Is such a premium ear today? - Tronsmart Onyx Prime test
Dual drive, great hardware, it just can't go wrong.
Unpacking and Using the Software
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Introductory
In recent months and weeks, I've had a lot more earphones than usual. They were better and worse. Fortunately, the very bad ones were avoided.
With affordable Bluetooth, brain-plugged earphones, it’s hard to flash big today. We get great battery life, and active and well-functioning noise reduction is almost standard, just as the phone app will slowly become standard.
Tronsmart burst into this field (?) With a solution called Onyx Prime. The manufacturer promises nothing less than real hi-fi, audiophile sound, not only for light but also for classical music. These are serious commitments, in this article I will try to substantiate or refute the allegations!
Packaging, accessories
Tronsmart is the black belt champion of packaging. Even with the cheaper stuff, the thick cardboard box with a magnetic lock is the default. They are not afraid to use nice pictures and graphics. These boxes are the ones that can be put on the shelf of any store, I might be the first to go there for that in the pharmacy.
The Onyx Prime is a cooler piece, so of course the high-end packaging is down to it. Opening the box we can find quite a lot of things.
The first is the egg-shaped dock / filler box, which can be easily smuggled into a prison because of its shape, if you know what I mean. We’ll find rubber bells for different ear sizes, but not only that, there are rubber rings here that prop up the stuff in the earhook so you don’t fall out so easily.
I note here that the manufacturer also recommends the earpiece for sports.
The remaining accessories are the charging cable and specifications. That's it, there's nothing else, but you don't have to!
External
There are basically two types of ears produced today. One variety has a smaller head but in return has a drooping small stem. The head is larger than the other, but in return there is no stem. Who loves which one depends on our taste is better suited to me with small heads and stems. Needless to say, Onyx Prime is just the other kind. That is, it is more somewhere in between because it has a flat stem, but the shape is more stemless.
Fortunately, not uncomfortable. The weight is fine. At first I found it hard to get into my ear canal with the plug, but by the second, my wrist was already at a good angle. So even this is just a matter of habit, learning, not a mistake.
It looks basically good, I got some nice black plugs that are almost elegant. The typical piano lacquer polish has a plastic effect, which is nice.
We have a discreet Tronsmart logo and a large flat section so we know where to feel it if we want to control it.
I have already mentioned the shape of the box above, I will not repeat this pretty shitty joke. Nice streamlined, ovoid shape. The roof hinge holds firmly but is not difficult to open. The earbuds are, of course, held in place by a magnet. The magnet isn’t too strong, so it’s not uncomfortably hard to take out, in return if I shake it with the lid open, there’s a chance they’ll pop out of the box.
Knowledge
There are a lot of abilities that can be expected in the basics these days. These include TWS or later Bluetooth, and plenty of good-sounding Bluetooth profiles. So I don’t even want to deal with these too much.
The first thing worth mentioning is the availability of aptX Adaptive support. The second is Bluetooth 5.2, which is really the best these days and allows essentially latency-free music. What’s more, we get game mode for some extra consumption, which supposedly reduces the latency to almost zero. This could probably be proven with an instrument, smoothly, with ears, I didn’t notice anything about it.
What is really interesting is the dual driver. The driver in this case does not mean the driver, but the driver, i.e. the part of the earphone that moves the air to hear the music.
It is a rarity to put two drives in such a small earpiece, after all, if the two drives are not the same. And in this case, that's the last time I've listened to this in my favorite Xiaomi wired ear.
To understand exactly what makes such a solution better, you need to read through a few things, such as balanced armature or dynamic control.
The latter is less interesting as it is used in most earphones, with the advantage of improving the quality over the entire sound range. The former, however, is a little more interesting. This solution was first used in hearing aids. In the case of dynamic speakers, a coil moves in the housing, in the magnetic field, which moves the diaphragm, creating an audible sound.
On the other hand, in the case of a balanced armature, the coil is stationary and a needle moves in the coil, which is connected to the membrane. This solution provides a much more precise sound, in addition to being very light and taking up very little space. This allows you to either place multiple fittings in one headset, or the manufacturer can install other technology, such as a dynamic drive.
That's exactly what Tronsmart did. They claim the dynamic drive covers the full sound range and provides great bass, while the balanced armature delivers amazing treble and great speech reproduction.
So according to paper form, we’re going to have to hear something really special here!
What haven't I talked about yet?
I have not revealed that due to the two separate drivers, the frequency range is unusually wide, between 10 Hz and 25 KHz. Nor did I reveal that the recently (not without reason) very popular Qualcomm QCC3040 chipset works in the earpiece. I haven’t even talked about the fact that the earbuds can work for up to 7 hours on a single charge, but with the capacity of the charging box, we can reach 40 hours (at 50 percent volume). Really delicious!
Szoftver
As with any decent earpiece, we get phone software that allows us to make this and that. Needless to say, this is Tronsmart's own software, so we need to search the software store for our operating system.
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There are three important things we can say about the Tronsmart program. The first is the game mode, as I mentioned above we get an extra low latency.
The second is the functions related to the touch-sensitive surface. By default, you get the following settings:
- One touch left: Volume down
- One right tap: Volume up
- Two-touch on either side: start / look stop
- Touch and hold on both sides: Voice Assistant
- Hold left for 2 seconds: Previous number
- Hold for 2 seconds on the right: Next track
- Three-touch on any side: Game mode on / off
The third important point is the adjustment of the EQ, i.e. the tone. Unfortunately, as with many other manufacturers, we only find preset profiles here. Fortunately, these profiles can even differ significantly, so we can find the right one for essentially any type of music. Let’s say I would still appreciate a manual setting, but that should be my problem.
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By the way, the software only speaks English, not Hungarian. Setup isn't hard though, you can get by with a VERY-VERY basic English.
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So the point is, we can say things from the app that we wouldn’t know without, and that’s good. The interface is clear, simple and functional. It would be boring to write more about it, let's see how it sounds!
Experiences
There is noise reduction. Noise reduction is good. Not exceptionally good, but somewhere halfway between good and average. It works pretty weird in noisy environments because by default your partner doesn’t hear or only a little bit of street noise or wind. But when I speak, the noise of the environment also comes back, so I can’t hear so much anymore. If I keep quiet, the street noise will be muted again. Strange.
I set the quality of the microphone to medium, its performance is not outstanding even in a closed, quiet place.
The phone call is great, at least on the side of someone with Onyx Prime in their ear. Balanced armature does its job. It is no coincidence that this solution is also used in hearing aids. The other side is well understood, but almost all the warmth is taken out of the sound. The speech is dry, but at least understandable.
And then what decides everything for me is the music!
I listened to a lot of music on it, although I skipped the classics. I think anyone listening to classical music should do so either from a speaker or with a headphone with at least a 5-inch diaphragm covering the entire ear.
So there was no classical music, there was no jazz right now, in return I took notes while listening to music, here is the result:
- Led Zeppelin: Starways to Heaven
Default mode came in most for this music. The deep and the high were not exaggerated, everything said beautifully. The singing voice was impeccable!
- Elton John: Rocketman
Interestingly, Default produced no such taste or smell experience. However, the Original setting immediately balanced the music, and Elton's vocals changed pleasantly warm (not so warm).
- Guns or Roses: November Rain
Guns is a brutal big favorite with me, luckily I heard them live and everything that came out on the shit was listened to so there’s no song I can’t hear perfectly in my head, even if I just imagine the music there.
I only described this because I played the piano all the way through and couldn’t find the right one. Tolerable yes, but that’s the most beautiful thing I can say about the sound. The Original was dull, Default squeaked like a rusty gear, and the rock slammed into my ear.
- Rolling Stones: Angie
Default and Rock are fairly balanced the vocals are beautiful, the music is not exaggerated. The other preset profiles were almost hurtfully bad.
- U2: I still haven't found what I'm looking for
Interestingly, the Rock setting was real shit for real rock, and U2 sounded the best with it. Maybe even the Default was enjoyable somewhat.
- Duran Duran: Ordinary world
And which one had the best Deep bass setting? Well, right here, where I didn't really expect it. It was a music that would be quite tolerable with all the settings anyway. Of course, in some cases it had nothing to do with the original, but at least it didn’t hurt my ears.
- Dire Straits: Your latest trick
Not that typical rock music, but still I liked it best on the Rock profile. The vocals are very important here, the music and winds are also important in the work, but the vocals carry it all on their backs. And the vocals were brilliant with the Rock setting, and the warm, slightly scratched baritone on the winds also worked well.
That's pretty much all the practical experience. What can I write in summary?
If I were to average the music, I have to say that the songs, the vocals, sound awful, but somehow the whole thing is too sterile for me. Strangely enough, I had to use a different setting for almost every piece of music, just like I got a hurtful rattle for some music, and then another piece of music with the same profile sounded nice.
I don't usually see such differences between preset profiles.
I consider Guns the only real failure, it was practically a painful experience. In the other cases, the ear worked between good and very good. The work of a balanced armature is really heard in the music, but maybe a little too much. If I had been asked, I would have put the power of the traditional diaphragm more in the foreground and pushed the balanced armature a little further back.
Summary
Is Tronsmart Onyx Prime good? In short, the answer is yes. Making phone calls is essentially perfect, especially when we’re not on the street, and listening to music is good. It’s not exactly to my liking, but I’m sure there will be many who will come across this style. We're not the same.
What cannot be disputed from Prime is the existence of clear voices. The sound is amazingly sharp and intersecting. Don't take this for granted. I could describe the difference figuratively as if someone were making a perfect pencil with a hard pencil and another artist would do the same with charcoal. Both works are perfect, but one is a bit blurry and the other is made up of sharp lines. So there is someone who gets it better and someone else gets it better.
One thing is that Onyx Prime did really well.
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