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- Informative, tidily arranged sound
- Good spec
- Thorough control app
- Short of low-frequency weight and impact
- Pricey
The Edifier NeoBuds Planar are headphones that stand out from the crowd. Not because they exhibit the kind of traits most people look for in a pair of in-ear headphones, or because of their price, which is a little on the high side. If your taste in technology is decidedly on the conservative side, these are not the headphones for you.
But anyone interested in unusual and esoteric technologies, or who values detail and insight over everything else in the sound of their headphones – or who just fancies setting off down the road less travelled, will find plenty to intrigue them here.
Edifier NeoBuds Planar review: what do you get for the money?
£199 put Edifier’s way buys you a pair of nicely made, carefully finished and comfortable true wireless earbuds that travel in an equally well-made and fairly robust charging case. Only one finish – black with slightly less black accents – is available, but don’t let that put you off. These earbuds are carefully ergonomic in shape, are supplied with a wide selection of silicone ear tips to make getting the perfect fit easy, and at 5.6g are far from the heaviest around. The level of build and finish is well up to the standard the asking price demands.
The earbuds are IP55-rated, so should be fine in any realistic environment. They can be controlled by using your source device’s native voice assistant: there are three mics per earbud to take care of these interactions, and handle telephony and active noise-cancellation. There’s also a pinch area on each earbud’s stem or you can load up the Edifier Connex mobile app to take control.
It’s on the inside, though, that the NeoBuds Planar really set themselves apart. As the model name hints at (and I use the word ‘hint’ as an understatement), each earbud is fitted with a 12mm planar magnetic driver to deliver sound. Each one is positioned between a magnet array, and Edifier has used the second generation of its ‘equal mass’ wiring technology to deliver a driver arrangement of notable lightness, slimness and, it says, precise and uniform movement at every point of the frequency range. The frequency response for the headphones is quoted at 20Hz to 40kHz.
The NeoBuds Planar use Bluetooth 5.4 for wireless connectivity, and thanks to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Sound technology there’s compatibility with codecs all the way up to aptX Lossless. LHDC 5.0 and LDAC are also supported, aptX Voice is on board, and there’s also multipoint connectivity.
With active noise-cancellation enabled Edifier says the earbuds hold five hours of power, and there are another three full charges available in the case. Switch noise cancelling off and the earbuds should run for more like seven hours, for an all-in total of 28 hours before you have need for mains power. There’s a USB-C port on the charging case for charging, and the NeoBuds Planar are compatible with any Qi-certified wireless charger.
What did we like about them?
There is plenty to like – admire, even – about the Edifier NeoBuds Planar. We’ve already touched on how comfortable the earbuds are and how they remain that way for hours on end. But this is far from their only talent.
The control options, for example, are really well implemented. Voice commands are acted on swiftly, and those mics are equally good when it comes to telephony, with each end of a conversation being crisp and coherent. The pinch control on the stem of the earbud might initially feel like it’s going to disturb the fit, but that’s not the case – and the Edifier respond reliably to commands issued this way.
The Connex app, however, is the best option of the lot. Quite apart from the ability to (comprehensively) rearrange the meanings of the various pinches and holds on each earbud to best suit your preferences, it offers a lot of other customisation options.
You can use it to check your ANC options ( on, off, adaptive, wind reduction and ambient sound), switch game mode on or off, select from a choice of EQ presets or use the extremely thorough four-band EQ that has the ability to specify the area of the frequency range you’d like each of its four sliders to affect.
You can switch multipoint connectivity on or off in the app, too, decide on the sort of wear detection you’d like… you can even specify one of eight different colours for the little light-strip across the front of the charging case. It’s a clean, stable and usable app, one from which some rival brands could learn a thing or two.
And where performance is concerned, the Edifier Neobuds Planar get plenty right. too. The active noise-cancellation available here falls quite squarely into the good rather than great category, but it’s perfectly serviceable and does especially good work against wind noise. But most of what the NeoBuds Planar do well concerns the sound they make, not the sound they eliminate.
Detail and insight are where the NeoBuds Planar really impress – that planar magnetic technology allows a huge amount of detail to be identified, revealed, and contextualised. Every last drop of information in a recording, no matter how transient, is exposed and given just the right amount of weighting.
They manage this without being overly analytical, too. This attention to detail is only in the service of the overall performance – and there’s authentic unity and togetherness to the way the Edifier deliver music, with a large and well-organised soundstage only adding to that idea of singularity. There’s ample space – but more-or-less everything that happens on it sounds part of a performance rather than being an isolated occurrence.
Dynamic headroom is plentiful, too. When a recording ups the volume or the intensity, the NeoBuds Planar move with it, and without any obvious stress. And where tonality and frequency response are concerned, the Edifier are seamless from the very top end down to the bottom of the midrange. There’s no obvious transition, and their powers of resolution and communication here are a match for any price-comparable rival.
What could be improved?
It’s below the midrange that difficulties, such as they are, become apparent, and it seems the planar magnetic driver technology is just as culpable here as it is responsible for all the good things about the way the Edifier sound.
Low-frequency information is just as detailed and varied as the rest of the frequency range, and it’s controlled so carefully that rhythmic expression is confident and convincing. But although the NeoBuds Planar reach down towards the lowest frequencies without issues, a relative lack of body and substance, and a shortage of outright punch, means bass information sounds remote from the rest of the frequency range and of slightly different tonality. In the most straightforward terms, a lack of the sort of wallop most listeners are expecting is going to cost these earbuds a place on many people’s shortlists.
After that, we’re into nit-picking. It would be nice if the control app had some playback controls. It would be nice if there was more than one option of finish and colourway. But really, these are gripes – it’s the sonic issues that are the only meaningful problem here.
Edifier NeoBuds Planar review: should you buy them?
Well, it all depends. If you don’t mind black as a finish, if you put a lot of value on detail and insight where sound quality is concerned, if you like an uncommon-but-effective technology, if you don’t mind buying from a brand that doesn’t have the global reputation of some alternatives charging similar money for what are ostensibly similar products, well… the Edifier NeoBuds Planar could be just the ticket.
Add in an excellent mobile companion app, decent battery life, good ANC and a degree of comfort that’s just slightly at odds with the way the earbuds look, and the package might be considered compelling.
If there is an issue, however, it’s the lack of bass weight and this is going to be an issue for a lot of people. The low frequencies these earbuds produce are swift, and detailed, and respectably deep – but the Edifier NeoBuds Planar are a flyweight in a world of heavyweights, and their lack of out-and-out punch are, ultimately, what costs them.
