{"id":515,"date":"2019-10-11T20:53:53","date_gmt":"2019-10-11T12:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.foxtwo.org\/blog\/?p=515"},"modified":"2019-10-11T21:01:39","modified_gmt":"2019-10-11T13:01:39","slug":"baseus-encok-s06-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.foxtwo.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/baseus-encok-s06-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Baseus Encok S06 &#8211; review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>So, this post is kind of a &#8220;sequel&#8221; to the previous post, where I went around hunting for a better set of Bluetooth earphones (than the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseus-cn.com\/product\/baseus-s06-neckband-bluetooth-wireless-headphones-with-mic\/\">Baseus Encok S06<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Short version &#8211; even though the Encok S06 received mostly good reviews, most of them stating that the sound is &#8220;good&#8221;, but there&#8217;s always a follow-up sentence &#8211; &#8220;&#8230; for the price point&#8221;. So yes, for such a cheap pair of Bluetooth earphones, the sound is indeed acceptable, some might even go as far as to say good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For me, all along I had always been using my FREE Sony MH750 wired earphones that came with my phone, for YEARS, so I am used to how music sounds on them. The music sounds different on the Baseus, and I noticed it within seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>To describe it visually, let&#8217;s say you&#8217;re used to watching movies on a 4K TV, at 4K resolution for every movie. Suddenly you go to your grandma&#8217;s place and she has a small dinky CRT TV&#8230; that&#8217;s how stark a difference the music sounded to me on the Baseus, like it&#8217;s coming from a set of TV speakers, good TV speakers, but not quite &#8220;soundbar&#8221; quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before we get to that, let&#8217;s go over the various points about the Baseus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size\">The Good<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Affordable &#8211; usually priced around $20 to $30.<\/li><li>Good Bluetooth connection. Hardly any dropouts.<\/li><li>Decent, acceptable sound quality.<\/li><li>Good In-call quality<\/li><li>Good battery life &#8211; advertised for 8 hours, I charged it after about 7 hours at 10% battery left.<\/li><li>Magnetised earbuds &#8211; clips together around your neck when not in use.<\/li><li>When the right-sized eartips are fitted, they&#8217;re comfortable and don&#8217;t fall out. Personally I removed the &#8220;fins&#8221; from both sides. I&#8217;m listening to music on my way to work and home, not for the gym!<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size\">The Not-So-Good<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The wire is a bit too long in my opinion. However there&#8217;s a cinch for you to shorten it to your liking. Even so I had to tuck the extra under my collar. <\/li><li>Long press on the &#8220;-&#8221; button brings you to the NEXT song, which is opposite from everyone else&#8217;s &#8220;-&#8221; button. Similarly, a long-press on the &#8220;+&#8221; button brings you to the PREVIOUS song.<\/li><li>The rubber stopper covering the USB charging port is a PAIN IN THE A** to open. Before I found the &#8220;trick&#8221; to open them, I had to use a thin knife, or cutters, to pry them open.<\/li><li>No Siri or Google Assistant function.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size\">Sound Quality<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now we come to the sound quality. As mentioned before, the sound isn&#8217;t &#8220;bad&#8221;, per se. It&#8217;s just too different to my &#8220;usual&#8221; that I felt irritated. To some people, having a lot of &#8220;bass&#8221; equals &#8220;good&#8221;. Not to me. Too much bass will drown out the other parts of the music. The bass, like other parts of the music, needs to find a &#8220;balance&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, in some music pieces, there&#8217;s a low bass &#8220;rumble&#8221; that pumps out. I could always hear that, and &#8220;feel&#8221; the rumble. In the Encok S06, while I could hear them, I could not &#8220;feel&#8221; them. If I increased the volume, then I could almost &#8220;feel&#8221; the rumble, but the music becomes too loud. When that happens, the highs become very shrill&#8230; like someone shrieking in your ear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My phone (Sony Xperia XZ Premium) has a built-in, system-wide EQUALIZER, so I did not need to hunt for a music player with an equalizer. I started playing around with the equalizer trying to get the Baseus to sound &#8220;better&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-1 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"576\" height=\"1024\" src=\"http:\/\/www.foxtwo.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Baseus-Review-576x1024.png\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"516\" data-link=\"http:\/\/www.foxtwo.org\/blog\/?attachment_id=516\" class=\"wp-image-516\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.foxtwo.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Baseus-Review-576x1024.png 576w, http:\/\/www.foxtwo.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Baseus-Review-169x300.png 169w, http:\/\/www.foxtwo.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Baseus-Review-768x1365.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 576px) 100vw, 576px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>After mucking about with the Baseus for a while (couple of weeks now), I finally found an equalizer settting that approximates how music sounds on my Sony MH750 (and Jaybird X4), from the Baseus. As an aside, I always listen to my music with the equalizer OFF (or flat). So these settings are all from &#8220;0&#8221;, or FLAT starting point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As you can see, the bass needed a little bit more &#8220;oomph&#8221;, just a tad, and I had to bring the mids down somewhat. The 6khz setting stops the highs sounding shrill in my ear. The bass boost finally lets me &#8220;feel&#8221; the low, soft rumbles that are present in some music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At these settings, the Baseus finally sounded quite close to what I am used to hearing from my Sony and Jaybird earphones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size\">Verdict<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In hindsight, I should not have spent more money on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jaybirdsport.com\/en-us\/x4.html\">Jaybird X4<\/a>.. cuz now I finally found an equalizer setting on the phone that lets me enjoy the music from the Baseus earphones without feeling irritated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For now I keep the Baseus as a &#8220;standby&#8221; set of earphones for the day when my Jaybird X4s die\/can&#8217;t charge\/refuse to turn on. The equalizer settings have been saved on the phone so I can turn them on when I use the Baseus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So, this post is kind of a &#8220;sequel&#8221; to the previous post, where I went around hunting for a better set of Bluetooth earphones (than the Baseus Encok S06). Short version &#8211; even though the Encok S06 received mostly good reviews, most of them stating that the sound is &#8220;good&#8221;, but there&#8217;s always a follow-up &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxtwo.org\/blog\/2019\/10\/baseus-encok-s06-review\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Baseus Encok S06 &#8211; review<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,14],"tags":[68,66,69],"class_list":["post-515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","category-tech","tag-baseus","tag-jaybird","tag-sony"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.foxtwo.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.foxtwo.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.foxtwo.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.foxtwo.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.foxtwo.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.foxtwo.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":519,"href":"http:\/\/www.foxtwo.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515\/revisions\/519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.foxtwo.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.foxtwo.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.foxtwo.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}