Overview of Sony LinkBuds Clip: How Many Mistakes Are in the Word "SCAM"?

Initially, the review was supposed to start like this: Remember the name: Sony LinkBuds Clip. Remembered? Now, never look at these headphones again, because they are the worst thing you can buy for over 20,000 rubles, $230 in the States, £180 in the UK, or €200 in Europe. The reason for such a cold start is that the sound you hear when you connect the headphones to your smartphone reminded me very much of the sound from a radio point — a radio that "caught" the signal through the outlet. The speaker in it was only for the mumbling of announcers, and you wanted to turn off the music immediately because it was terrible and nightmarish. It's the same here. Then I did something, and it got better. But let's go through everything in order.

Unboxing

Here’s the box for the headphones: It’s not easy to open the box carefully, so don’t hesitate to tear the wrapping. There’s nothing in it except for the case with the headphones, some paperwork, and what are called ear cushions, which attach for comfortable fitting on the ears. The case is very thick: 32.6 mm. You can’t really carry it in your pants pocket. The division of the two halves into glossy and matte is logical, as it’s easy to feel where the bottom is and where the lid of the case is.

Design and Comfort

I like the concept for two reasons. First, it looks interesting both in the case and in the ears. Second, these are music headphones that do not disconnect you from the surrounding world. There’s a transparency mode here, but without draining the battery. Each earbud weighs about 6 grams. It’s not very heavy, and considering the weight distribution over the two halves, it shouldn’t negatively affect the ears. But it does. I let our operator listen to the headphones, and he immediately said that the Sony LinkBuds Clip pressed on his ears and were generally uncomfortable. I wore them for about an hour and didn’t feel them at all. Well, that is, as usual: some find them comfortable, while others do not. But there is a problem with the headphones: people don’t quite understand how to wear them. So you will spend some time finding the optimal fit. Does it matter? That’s something you need to determine for yourself. The included cushion kept popping out for me, so I removed it. And it seemed like nothing changed. But I couldn’t check if it was better with or without it. Because there is still a big problem.

Sound

The headphones are connected, I opened Deezer, and started listening to Flow — a playlist that is analogous to "My Wave" in Yandex Music. An unknown song started playing. I thought: how poorly it sounds. But I couldn’t figure out what the problem was: are the headphones that bad, or is it the mix? Then I played "The Chain" by Fleetwood Mac and realized that the problem was indeed with the headphones. Remember at the very beginning of the text I mentioned the radio point? It was because the sound was exactly like that, as if it were 1997, I was sitting in my grandmother's kitchen, eating pancakes, drinking homemade lemonade, and to the right of my ear, for some reason, not "Radio Mayak" was mumbling, but Fleetwood Mac was squeaking. There are no lows below 150 Hz, and the highs are cut off at 10 kHz. Meanwhile, 6−8 kHz screech so much that it blows the flask away. And above all this prevails a "boxy" midrange. And this is the first thing a person will hear when they connect these headphones??? At that moment, I started to laugh nervously: I already don’t like Sony's sound, but these headphones cost over 20,000 rubles in Russia! And this price is not because Sony is officially absent here, but because it’s the same price worldwide. Does Sony really want to rip someone off by selling this? I was extremely puzzled, so I delved into the app. Maybe I need to change the codec? Maybe I need to press some button? Maybe there’s something I can do? A renowned brand with a huge number of fans can’t release such an outright scam for sale. I started with the listening mode. It has three options: "Standard," set by default, "Voice Enhancement," and "Sound Leakage Reduction." I switched to the second. Even worse. Accusations of a scam were getting closer. I switched to the third. Now it was much better. There was some bass, and the highs became more pleasant. The sound was more or less okay, but it was still quite difficult to digest. I managed to last through three songs. I tried to activate the equalizer in the app, but it didn’t work. What’s going on? Two days passed. I took a break from these headphones and decided to return to them. I opened the app on Android, stumbled upon a bunch of abbreviations like "Connect headphones to device." I liked it, it was nice. Then I noticed that the equalizer was active. Oh! I started tweaking it, added some lows, fiddled with the highs. But, as often happens, if you add a certain frequency, its volume stays at the same level while the volume of the others decreases. Also, if you dig into the app, you can find a setting in the headphone settings called "Find Your Equalizer." And this is the best option for personalizing headphones that I’ve heard of. No attempts like "listen for a faint beep in each earbud and press the button when you hear nothing," no photographing of ear cups led to what this option did. It’s simple and maximally obvious: there are five sound presets that activate when music is playing from the phone. Choose the best one. Then based on it, five more options are created. I initially chose the fourth, and then the eighth. And it sounded great! Bass appeared, there was some depth, and the highs didn’t hit my ears as hard! There’s only one problem: the sound is decent. A 4 with a minus. If the headphones were priced around 8,000 rubles. The new album by JP Cooper sounds really good. But with the active moments in the songs by Nothing But Thieves, where the guys have a wall of sound in the mix, the headphones struggle: the song drowns, the depth disappears, there’s distortion, and clarity is lost. Therefore, these headphones are only for airy mixes, meaning that the vast majority of songs recorded after the 1980s do not suit these headphones.

Calls

People you call using the Sony LinkBuds Clip will not be grateful for it: in a quiet room, you can hardly be heard, and the volume constantly jumps. You can also buy a little bag for the headphones so everyone can see you and immediately understand everything.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for an answer to the question of whether to buy the Sony LinkBuds Clip, then no, you shouldn’t. I really don’t understand what they are for: the sound isn’t so bad that due to the official price of $230 or €200, they can be called a scam, but it’s absolutely clear that this price sounds inflated. At the same time, Sony has made the simplest and most visual option for personalizing headphones that really works: after the sheer horror and nightmare that only provoke nervous laughter, the headphones truly transform. The problem is that it’s not enough. The Sony LinkBuds Clip were provided for review by the BIG GEEK store.