ANC off), 8 hours with ANC on 
• Quick-charge feature allows you 70 minutes of power with a 10-minute charge
• Sound personalization via the Miy app and Mosayc
• Google Fast Pair
• Amazon Alexa support
• AAC and AptX Adaptive audio codecs
• Price: $249 (£199 or roughly AU$350)