Avantree Audition Bluetooth Headphones - Review (Final Thoughts)

Okay, suppose you're lying down in your bed and you wanna hear music but your phone needs charging, the charger's way across the room and you use your phone as your portable music player even though it's 2 am and you should be sleeping but class starts at 9 am so you have faith in yourself that you'll be able to wake up (and we all know what happens next). Or suppose you wanna do work like model making the night before submission because you've put off your work for the 11th time due to sheer laziness (which is in no way is related to me, c'mon guys it's just an example) and you don't want to have those dang wires get in the way. I mean, it disrupts workflow and they're constantly latching onto things even though it should never happen but it's the way of the universe so your model pieces fall to the ground and you have to pick them up and urghhh it's just annoying. Or even suppose you wanna do the laundry and you also wanna sing because it's noon and you've just skipped class (because laundry is more important and not because you woke up late or anything) so there's no one home and you can sing to your heart's content but your hands are constantly moving, the earphone cables just don't cooperate with you and before you know it, your phone is flung towards the kitchen.

Pesky cables

Y'know sometimes I feel like I overshare too much on this blog... But then again maybe it's just me. Anyways so if you have any of these problems, have you thought about getting a pair of bluetooth headphones? WELL I DID!!! There's kinda a backstory to that over here so you can check that out if you want (shameless self-promotion). I got the Avantree Auditions so here's the review~

THE AVANTREE AUDITIONS~

Let's cut to the chase, first off it's...

Sound Quality

The headphones, although bluetooth, manage to pump out a significant amount of detail. The strum of a guitar is crisp with a twang and ring you'd expect to hear and the drum hits both evoke the force and impact as well as the deep thumps produced. Singing voices are clear with rasp and breath audible and clean when expected with the intensity of high sustained notes enjoyable. I mean, I was really impressed because there wasn't much difference between when the headphones are used wired and bluetooth. I'll admit at first there was not much of a difference, almost to the extent that I thought there wasn't any. But after a listen here and there, the headphones sound clearer when used wired, when used with bluetooth however, the sound became a bit muffled and the mids became more prominent. So note to self, don't plug the headphones in and switch between wired and bluetooth while testing, instead, use the headphones on bluetooth and then wired with a grace period in between. Then the difference was clearer.

When you're belting like mad and suddenly work with the traffic police

The headphones can produce adequate detail but the detail falls off when the sound produced becomes more intense, then the headphones display more intensity than detail. Almost like the intensity blocked out the small details. So keep that in mind because acoustic songs can sound nice and detailed and airy but when you have a song that starts out slow but ends with a ton of instruments playing at once, the music will not be as detailed. The headphones produce trebles with a good amount of sparkle and twinkle, just enough to make it sound good but doesn't slouch on the bass either which is deep and thumpy. Maybe a little muddy at times but most of the time precise. The mids are nice and warm, these headphones really shine with mids so if you like vocals, you should really try these. A high note with sustained vibrato sounds really good, intense but not to the extent that it hurts your ears. If you'd ask me to sum it all up, it that these headphones ticks off all the right boxes while failing at more of the less important ones. You have the part where when a lot of instruments are playing at once, the sound becomes a bit messy but never to the extent that it sounds bad and also with the slightly higher mids than normal.

When you hit high notes and suddenly start wiping imaginary windows

The soundstage is there but again when a lot more instruments come in and they're all loud then the sounds start to mix together. It's relatively small so you won't feel like you're in a concert hall or anything but good enough that you can discern where instruments are coming from and also their distance.

The headphones are black with red accents that make them look quite sharp

Comfort

This is where it starts to get bad (for some people), these headphones really clamp on to your ears. And it doesn't help that the headphones are not really over ear headphones but at the same time they're not really on ear headphones. The result is headphones that can completely cover your ears if you have smaller ears, but then squish them if you have bigger ears. I fit into the latter category so my ears did hurt after using them for an hour or two. Another thing I'd like to point out is that if you have ears that stick out more then they'll start hurting faster. My dad and my sister said they hurt after using them for just half an hour and so did a friend of mine. My ears didn't really stick out like theirs so it was more comfortable for me.

Heat build up is another issue. The faux leather they used on the earcups are not that breathable so heat starts to build up really fast. If you're in an air conditioned room it's fine but they're definitely not something I'd take with me on a jog, especially with Malaysia's climate. Have you ever taken a shower in your own sweat? HERE YOU CAN, TRY IT!!! (sneaky advertising FTW) And the only thing these headphones have to clamp onto your head are the earcups, (which are soft enough but the clamping force... not so much) the band that sits on your head is literally an elastic piece of metal that is sandwiched with faux leather.

Foam cups are nice and soft, the faux leather seems quite durable and won't peel off easily

Isolation

I'll just say one thing, for on ear headphones, these have exceptional isolation. The headphones on already block out half the sound, when music plays you basically won't hear anything anymore, like your mother next to you yelling. Another example is like if you're on a train to the airport and you're listening to music, and you just happened to fall asleep, expect the cleaner to wake you up and you'd panic cause you thought you missed the stop but then feel relieved because the train hasn't left the station and you then vow never to do that again although this wasn't the first time and yet here you are in this situation again (just an example and has nothing to do with me).

Buttons are easy to locate, press and are tactile, feedback is also good

Additional Features

Since I wanted a bluetooth headphone first and everything else was additional, I thought I'd include this part as well but last. These headphones come with a USB to microUSB cable for charging and also an audio cable so that you can still use these headphones if the battery runs out (super convenient guys) and they also have NFC. NFC is short for near fields communication, and if you have a phone that has NFC support, instead of  having to put the headphones into pairing mode and then pair them with your phone, you can just tap the phone to the NFC spot on those headphones to bypass the entire process! (mind blowingly convenient). The battery life is also wonderful. To give you some perspective, I've used these headphones for a week, 3-4 hours a day and they still had some juice left in them. I never reached a point where I had to charge them because they suddenly died while you were listening to music. I just charge them at the end of the week and use them for the coming week. The charging time is quite long, about 2-3 hours if you've used them for a week like I did. If they do run out, you can listen to them while charging (although I had to put it to pairing mode and then my phone could connect to it) The only thing I wouldn't recommend using them for are calls because, my god, is the microphone on this thing bad. It hardly picks up my voice which when it did sounded muffled and distant. I actually had to turn these off to resume my phone call, because it was that bad. The headphones also come with buttons so you can control your music without having to take out your phone. Pause and play with a press of the middle button, which is the one you use to turn it on or off with a long press, or a super long press from off to go to pairing mode. The "+ -" buttons skip tracks back and forth with a press and increase the volume with a long press. Hold on the buttons if you want to continue increasing the volume.

An image taken from their site

Conclusion

These might not be the best bluetooth headphones, but they certainly do a lot of good for what they cost, which is around RM150. The extra features they come with also make them a hard offer to refuse, you can use them wired if the battery runs out, not that you would need to because the battery lasts for a week on regular use. The headphones pair effortlessly with NFC support and you can use them while charging if you have to. The only thing to look out for is that you shouldn't use these to make calls, the sound can get a bit messy when the music gets intense with a lot of instruments but to the point that it sounds unpleasant it's just you can't really discern the instruments and they clamp hard with a significant heat build up. But for the price they come at, and all the perks of going wireless, I'd highly recommend them.

And as always... Have fun and do laundry while listening to music~

Or cables, more accurately cables