Update: August 17, 2020 (5:46AM ET): We have updated the original article below with the India price and availability details of the Samsung Galaxy Buds Live. Read on for all the latest.
Original article: July 16, 2020 (6PM ET): The can is open, and the Samsung Galaxy Buds Live bean-shaped buds have spilled out from the Samsung Unpacked event. Samsung’s latest member of the Galaxy wearable family strays from its Galaxy Buds lineage by introducing a novel design, active noise-cancelling (ANC), and something we’ve berated the AirPods for: an open-air fit. That’s right, the Samsung Galaxy Buds Live do not seal to the ear.
The Galaxy Buds Live promise a lot for the reasonable price of $169.99, and promise to be the perfect companion for your new Samsung Galaxy Note 20.
Noise-cancelling and Bluetooth technology
Samsung boldly claims its open active noise-cancelling technology will unite the best of both worlds. The company posits frequencies below 700Hz (e.g. trains and buses) will be quieted, while other ambient sounds like a train conductor’s announcement will still be audible. Ambient passthrough isn’t supported because the earbuds physically allow sound in. Samsung’s reasoning for this is that the open fit allows enough background noise, making a software passthrough redundant. This only makes me more dubious of the noise-cancelling performance.
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These earbuds use Bluetooth 5.0 firmware and support three Bluetooth codecs: SBC, AAC, and the Samsung scalable codec. Samsung’s codec is proprietary, and balances streaming and connection qualities to give listeners the smoothest experience with minimal sacrifice to audio quality. Streaming quality slides from 96-512kbps to achieve this. The scalable codec performed well when using the older Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus with my Samsung Galaxy S10e, and the same should hold true with the Galaxy Buds Live.
Samsung Galaxy Buds Live: Fit, design, and sensors
Each bean-shaped earbud weighs 5.6 grams, and the buds are only available in a single size. We’ve seen this play before, and the “one size fits all� approach hardly ever even pans out as “one size fits most� in practice. Even still, Samsung provides two pairs of wing tips (small and large) to secure the earbuds in place along the outer ear, and includes instructions on how to install the earbuds properly for an optimal fit. Samsung asserts these are its most ergonomic earbuds yet, but fellow reviewers and I praised the Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus for their comfort. The Galaxy Buds Live buds have a lot to live up to given the hardshell design.
The exterior plate of each bean is touch-capacitive, and enables a slew of onboard controls. Users can control playback and volume, call management, and create custom settings that can be chosen from the Galaxy Wearable app. Each earbud has two microphone holes and a bass duct. On the interior side of each earbud are two charging contacts, a spot for wing tip installation, a voice pickup unit (VPU), an air vent, a third microphone, a speaker hole, and an infrared sensor.
Sound quality: AKG tuning with some tweaks
Samsung subsidiary AKG tuned the 12mm dynamic drivers inside the Samsung Galaxy Buds Live. An absence of nozzles gave the Samsung teams plenty of liberties when crafting these earphones: inward-facing air vents work twofold by alleviating the suction sensation created by some ear tips, and creating spatial depth to audio reproduction.
Opposite of the air vent in each bud sits a bass duct that further amplifies the bass notes. You’re going to need this bass emphasis since the buds don’t seal to the ear: low-frequencies are the first to go if a proper seal isn’t achieved.
A phenomenon called auditory masking takes place when a loud sound (e.g. outside noise) makes it hard to hear a relatively quiet one (e.g. your music). We experience this on a regular basis, any time we listen to music and walk down a busy street or wait as our train pulls up. Remember the last time you waited at a train platform. When the train pulled up to you, your music became quieter. You didn’t decrease the volume at that exact moment; you probably didn’t even touch your phone or headset controls. Rather, your brain prioritized the seemingly more threatening sound of a train over your music.
All this is to say, the noise-cancelling needs to be remarkably effective if Samsung wants its buds to combat disruptive sounds such as train rumbles.
A more advanced microphone array
The Samsung Galaxy Buds Live use a similar but different microphone system from its predecessors. Just as the Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus, the Buds Live rely on a triple-microphone format, two of which are beamforming. In short, these three microphones work to focus on your voice, and are assisted by an inward-facing voice pickup unit (VPU). A VPU is an accelerometer that detects jawbone movement and uses bone conduction technology to convert these vibrations into audio signals. It also helps reduce background noise.
Battery life seems promising
Noise-cancelling is a hungry beast, but the Samsung Galaxy Buds Live are rated to last six hours on a single charge with ANC enabled, which is very impressive. The charging case provides an extra 2.5 battery cycles. If you exclusively use ANC, you may listen to the Galaxy Buds Live for a full 21 hours before you have to top the case up. With ANC off entirely, standalone battery life sits at a cozy eight hours, with a total 29 hours of playtime.
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The earbuds support fast charging: five minutes in the case supplies you with one hour of listening. This efficiency is great for when you’ve arrived at the gym only to realize the buds are out of juice. You may charge the jewel box case via USB-C, Qi wireless charger, or atop a Samsung Wireless PowerShare-supported device.
Spotify integration, Game Mode, and other features
Samsung retained Spotify integration with its noise-cancelling earphones, at least if you’re using the earbuds on an Android device. The same goes for Game Mode, which may be found in the Labs section of the Galaxy Wearable app. Game Mode reduces audio-visual latency, rendering it nil. This lack of iOS support is a small transgression against iPhone users, and another demonstration of smartphone manufacturers limiting functionality to certain handsets.
A group of Samsung smartphone owners may rejoice in knowing that hands-free Bixby access has arrived. The rest of us who rely on Google Assistant or Siri still have to keep our fingers on the buds for assistance. Users may consult the Android or iOS Galaxy Wearable app for noise-cancelling toggles, connection and battery status readouts, touchpad settings, equalizer options, Find My Earbuds functionality, and software updates. Only Android devices may have their notifications read aloud to them, or enable the Spotify shortcut from the touchpads.
Practical features include IPX2 water-resistance, so you can lightly sweat in the earbuds without damaging them. You also benefit from quick connection, Music Share (formerly Samsung Dual Audio), and quick device switching — a shame that Bluetooth multipoint functionality is still absent. I would have loved to connect the Galaxy Buds Live to two devices at once, but you can’t have it all, how else would companies find ways to drag out annual new releases?
The Samsung Galaxy Buds Live are available on Samsung’s website for $169/£179. In India, they are priced at Rs 14,990 (~$200) and will be available starting August 25.
You may select from three color variants: Mystic Bronze, Mystic Black, and Mystic White.
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