![]() ![]() If we’re really nitpicking, it might err on the side of subtlety over fun – but it never underplays our music’s meatiness and excitement. The sound is refined, clear, agile and never harsh. Our playlist continues to Daddy Yankee and Snow’s Con Calma and the Panasonics continue to time well, with a sensible dollop of energy through the rise and fall of each beat. The reggaeton track starts off quietly, almost as if played in a tunnel, and the Panasonics easily match the Cambridge Audios for the nuanced build through the intro. Switching to DJ Snake’s Taki Taki (a Tidal Master), we find agility through the low end and textured vocals across the frequencies. Before You Accuse Me is a greater test of the Panasonics’ treble frequencies and it’s a clear, agile and sparkling performance. This particular track always makes us think that Clapton didn’t want his vocal to take centre stage, and the RZ-S500W oblige, paying his lyrics just enough attention to resonate without any hint of muddying the guitar. Slowhand’s bassy guitar riffs have ample space to shine within the spacious and cohesive mix. Setting all sound enhancements to neutral, we stream Eric Clapton’s Cocaine on Tidal. There’s no auto-off wearer detection, but at this level and with these notable talents, the RZ-S500W look impressive value for money. We find the ambient sound profile just as effective, and because the touch capacitive controls are so good it is quick to deploy them without reaching for your phone. This isn’t a criticism of the RZ-S500W – some people experience low-level balance issues when using noise-cancelling headphones – but it’s a sure sign that consistent external sounds are being largely eliminated, especially at lower frequencies. The noise cancelling is exceptionally good, too – so good, in fact, that with the noise cancelling slider set to max, we actually feel a little disorientated when standing outside near a busy road. It’s refreshing to find on-device controls as reliable and user-friendly as these. Touching the right earpiece for two seconds scrolls between the three main noise cancelling profiles (ambient sound, noise cancelling and off), but these can be further customised in the app depending on the amount of noise-cancelling or background noise you’d prefer. Play, pause and volume control are done with the left earpiece track skipping with the right. They never fail to respond to our touch, but they also seem to realise when we’re simply adjusting them in our ears rather than pressing for a response. Touch capacitive panels on each bud are some of the most responsive and intuitive we’ve tested within an in-ear design. The Bluetooth 5.0 connection is solid, though it’s worth noting that the superior aptX and aptX HD Bluetooth codecs aren’t supported. The twin beamforming mics ensure clear calls throughout our tests. An IPX4 rating means that the earpieces should be able to handle a rainy day, too. Other neat features include a USB-C quick-charge so that a 15-minute re-juice can deliver 70 minutes of playback, even with noise cancelling deployed. Doing this means that long-touching the left bud now offers a direct line to Alexa, rather than the Siri default on our iPhone. Tap it and, provided you’ve downloaded the Alexa app, you can add the RZ-S500W as accessories. ![]() The latter pulls up four options: ‘Bass Enhancer’ and ‘Clear Voice’ sound profile presets, an ‘Equaliser’ tab with five sliders to tweak the sound, and an ‘Off’ toggle to listen at neutral.Īlong the bottom of the screen, you can see the current listening volume, which is a useful touch, and in the top right is an Alexa icon. Click on the former and you get two sliding controls to select the noise cancelling and ambient sound levels, plus a toggle to turn them off entirely. Below this are two tabs labelled ‘Ambient Sound Control’ and ‘Sound Enhancement’. On the app's homepage, you can view your headphones and the battery life remaining in each earpiece. Although the app doesn’t look particularly slick or new, it functions well and never crashes during testing. We download the Panasonic Audio Connect app, which offers initial prompts to help pair the headphones for the first time. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |