Earin M-2 review: how you do truly wireless earbuds right.
Every now and then a device comes into my possession that makes audio new and sparkly again. Or at least gives me that feeling. The Earin M-2 is that device currently.
Other than today, when I’m writing about them, the Earin M-2 set has been riding in my pocket, and quite a bit of time spent in my ears. If I’m doing the math right I used them about 14 hours over the past 4 days (which is why they’re not with me today, left them charging by accident this morning).
I’m just going to say the music is superb. Cutouts between buds extremely rare with their MiGLO NFMI connection, and the only thing that feels lacking in the music department is the lack of an EQ. They’re great on their auto EQ, but man, some podcasts I just really need some EQ adjustments on.
Earin M-2 Specs
- Driver: Knowles Balanced Armature Speakers
- 20Hz-20kHz
- 106 dB SPL +-2dB
- AAC, AptX, SBC
- Bluetooth 4.2 (phone to bud,) / MiGLO NFMI (between buds)
- 4 microphones
- Noise cancellation
- Ambient passthrough
- 4 hour playtime w/ 1.5 hour recharge time. 3x recharges in the capsule.
Foam and silicone fittings provided.
As usual Paul complains about something
While the ear to ear connectivity seems superb, there doesn’t seem to be a huge set of improvements in the cross-body pickup with Bluetooth. I don’t know that there’s a lot that can be done when you’ve got a phone in your back pocket and you’re leaning forward and you’ve got most of your body between you and the radios. Nobody else has solved it with Bluetooth 4.2 that I know.
For most things it worked flawlessly, but bending down to pick something up made a large flesh barrier between phone and receiver bud. Could also just be the phone’s BT, but I think it’s BT in general. All phones, all earbuds I’ve played with have done this.
This was made ever so slightly worse because not knowing which bud is the receiver (these are smart and figure out which ear is which,) you may have the phone or bud positioned in the worst possible area. Goal for the week, figure out which bud is acting as the receiver and place a dot on it.
Complaining done.
The audio transparency options allow you to fine-tune your hearing to what’s around you, what’s far away, or shut out the world and just jam out. There are a few options for it: on all the time, on when music is not playing, and off which turns your earbuds into ear plugs.
I found they did a pretty decent version of the large prototype hearing aid-style device I’d played with in 2016. I don’t recall exactly how it sounded, I don’t think these sound quite as good, but they’re useful to tune back into the world without having to remove your earbuds.
But wait, there’s more. What they’re absolutely great for is dropping the volume of your kids / annoying relative, while still hearing everything they say. I happened to have an absurdly sensitive ear and headache combo going on and two kids who are convinced if they stop screaming / singing / yelling they will cease to exist.
I’ve never been more thankful for pass through audio on a set of earbuds ever. Just sitting in my ears I couldn’t make out what was going on, but turning pass through on and down it was almost like I was talking to normal volumed people as opposed to the psycho sugar fueled ballerinas that were excited about a recital.
The Earin M-2 saved my ears that day.
I used the Google Assistant integration a couple of times for live translation. It worked reasonably well, however having no baseline for comparison I’m not sure if these work better or worse than others. It’s nifty.
I also was using these and Google Translate while I had a 3yo jabbering about how I look like a prince. That said, I got most of what the speaker was saying even if there were some messed up words.
Assistant integration seemed useful when I used it.
The charging case is a leap above the M-1’s. This feels like a premium charging unit should.
It works well to keep pocket lint out, and generally is just about perfect in every way. One notable exception, and why I qualified “perfect” is that the Micro USB port will suck in lint like any port would in a pocket.
As much as I am starting to hate special cables, I kind of wish they’d done a magnetic charging cable. I may install my aftermarket magnetic charging port on it with glue if lint becomes a problem.
Oh yeah, the packing for this is for storing it. The wooden box it’s in is magnetic and seals itself shut. A little overkill but man it’s a nice addition.
Overall
At 15+ days with these I’m feeling a little out of sorts that I left them on the charger.
These are a premium earbud, they are priced for that. In this category of product you’re probably either going to love them or not. You’ve got two weeks to play with them and if you don’t like them, free return.
You can grab the Earin M-2 at Earin.com
