Nuheara - IQbuds 2 MAX Personal Hearing Amplifier - Black

Nuheara IQbuds² MAX Product Review • The IQbuds² MAX and charging case are lightweight and impressively well-constructed. • The matte feel of the IQbuds2 Max (and charging case) provides a very nice texture and makes the touch controls easy to use. • Pairing the IQbuds² MAX to my Samsung Galaxy Note mobile phone was instantaneous and effortless, and their Bluetooth® 5.0 ensured a stable connection. • The recharging case is small enough to inconspicuously fit in the front pocket of my running shorts, jeans, and dress slacks. • Unlike other similar wireless earbuds, the IQbuds² MAX fits in my ears in an extremely low-profile manner. • Nuheara’s provision of S/M/L memory foam and silicone tips is much appreciated (i.e. my medium-sized silicone tips created a comfortable and acoustic seal), and I was able to comfortably wear the IQbuds² MAX for several hours straight. • Customizing left and right single-tap and double-tap acoustic functions was easy to set up and utilize. • I found battery life to range between 4.5 to 8.5 hours depending on different settings (i.e. ambient and ANC settings, etc.), and I got over an hour of IQbuds² MAX battery life after a quick 15-minute charge. • I enjoyed the IQbuds² MAX so much, that I picked up the Nuheara IQStream TV companion streamer 5 days later (at Best Buy, of course). IQBuds App • The app interface layout is simple and is easy to navigate and use. • The app allows you to enjoy your listening experience in a multitude of real-world, situational sound environments. You can choose four favorites of the seven available ambient environmental EQ presets – workout, street, home, office, restaurant, driving, and plane – which you can then toggle through by tapping the buds while in use. Plus, there are four ambient sound settings – volume, speech in noise control, world EQ, and focus – for all environmental presets. Acoustics • I enjoyed the exceptional sound fidelity of the IQbuds² MAX having tested them in numerous real-world and challenging sound environments. • The Directional Focus feature allows me to easily hear and concentrate on conversations in front of me, and I can deactivate it to enjoy enhanced surround sound. • The Speech In Noise Control feature allows me to adjust the balance of Ambience and Speech depending on my environment. • The premium Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) technology is a welcomed and effective feature that mutes the world around me when enabled (precisely named “World On” and “World Off” by Nuheara). • Hands-free calling and integrated Google Assistant (and Siri) made my calls effortless, and callers on the other end enjoyed clear conversations. • I found the sound quality of the IQbuds² MAX to be particularly excellent for music listening (i.e. I routinely play background music via my IQbuds² MAX while working on my laptop). • The unique Ear ID hearing assessment feature presents six pitch levels to identify potential hearing challenges and a subsequent customized sound solution. • While I don't have hearing difficulties, the sound amplification of the IQbuds² MAX made me feel like I had enhanced "bionic hearing". Best Buy Order & Delivery • My order and delivery-at-home experience from Best Buy was excellent. I highly recommend the Nuheara IQbuds² MAX.

TLDR: (that’s Too Long, Didn’t Read) Stellar ANC and convenient features. The Voice Enhancement and Ear ID work really well to improve listening in both quiet and noisy environments. But, the buds are huge, the case is huge and the case is missing modern stuff like USB-C and wireless charging. Pros: * ANC is stellar. * Voice Enhancement really helps in both quiet and noisy environments. * Convenient tap controls and voice feedback. * Good (but not amazing) battery life. * Feature-rich app. Cons: * The buds themselves are relatively huge and stick out quite far. * The case is much larger than most. * Micro USB instead of the more common USB-C. * No wireless charging for the case. Details - Setup: Basic setup is typical for TWS earbuds in that pairing worked quickly and well. Charging the buds and the case is also as expected aside from the case requiring the older micro-USB cable instead of the now-common USB-C. The case also does not charge wirelessly. The novel part of setup was the Ear ID feature whereby the app plays sounds at various frequencies in each each to test your ability to hear them. It then uses this information to adjust the audio so everything sounds better. The whole process takes about 10 minutes and is best done somewhere quiet. The app plays a sound in one ear and then you tap a button on the screen to indicate that you heard the sound. After doing this, the audio did sound better. I have another pair of TWS earbuds that use Sound ID which is a similar process but instead it uses A/B comparisons for which sound you like better. The end result of either of these processes is a more customized sound for your individual hearing. Details - Typical Usage: Not a ton of new stuff here. The buds have in-ear sensors and voice feedback for functions. Each bud has tap gestures that you can configure in the app. When the voice says “World Off”, you really hear… not much from outside. When using one of the numerous enhancement modes, the buds mix in outside sounds for situational awareness or voice enhancement. I found them all to work quite well and they really did help clean things up in noisy environments like a restaurant or the gym. The buds never lost connectivity to my iPhone 13 Pro Max and the battery life was as stated, but I would have expected more longevity with such large buds. They are physically larger than most others I have used and stick out of my ears much further. They aren’t uncomfortable, but you can definitely tell when you’re wearing them. The case is huge in comparison to others I have and I’m not a huge fan of micro-USB. I can live without wireless charging for the case, but USB-C is much preferred for ease of connection and how much more common it is. The buds securely snap into the case magnetically and neither fall out or loose connection for charging. There are LEDs for each bud’s charging status, and they are visible when the case is both open and closed. The LED for the case’s charging status is on the side next to the charging port. I would have preferred that LED to be co-located with the others but it still works well. The included app has a lot of features and customization options. You can choose what each tap gesture does for each bud, and fine-tune the audio in each listening mode. When customizing the audio for the listening modes, there are a lot of settings to choose from and the app doesn’t really tell you what each does. It would be nice to have information on each screen like a “tap for more info” for each setting without having to navigate elsewhere to read a full tutorial. For example, what is “”SINC” do? Might also be nice to have a “reset” for each mode to get it back to standard settings if you customized it too far and just want to start over. I would definitely give these a solid grade for music and voice enhancement but the few phone calls that I tried seemed to be a tad laggy in that we were talking over each other. Conclusion: These buds sound great, the ANC is really good, and the voice enhancement features work really well. The few improvements that I’d like to see in the app are easy enough to be implemented in a software update. My only complaints about these buds are the physical size of the buds and the case, and the choice to use micro-USB instead of USB-C. Otherwise, they work really well and sound great.

Oh how we wanted to love these buds. My wife and I are both getting up in age (51 and 62) and we've noticed each of us are having a little more difficult time hearing the other from across a room, or making out dialogue in our favorite TV shows. Now that I've finally spoiled my wife on the allure and flexibility of true wireless earbuds, we figured we would give the IQBuds a shot to see if we could reap the benefits of both some top-tier audio specs with some unique and powerful hearing enhancement and amplification capabilities. Does the final package deliver; um...the answer is an infuriating "it kind of depends." Let's start with the positives. Over the years, I've become somewhat of a "collector" of mid-tier to top-tier earbuds having purchased and then returned, resold, gifted, or kept more than two dozen true wireless buds from the likes of Jabra, Apple, Jaybird, Sennheiser, Sony, Bose, JBL, Soundcore, JLab, etc.; often purchasing multiple buds from the same family when I find something l really like. I consider myself an audiophile and also enjoy some light outdoor exercise and running so I prioritize sound quality and comfort first and foremost, even ahead of ANC. When I tried the IQBuds 2 MAX, I was shocked at just how good they sounded given that they are marketed first and foremost as hearing enhancement tools. Female vocals never sounded harsh or sibilant; acoustic guitar strings and piano notes were articulate, detailed and fast; and the warmth of the bass response was positively sublime--bass never felt strained or thin and I was amazed at the visceral "thump" they produced when some really high-quality, well-recorded bass guitars and drumbeats started playing. And yet, these are not "bass-head" buds; lower registers felt well-controlled without any muddiness unnecessary bloat. AptX support means even better than CD-quality sound when paired with a compatible source (like my Shanling digital audio player). Mic and call quality was excellent--I spent more than 4 hours on the phone over a handful of days while auditioning these buds during outdoor walks, indoor meetings, and traveling on the road and at no time did anyone complain that I was difficult to hear. CODEC support also includes SBC and AptX-LL (for essentially lag-free audio when watching movies/videos if you have a phone or digital source that supports it). When paired with my iPhone 12 (which only uses SBC), there was just a BARELY perceptible A/V lag with movie/media streams...you may notice just a hint of a delay, but videos were still imminently watchable. ANC capabilities are more than just respectable--when engaged, they easily drown out environmental rumbles and steady background noises (fans, blowers, road noise, etc.). Performance-wise, these buds definitely trade blows with some of the better ANC solutions on the market. And unlike some other ANC buds I've used, you will be hard-pressed to notice any impact ANC has on sound quality. For a purely musical experience, the Nuhearas easily keep pace with many highly regarded true wireless buds in the marketplace! But what about the main draw--all those awesome hearing enhancements? Well...they definitely do what they set out to do, but I'll circle back to some of our misgivings about those features after giving credit where credit is due. Again, looking at the positives, these buds provide a sophisticated set of tools for sound/noise/hearing shaping that may serve you VERY well depending on your needs. Starting with the thankfully user-friendly and very well-designed app, you are guided through a short and straight-forward tutorial that introduces you to the various operations of the buds. A short "hearing test" is conducted via the "Ear ID" feature which creates a customized profile of your sensitivity to high and low frequency tones and then customizes the bud's response to your unique anatomy and hearing. A helpful in-app guide illustrates the various tap/touch controls on each bud (next track, volume control, answer call, enhancements on, etc.) and lets you customize those features for each bud. Then it's time to dive into the meat of the hearing enhancements, all of which start with activating what Nuheara calls "World" features (i.e., when you want to use your buds for more than just listening to music or making calls with or without ANC). Once the "World ON" features are activated, you can start without much guesswork by using some of the built-in filters and EQ presets that are supposedly suited to filter, attenuate, and amplify frequencies associated with things like gyms/workouts, walking on a busy street, heavy background noise in a restaurant, road and engine sounds, etc., while still enhancing or clarifying voices of those near you. Or you can dial in the various enhancements yourself. "World ON" volume adjustment is most akin to the "hear-through" mode on other earbuds, but you can set the sensitivity from -10 to +10 to drown out or amplify those ambient sounds depending on your needs. "SINC" is a rather interesting feature that helps you SPECIFICALLY concentrate on and clarify voices vs. the ambient sounds around you; in practice, it actually does a pretty remarkable job of attenuating ambient noise and making it MUCH easier to pick out the voice of the person you're talking to while giving you a blacker and more silent auditory background. "Word EQ" is a blunt-force EQ that you can leave flat or "natural" or adjust it to filter (drown out) either bass/low frequencies or treble/high frequencies. "Focus" is an on/off adjustment that works remarkably well to afford either 360-degree hearing, or concentrate mic sensitivity to "focus" more on sounds directly in front of you. I was amazed how well this feature drowned out the frenetic sounds of our daughter playing Minecraft with a friend on the computer behind me so I could focus on the conversation I was having with my wife in the seat in front of me. All told, these various filters, features, and enhancements do a remarkably good and thorough job of attenuating sounds you might not want to hear while helping accentuate, clarify, or focus on those you do, even in the middle of a pretty noisy environment. Okay, so with all the great things these buds can do, why were we ultimately lukewarm about them? Let's start with what, for me, is tied with sound quality as the most important feature of true wireless buds--comfort. These buds are simply HUGE...and the smaller your ear, I imagine the more difficulty you're going to have wedging them comfortably and securely into the creases and folds of the outer ear. At least for me, that size bloat translated into wearer fatigue; I had to take them out quite frequently just to give my ears a rest (and no, switching from the silicone to the comply tips didn't help). The case is still pocketable, but it seems much larger than it needs to be, and Nuheara went with the much more fragile and prone-to-breakage mini-USB charging connector rather than a more robust USB-C connection. And while I understand the choice to do so, the Nuhearas sadly can't be used in more battery-friendly single-bud/mono mode; this somewhat diminishes their flexibility if/when you simply want to use them without all the hearing enhancements (which I can definitely envision given how nice they sound!). As to the IQbuds themselves, the World EQ might be more flexible if it wasn't a one-way affair...you can't cut both bass and treble, nor does the EQ allow you to make bass or treble boosts at all. But there were two issues that doused our enthusiasm for the IQbuds more than anything else. First, the SINC feature really does help you isolate and focus on speech in a noisy environment, but it's not like just raising the center-channel volume on a 5.1 theater setup so the dialogue channel is louder. Using the IQbuds, especially the SINC feature, also adds an overly processed, unnatural digital/DSP-sound to the upper registers of voices...the noisier the background, the more noticeable this effect becomes. If your need is simply to hear what is being said in something like a news broadcast or talk show, these will surely help; but vocal sound quality in particular became distracting to me, especially in well-produced TV shows and movies with more complex soundtracks. Second, my wife has a small head and small ears with fairly short ear canals...she could not use the IQbuds with any eartips at any volume level without painfully loud screeching feedback from both buds. I stood directly next to her and tried the buds with no problem, so it wasn't interference from neighboring electronics or anything like that; but as soon as I passed them to her, the screeching started immediately. We frantically tried every adjustment, slider, and volume setting and even turned all the features off to start things out, but it didn't make any difference. Given that her hearing seems to be a bit further degraded than mine, this was a big blow to our plans for the IQbuds. My guess is that her particular anatomy simply doesn't allow for a proper seal, but given how extreme the effects were, I caution you to step gingerly through any audition, especially if you have a smaller head.

NUHEARA IQbuds2 MAX I’m at an age where I’m looking to recapture my youthful hearing and reduce all those annoying noise intrusions on my life. I can dream, right? Can any of you carry on a conversation at one of today’s trendy restaurants where every surface is steel, tile or glass? Whatever happened to absorbing sound reflections and providing a quiet dining experience? A recent hearing test I took showed only normal age-related hearing losses at the frequency extremes. I’m looking for some help in these impossible settings, where it’s not so easy to converse or at least hear what’s happening around me. These IQbuds for NUHEARA look like an experiment worth trying. And, so far, it’s proving interesting, if not fully satisfying. Based on my experience, however, I can suggest that anyone looking for a feature-rich tool to solve environmental noise problems should give the IQbuds a serious try-out. SETUP: After a full charge NUHEARA suggest there’ll be a 4 to 8.5 hours usage time. My own experience suggests its closer to the long end. Ensure proper orientation then insert “like earplugs”, with a snug fit important for proper operation. If you can’t make a good seal, select from the other 6 pair of earpieces, aiming for the largest comfortable earpiece. I love COMPLY foam tips and as expected, the included selection fit wonderfully. Activating Bluetooth is fast and reliable. Some control is provided by tapping the surface sensors on each earbud but the more impactful control takes place by creating LOCATIONS in the IQbuds App. FEATURES: Perhaps the best feature of the IQbuds is the extensive and thorough online tutorial within the NUHEARA APP USER MANUAL. I found the link to this USER MANUAL on the Best Buy IQbuds product page: Manuals & Guides. Within the App are extensive tutorials, answered questions and demos. Definitely check out the demos. I wish these were emphasized more. The instruction booklet is too light and too fine a print to be useful. (Age is affecting both my hearing and my vision!) The IQBud experience should begin with EAR ID, IQBuds certified hearing assessment. EAR ID includes a special heartbeat tone to evaluate eartip seal which follows with an evaluation of your hearing. Ten minutes in a very quiet room and you’re got a hearing assessment with a complete explanation. This hearing test is pretty thorough and I guess it’s the baseline IQbuds for the changes it makes. After correcting any hearing deficiencies I might have, IQbuds brings a set of features into play to help improve hearing as its being affected by environmental obstacles. It appears that the IQbuds accomplishes this environmental correction by bringing a mix of filters, active noise cancelling circuits and microphone modification techniques into play. Nuheara has thoughtfully concluded it’s too cumbersome to have end users make decisions about which tools to utilize each and every time we encounter frustrating environments, and it has simplified the process. We identify a LOCATION, modify the various parameters and save them for future use under 6 LOCATIONs we can modify. Preset changes we make are conveniently called up by LOCATION: STREET, HOME, etc.. So, once I’ve edited a RESTAURANT scenario, I only have to call up the app and find that LOCATION scenario to put into play. Four locations can be saved in the earbuds but all are available in the App. Those various adjustments to the environment include: VOLUME, controlling the microphone sensitivity with apparently a noise cancellation circuit that can be switched on/off. SINC which is selectively bringing speech out of the background ambient noise. WORLD EQ, which give you the ability to filter out high and/or low frequencies from the surrounding space. Both filters can be brought to bear on the room sound. FOCUS, exploits the multiple microphones in IQbuds, allowing you to emphasize sounds coming from directly in front of you or, instead, elevate the sound from the periphery so you miss nothing around the room you’re in. The TAP TOUCH feature set is the various, and modifiable controls that lets you quickly and easily access your LOCATION settings by tapping the earbud surfaces. I’ll summarize my observations about performance as positives and negatives, below. PERFORMANCE POSITIVES: The IQbuds EAR ID process is sensitive, appears to be accurate and reveals hearing deficiencies with a unique graphic presentation. I think it could be more accessible by relying on more traditional frequency curves, but it works. The VOLUME parameter works quite effectively and allows for great reduction in environmental noises, with ANC adding a few more DBs of quiet. This is by far the best and most effective feature. FOCUS was somewhat effective, but was dependent on the size of the room, nearby walls or if you’re in a booth, etc. It could sound artificial if the space is too small. I had mixed feelings about the effect. When using the IQbuds for simply listening to music they are quite accurate, matching the best earbuds I’ve recently used …. IF all other features are disabled. The IQbuds are very comfortable and easy to live with for extended hours. PERFORMANCE NEGATIVES: The IQbuds are a bit on the larger size. I prefer a less noticeable earbud if I’m using them everywhere and all the time. I found the SINC feature nearly unusable. I couldn’t avoid squealing unless I dropped the overall volume. This suggests I might have sound leakage and I could be witnessing feedback. However, the modifications engaged with this parameter were overly aggressive and left voices with an unnatural tonality. I’m too familiar with the voices to ignore the changes. WORLD EQ was also more often best left in the minimum or no adjustment ranges. I got artificial changes in sounds (again with the squealing) if I went to the extremes. Subtle adjustments were best. [If summarized, I guess I’m suggesting that NEHEARA could have a mode that dials back the effects these parameters have on sound so end users don’t create problematic results. I found it too easy to get weird results. ie., Lot’s of RESETS for me.] SUMMARY: I found it interesting that one of the simpler interactive DEMOS that NUHEARA provides within the APP reduced the IQbuds to a more accessible yet still effective tool for modifying single elements of the listening environment. It offered a less complex, one parameter change-at-a-time approach to using the IQbuds successfully. Importantly, it provided less of an entry barrier to using them. Otherwise, my enthusiasm for these earbuds is modest. The reliance of LOCATIONS to create useful end-user scenarios makes sense, I suppose, if all the embedded adjustments work flawlessly. They didn’t for me. The marquee features (SINC, World EQ, FOCUS) sometimes seem overly sensitive or over-active. Still playing with them. I expect more time is needed to fine tune the IQbuds for ideal effectiveness. It also seems fair to acknowledge that even if the IQbuds solve only a single vexing problem for you, they’re worth the effort and expense. These is a lot of power in this toolbox of hearing tools. I’d predict others will find the IQbuds solves their hearing problems for far less expense that hearing aids.

INTRODUCTION Nuheara is a new company in the earbuds field. They have recently expanded their operations from Australia to selling products at brick-and-mortar retailers. The Nuheara IQ Buds 2 Max is positioning themselves to provide a 1 / 2 punch to consumers. The IQ Buds 2 Max does not only serve as an excellent set of ear buds, they also have built-in hearing assist technology into both the device and the app to help those suffering from hearing loss or tinnitus. It is a unique product, but I think some will be turned off with the fact these buds could be considered a hearing aid. USE The Nuheara app works excellently whether using an Android or iOS device. Upon installation, the app recommends a hearing test. The IQ Max app uses some form of “clinically validated” hearing test to help ensure the Max’s sound their best. The test is quite comprehensive. The app measures ambient noise, checks for proper fitment in your ears (and recommends different tips that are included, if needed), along with providing a series of test tones ranging from 500Hz to 6000 Hz. This is a very thorough test, and the app uses the results from your hearing exam to tailor the sound of the ear buds to best suit your needs. As a bonus, the app displays the results of your exam in an easy-to-understand graph. The IQ Max app includes many different options for customizing the buds to your specific needs. Adjustments and enhancements are quite comprehensive. A user can adjust the noise cancellation, directional sound amplification, noisy environment settings, speech settings, etc. Should you not have access to your mobile device, Nuheara has you covered, as the ear buds are touch sensitive. A button press, or combination of presses can be used to alter and change settings on the fly without ever having to resort to the app, should you so choose. I have never used a set of ear buds that have this many adjustments and well-designed set of features. Changes in the settings make tangible changes to the digital signal processing and the listening environment. Well done, Nuheara. In addition to the excellent DSP customization options, the IQ Buds 2 Max’s check all the appropriate boxes for a high-end listening device. The buds support Bluetooth 5.0, A2DP, aptX, and aptX Low Latency. Add to this, multiple microphones in each bud to make crystal clear phone calls in all but the worst of conditions, along with the ability to summon your favorite digital assistant (Siri and Google). NEGATIVES One. There is no access to Alexa, only Siri and/or Google. Two. The ear buds are considerably bigger and bulkier than many other options on the market today. While it does not make wearing them uncomfortable, it does make them more noticeable than their competitors’ products. Three. Battery life. Battery life is rated at only approximately 5 hours of Bluetooth streaming and just 8 hours of using the Active Noise Cancellation / Hearing Processing. Nuheara says the recharging case will get you an additional 3 charges, but 5 hours of playback is not impressive. Four. There is a noticeable latency issue with the Nuheara’s and iOS devices when watching movies or videos. Fortunately, the aptX Low Latency codec nearly eliminates this issue for Android users. CONCLUSIONS This is one product that establishes a new category. A true pioneer in the field. Not only do the IQ Buds 2 Max’s offer those with mild to moderate hearing loss a legitimate substitute for hearing aids, they work amazingly well as plain ear buds for those that don’t need hearing assistance. If folks, especially younger ones, that don’t have any discernible hearing loss can get past the stigma that these are marketed like a hearing aid for older adults, they will be rewarded with some of the best sounding ear buds on the market today. I have ear buds and cans from several different manufacturers. Excellent ones too, from brands like: Beats, Sony, Razer, Logitech, Adidas, Jabra, Corsair and JBL, to name a few. Just how good do I think these Nuheara IQ Max’s are? These give my Jabra 85t’s a run for the money as my favorite set of ear buds. The sound quality is top notch. Much better than nearly all my other headphones and ear buds, hands down. Voices, music, phone calls, movies, everything is just remarkably well balanced and crystal clear. The Ambient Noise Cancellation is some of the best I’ve ever experienced and the 9.2mm drivers deliver crisp and faithfully detailed audio regardless of the source. Whether or not you need them for hearing enhancement or just need a quality set of ear buds for music and movies, the Nuheara IQ Buds 2 Max’s are Highly Recommended in my book.