WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.160 People are always asking, what's the new tech? But never how's the new tech made? 00:00:04.160 --> 00:00:10.320 And if you look into it, a lot of the parts of the supply chain are ethically dubious. 00:00:10.320 --> 00:00:15.000 Whether that's due to wasteful manufacturing processes or just unfair working conditions, 00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:20.600 it can be hard to be excited about new tech when you know about the downsides. But that's Fairphone's whole mission. 00:00:20.600 --> 00:00:23.640 They're trying to make tech a little bit more equitable. 00:00:23.640 --> 00:00:27.200 And these are their new Fairbuds XL. A couple of years ago, 00:00:27.200 --> 00:00:33.160 we took a look at the first generation of these. Also just called Fairbuds XL, which is a weird name. 00:00:33.160 --> 00:00:37.200 But I guess if you can call them AirPods Max, then you can call these Fairbuds XL. 00:00:37.200 --> 00:00:41.240 The front of the box says Fairphone. The side of the box says Fairbuds XL, 00:00:41.240 --> 00:00:45.000 but they are just earphones. I guess Fairphones is too close to Fairphone, 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:49.200 so this is the best they could do. I liked what they had last time, especially due to the repairability aspects, 00:00:49.200 --> 00:00:54.000 and they are keeping that going with this generation. In fact, if you saw the other one, 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:58.560 they are pretty much identical in shape. That means that no matter what generation 00:00:58.560 --> 00:01:03.960 of Fairbuds you have, you can use spare parts from the new one or the old one, they all work together. 00:01:03.960 --> 00:01:07.800 Before we get any further, let's take a look in the box. You get a nice little egg sack, 00:01:07.800 --> 00:01:13.000 as Dankpods likes to call them, as well as a quick start guide, and the packaging is fully recyclable. 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:16.920 I love to see it. The darker green color, 00:01:16.920 --> 00:01:22.160 I think is a lot nicer than last gen. And while last gen did have that kind of cool speckled 00:01:22.160 --> 00:01:28.240 appearance that you get from a lot of recycled plastic, this has gone for a more classy pine green. 00:01:28.280 --> 00:01:31.320 There are still some changes from last gen though, and for the ear cups and headset, 00:01:31.320 --> 00:01:36.160 they've gone from a polyurethane leather to a new mesh like material 00:01:36.160 --> 00:01:40.840 that they're calling a bird's eye mesh. I haven't looked too many birds right in the eye, 00:01:40.840 --> 00:01:44.800 but I don't really understand the correlation there. 00:01:44.800 --> 00:01:48.080 But I do think they just look a lot more premium. 00:01:48.080 --> 00:01:51.480 And I think the texture on the top here looks really quite cool. 00:01:51.480 --> 00:01:56.960 For the material change, this isn't my usual first pick, but I'll give you more impressions when I try them on. 00:01:56.960 --> 00:02:00.400 Let's keep looking around the headphone. The headband still feels relatively durable 00:02:00.400 --> 00:02:04.160 and we still have folding ear cups, which is cool. 00:02:04.160 --> 00:02:07.240 And I also like to point out that these are like USB-C cables 00:02:07.240 --> 00:02:10.960 that are connecting here. For earphone adjustment, you don't have a ton of wiggle room. 00:02:10.960 --> 00:02:16.000 There's a little bit of tilt up and down, not really much by the way of swivel. 00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:21.000 And for the adjuster, it is a smooth adjustment. And oh, that's not a great look. 00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:25.960 Just for me trying to adjust it, I kind of pulled the headband off a little bit. 00:02:25.960 --> 00:02:29.400 It happens on both sides. It's not exactly flattering, 00:02:29.400 --> 00:02:34.180 but the good news is that if you wanna change the band cushion or fabric tape, 00:02:34.180 --> 00:02:37.720 you can just slide it off and don't have to replace a whole band. 00:02:37.720 --> 00:02:41.400 So that's pretty cool, I think. For controls, you get a single button plus a joystick 00:02:41.400 --> 00:02:47.280 that also acts like a button. And for charging, you have USB-C. 00:02:47.280 --> 00:02:52.780 You can also listen over the USB-C, but it does require the headphones to use battery, 00:02:52.780 --> 00:02:55.960 which is a little bit of a bummer. It's not passive like it would be 00:02:55.960 --> 00:03:00.560 if it was like a 3.5 millimeter jack. The batteries are replaceable. 00:03:00.560 --> 00:03:05.320 Oops, wrong side. And inside the left ear cup, there is a battery, 00:03:05.320 --> 00:03:08.400 which they claim will provide you 30 hours of battery life 00:03:08.400 --> 00:03:11.960 on a single charge. And it's a lithium ion battery 00:03:11.960 --> 00:03:15.000 that has a little recycling symbol on it. And it's nice and blue. 00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:20.560 Isn't that a nice blue color? I like that blue. And they use standard Phillips double zero screws, 00:03:20.560 --> 00:03:24.000 but note that there are a few different screw lengths that you'll wanna keep track of 00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:28.600 if you're taking these apart yourself. Another thing that I like how they even labeled 00:03:28.600 --> 00:03:33.480 the inside of this ear cup to be left. Like it's just that kind of extra like accessibility work 00:03:33.480 --> 00:03:36.760 that they put into make this, not just repairable for somebody 00:03:36.760 --> 00:03:40.320 with experience with electronics, but for the average user. 00:03:40.320 --> 00:03:44.040 It's little things like that that make a huge difference when you're trying to put this thing back together. 00:03:44.040 --> 00:03:47.920 The one that lasts. Keeping on what's inside of the headphones, 00:03:47.920 --> 00:03:51.000 they have new and improved 40 millimeter drivers, 00:03:51.000 --> 00:03:56.320 which they claim have better tuning and a better bass response thanks to stronger magnets. 00:03:56.320 --> 00:04:00.460 We'll see if that's true when we get to our listening impressions, but I'm just gonna take their word for now. 00:04:00.460 --> 00:04:03.620 Well, I've done a lot of talking, but I haven't done a lot of listening. 00:04:03.620 --> 00:04:07.960 So while I'm doing that, why don't you listen to this message from our sponsor? 00:04:07.960 --> 00:04:12.120 Welcome back. These aren't the most comfortable, not gonna lie. 00:04:12.120 --> 00:04:16.480 They're a little firm. The ear cups are quite firm. They have a little bit of a clamping. 00:04:16.480 --> 00:04:20.880 And also they don't really seal at the bottom that well. Also being not the largest ear cups, 00:04:20.880 --> 00:04:25.040 you larger-eared fellows might have, well, you might have issues. 00:04:25.040 --> 00:04:28.240 I don't mind the headband, but I'm also not very sensitive to the headband 00:04:28.240 --> 00:04:32.400 and stuff on the top of my head in general. The noise canceling, which is already on, 00:04:32.400 --> 00:04:36.120 I can tell is improved from the last generation. 00:04:36.120 --> 00:04:39.280 There is a slight bit of white noise that you can hear 00:04:39.280 --> 00:04:43.160 even when the ANC is on. And also like, this is not a very loud room, 00:04:43.160 --> 00:04:47.560 but I can tell just from how it's affecting my voice that it's a little bit more of an aggressive profile. 00:04:47.560 --> 00:04:50.920 When I switch to transparency mode, or as they call it in the gentle voice 00:04:50.920 --> 00:04:55.360 that just appeared in my ear, ambient sound. There's quite a lot of white noise hiss. 00:04:55.360 --> 00:04:59.360 It's not as convincing of a transparency mode as you might get from the premium tiers 00:04:59.360 --> 00:05:02.720 from like Apple or Sony. But the nice thing is that you can also just choose 00:05:02.720 --> 00:05:06.000 to have the noise canceling off. We've connected it to Android 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:11.400 and we'll take a quick look at the app. We got the app installed, but it wasn't as smooth of an experience as I would hope. 00:05:11.400 --> 00:05:15.720 A lot of headphones these days, even like cheaper ones, are doing that kind of magic pairing 00:05:15.720 --> 00:05:19.080 that you can get on Android and iPhone. That was not the case with these. 00:05:19.080 --> 00:05:22.240 You had to download the app manually pair them, but once it finds them, 00:05:22.240 --> 00:05:27.520 inside of the app, we have some default sound profiles, as well as a five band equalizer, which is fine. 00:05:27.520 --> 00:05:32.260 Personally though, I would like to see more granularity from the equalizer. 00:05:32.260 --> 00:05:36.200 Then there's tips color. Oh, you can select it so that reflects the color of the app. 00:05:36.200 --> 00:05:39.360 You can update the headphone firmware through the app. 00:05:39.360 --> 00:05:44.360 Pretty basic app, not gonna lie. Cool, let's take a listen to some tunes. 00:05:44.360 --> 00:05:47.920 You might notice that I look a little bit different, perhaps cuter, hopefully. 00:05:48.120 --> 00:05:51.640 Don't answer that. But it's because we found some really strange behavior 00:05:51.640 --> 00:05:55.200 within the app, and we decided to go back and retest these headphones 00:05:55.200 --> 00:05:57.640 before we talked about their performance anymore. 00:05:59.200 --> 00:06:02.240 Okay, I don't know what happened. 00:06:02.240 --> 00:06:05.280 These sound like sh**. The moment you touch the EQ, 00:06:05.280 --> 00:06:09.600 it just f**ks everything up. I kind of want to update the software. Basically, within the app, 00:06:09.600 --> 00:06:14.720 you have four preset EQs, default, base boost, podcast, and detailed clarity, 00:06:14.720 --> 00:06:18.000 as well as a five band equalizer. 00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:22.000 But the thing is that when you leave the equalizer at flat, 00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:28.040 it turns off these settings and makes a different sound profile than what is default. 00:06:28.040 --> 00:06:33.080 It's very strange behavior, and it caused this profile, 00:06:33.080 --> 00:06:35.200 the equalizers set to zero, 00:06:36.600 --> 00:06:40.360 to sound really, truly terrible, quite bad. 00:06:40.360 --> 00:06:44.960 It just sounds like you're listening to it through like a piece of foam or something. 00:06:44.960 --> 00:06:50.720 It's like in the other room. But when we're in the default profile, to my ears, these are serviceable. 00:06:50.720 --> 00:06:54.000 They definitely have kind of a U-shaped sound profile 00:06:54.000 --> 00:06:59.200 where we're getting a lot of extra treble sparkle and a big bump to the bass and sub-bass, 00:06:59.200 --> 00:07:02.480 which is a matter of preference. I would say that the treble presentation on these 00:07:02.480 --> 00:07:06.760 is a little unrefined. 00:07:06.760 --> 00:07:10.160 There's some kind of weird peaks, but what was kind of a pleasant surprise 00:07:10.160 --> 00:07:14.480 is that as I was listening to these, I did actually notice certain parts of songs 00:07:14.480 --> 00:07:17.840 that I had not heard before. I'm not gonna say that that's because these are like 00:07:17.840 --> 00:07:22.360 super resolving or anything like that. They're not that great, 00:07:22.360 --> 00:07:26.920 but the unique tuning allowed me to hear cool new things 00:07:26.920 --> 00:07:30.840 and songs that I didn't quite notice were there. So that's always fun. 00:07:30.840 --> 00:07:34.880 The mids end up being scooped out as per usual in a U-shaped sound signature. 00:07:34.880 --> 00:07:38.600 To a point that I'd say like, it kind of feels almost distant sometimes, 00:07:38.600 --> 00:07:42.240 a lot of the most important parts of the music where there's like vocals 00:07:42.240 --> 00:07:46.060 and the main, you know, the body of your instruments. Just kind of not there 00:07:46.060 --> 00:07:51.440 and the bass can be a little bloated at times, but I don't think these sound too terrible. 00:07:51.440 --> 00:07:56.880 Also, I've been wearing these for a couple of days now. The ANC, I would, I'll still say it's pretty good. 00:07:56.880 --> 00:08:00.520 The comfort isn't ideal. I find it's a little bit too much clamping pressure. 00:08:00.520 --> 00:08:04.760 And as we noted earlier, there's not a ton of movement for the ear cups and that makes these a little bit uncomfortable. 00:08:04.760 --> 00:08:08.120 And honestly, they end up a little bit warm around my ears. Your mileage may vary. 00:08:08.120 --> 00:08:13.280 Comfort is very, very subjective, but what isn't subjective is our measurements. 00:08:13.280 --> 00:08:17.600 Let's take a look at those. Here is the frequency response and variation graph from Labs. 00:08:17.600 --> 00:08:22.740 The white highlighted area is what we consider to be good for most people. 00:08:22.740 --> 00:08:26.520 The average listener will enjoy headphones that fall in between the white lines. 00:08:26.520 --> 00:08:31.280 Now, every headphones gonna have some level of variance and that's where the red comes in on this graph. 00:08:31.280 --> 00:08:35.400 This is our frequency response plus the headphone transfer function variation. 00:08:35.400 --> 00:08:39.160 Basically, we measure these headphones across a variety of different measurement rigs 00:08:39.240 --> 00:08:43.960 and this is the variation in performance between these tests. So the red area represents what you might hear 00:08:43.960 --> 00:08:49.180 based on your unique biological construction. And sometimes headphones are more or less varied. 00:08:49.180 --> 00:08:52.960 As you can see in the treble region weighed at the top, it's a little bit erratic 00:08:52.960 --> 00:08:57.040 where you have some specific spikes that different people might be very sensitive to. 00:08:57.040 --> 00:09:01.180 As I said that the treble was a little bit wonky, that spike that's just above 10 kilohertz 00:09:01.180 --> 00:09:06.040 kind of sticks out for me, but I don't know if I saw all of that level of wonkiness. 00:09:06.040 --> 00:09:10.360 And if we look at the overall shape of the graph, you can see that it's pretty consistent in the lows and the mids. 00:09:10.360 --> 00:09:14.680 And we also see that kind of bass bloat as the red line goes outside of the white area, 00:09:14.680 --> 00:09:18.720 as well as that mid range scoop that contributes to that U shape sound signature 00:09:18.720 --> 00:09:22.720 that I talked about. The treble is obviously a little erratic, 00:09:22.720 --> 00:09:28.040 perhaps could be tamed, but it's not truly bad, 00:09:28.040 --> 00:09:32.520 but I wouldn't call this a high performing or analytical headphone, you know? 00:09:32.520 --> 00:09:36.040 But I think you might have a lot of fun if you're a bass head. This second graph shows the difference 00:09:36.080 --> 00:09:41.440 between the flat EQ and the default EQ on this. And you can see that the flat EQ is, 00:09:41.440 --> 00:09:45.440 well, it's not really flat at all. In fact, it's truly awful. 00:09:45.440 --> 00:09:49.520 The pronounced muddy bass hump that's just over 100 hertz 00:09:49.520 --> 00:09:53.920 is even bigger and the treble is way, way, way pulled down, 00:09:53.920 --> 00:09:57.760 which makes for a very, very muddy and bad experience. 00:09:57.760 --> 00:10:02.640 It sounds like you're listening to something in a different room almost. It's truly insane that they would call that flat. 00:10:02.640 --> 00:10:08.160 Hopefully they can figure that out with a software update. For now, I'd say stick to the default sound profile. 00:10:08.160 --> 00:10:12.600 So that's the sound quality impressions. I know I wasn't too positive, but don't let that scare you off. 00:10:12.600 --> 00:10:17.400 If this is a cause that you support, then maybe consider these. 00:10:17.400 --> 00:10:21.560 They are a little bit expensive at 250 euros. 00:10:21.560 --> 00:10:25.360 And considering that that price point has decent competition, you should do your research 00:10:25.360 --> 00:10:29.800 before you pull the trigger on these, especially because a lot more headphones 00:10:29.800 --> 00:10:34.840 are more repairable than you might think. However, Fairphone does have a track record 00:10:34.840 --> 00:10:39.080 and history and it provides really simple upgrades. So it's more repairable 00:10:39.080 --> 00:10:43.120 and you're more likely to have parts that are gonna be around for a lot longer. 00:10:43.120 --> 00:10:46.920 If you wanna see how these come apart, check out the ShortCircuit we did on the previous version of these. 00:10:46.920 --> 00:10:51.400 They're basically the exact same structure. You can literally swap the drivers in and out. 00:10:51.400 --> 00:10:57.480 If you want the new drivers, you can put them in the old headphones if you got those. So you don't have to buy a whole new set of headphones. 00:10:57.480 --> 00:11:00.840 I think that's pretty cool. Thanks so much for watching this video. 00:11:00.840 --> 00:11:01.680 I love you.