Denon - PerL Pro True Wireless Adaptive Active Noise Cancelling In-Ear Earbuds - Black

These sound amazing!! You will need to download the app and make personalizations to suit your needs. I have created 3 profiles which has allowed me to pick my preferred sound. After you create a profile that customizes to your ears, you have the ability to make additional tweaks in the EQ setting to really enhance these to a whole new level. I bought these primarily for music, but the noise cancellation is very good and I have had no issues with quality of phone calls. They stay in my ears and are comfortable to wear for 2+ hours. Warning: with all the adjustments these things can get very loud without any distortion to the deep bass. Don’t injure your ears, be careful!!

Sound is amazing. I can’t say enough good things about these headphones. The ANC is good enough for my uses. Not as good as my Bose but Bose is kinda top dog in that category so it’s hard to use that as a fair comparison.

It is hard to assign a numeric value as the sound quality is very good, but the customer service has been horrible. One earbud broke (see pic); since contacting Denon customer service (specific to their earbuds) it has been over a week and customer service rep keeps on adding new requirements to fulfill a defective warrantied item (purchased about 3 months before the issue). Further after contacting Denon I was not provided any instructions such as to send a pic of the issue, the invoice, etc. until a couple of days later. Then after a week, the rep indicated that I need to send the broken earbuds back without providing any details where to send them, while indicating it will be another 14 working days after receiving the broken earbuds before they send out the replacement earbuds. There is no process and they are not in any hurry to fulfill their warranty for a defective product. Lastly, I asked to speak with a supervisor 2 days ago and have yet to hear from anyone. I expected much better from Denon.

The sound quality is just outstanding and super clear.

Pros Excellent sound quality after tuning Tunes audio to the way you hear EQ in addition to custom tuning Smooth, tight bass Clean highs without harshness Comfortable for extended usage Light for size Ear wings keep earbuds secure Long range Bluetooth Multipoint Bluetooth Easy to use controls Customizable controls Customizable auto-pause behavior Excellent battery life Good microphone Good ANC USB and Qi Charging aptX lossless audio on supported phones Cons Most popular phones don’t support aptX Social mode causes your voice to sound muffled Using controls creates thump sound on eardrum Might be too large for some Earbuds hard to remove from case Volume too limited on social mode Earbuds never seem to be fully charged and one charges differently App keeps asking to agree to legal agreements on every launch App requires you to opt into marketing App requires too much personal information for headphones The Denon Perl Pros are earbuds are larger than most earbuds but thankfully they are designed to be low profile. Included in the box are several ear tips, including one pair of foam, and two sets of ear wings that help secure the earbuds in your ears. While the overall diameter is large, they are very low profile. The outer disk on each earbud is a touchpad which has four options for control from a single tap up to four taps. While it has default options for single and double tap all controls can be customized. Multipoint Bluetooth is available for up to two devices simultaneously. The behavior for how audio is switched is customizable. Auto pause behavior is also customizable where you can choose to pause when one or both earbuds is removed or not to auto pause at all. Setup 9/10 While you can pair them via Bluetooth and begin using them straight away you won’t be able to customize the audio or settings without going through the Denon Headphones app. Unfortunately, the app requires registration to begin. Beyond that you are required to provide your email, name, and age as well as opt into marketing emails. It will not continue if you do not agree to these. During setup the earbuds provide audio prompts as they guide you through tuning the earbuds to your ears. While the initial voice is pleasant, you cannot change the volume so if you have decent hearing, you might find the first stage of the setup painful as it plays ear piercing sounds. After the tuning is complete you can compare the earbuds with and without your personalized profile. While the customized sound does sound better, it almost seems like Denon artificially sets the default EQ poorly to make your customized sound seem even better than it already is. After custom tuning you can also try out social mode, spatial mode, and immersion mode. Social mode and spatial audio are only on/off. Immersion is customizable but essentially adds or removes bass. After creating your custom tune, you can still customize the EQ if you prefer to color the sound beyond what your ears hear best. The earbuds can store multiple tuning profiles for different users and the settings seems to be stored directly on the earbuds. This way if you would like to share them with a family member and they have their own Denon account they can still access their custom profile on the earbuds. You can also switch between them just to see how each person hears different. Usage 9/10 The case holds the earbuds in with strong magnets. The earbuds are unlikely to fall out of the case accidentally. In fact, you might find removing them from the case is a bit harder than it needs to be as they sit down into the case without any real way to put your finger underneath them or grip them from above to remove them. There is just a tiny gap where you can jamb your finger to wedge them out. It would have been ice if Denon included an area that would easily fit your finger to get underneath or even had the earbuds sit a little higher in the base instead of flush. Putting them in your ears is simple once you get the hang of it. You push them in and then turn to lock them in place. For some you might need to gently pull back on your earlobe while turning to get a better lock of the ear wing at the back of your year. Once you have them in, they feel very comfortable. Since they are low profile, they don’t put a lot of pressure on your ear canal and the ear wing keeps them from wiggling around. They are also light enough to not feel distracting. This is the longest I have ever been able to wear a pair of earbuds without feeling pain or any discomfort. Controls are simple and easy using anywhere from 1 to 4 taps on either the left or right earbud. The areas you tap are very sensitive and so far, haven’t been affected by sweat. There are two downsides for the controls. First is when you tap them, it creates a loud thump sound on your eardrum. Second is that successive taps are registered slowly meaning you can’t do a quick double tap to change songs. Music Quality 10/10 Music quality is where these earbuds shine. After tuning, the earbuds provide a richness of sound that sounds closer to what you would get with a large home sound system. Highs are clean and clear with no discernable harshness. Mid tones are smooth and rich. The bass is clean and tight but also can hit hard if you want it to. In fact, on some songs with Immersion set to maximum the bass gave a slight illusion that you were feeling it and not just hearing it almost like sub audible bass does on a good home system. Thankfully it is fully adjustable so regardless of your preference for bass, or lack thereof, you won’t feel left out. With acoustic music you can hear more detail in the instruments and vocals sound crisp and clear with subtle details such as breath control being audible. The Spatial audio effect gives a slight echo effect and gives more of a sense of depth. On some songs there is a sense of a soundstage which is unexpected from earbuds. Calls and Social Mode 6/10 While listening to the music is a top tier experience, social mode and call quality is not quite as high end. When social mode is activated, maximum volume is limited to approximately 60% of the normal maximum meaning your music will sound too quiet. If you turn social mode back off, the volume will jump up substantially. For example, if you have them at a louder volume when in social mode and turn it off you may find the volume quickly jumps to excessively loud. It seems like Denon was attempting to make it easier to hear outside sounds in social mode by reducing volume but it would be better if the volume stayed at a single setpoint so there would be no abrupt changes. Furthermore, in social mode the microphones do a decent job of passing through outside sounds, but they do sound slightly compressed. Where the social mode falls apart is when you speak. While your high tones are passed through correctly, certain tones you can hear resonate through your skull. It’s not unlike when you try to talk with earplugs in and your voice drones in your head. Other earbuds have a way to compensate for this and hopefully Denon will be able to improve this with a future firmware update. As it stands now, speaking in social mode is subpar. The same microphones are used for calls and show some similar weak points. When speaking to others they reported that it sounded clear but hollow with voices sounding distant. However, speakers did report that ambient sounds were less prominent compared to speech making speech easier to hear overall. ANC 8/10 Active Noise Cancelling does a respectable job of blocking out unwanted sounds. The effect is further improved by the fact that the earbuds seal very well inside the ear canal blocking out sounds. While not the strongest ANC ever used, it has been able to block out the sound of a fan, water running, car traffic, and even most of the sound of a helicopter passing overhead at a low altitude. While it doesn’t completely block out other voices, it does greatly reduce them to where if you worked in a busy environment with other people, it would be easy to ignore background conversations but still be able to tell if someone is trying to speak with you. Between the natural sound blocking and ANC the Perl Pros work very good for helping to block out unwanted sounds to focus. Battery 10/10 While Denon focuses on sound quality being the standout feature of the Perl Pro, the battery life is also a standout feature. The longest stretch of continuous usage so far was over 3 hours at a reasonable volume. After removing the earbuds there was no discomfort in the ear and checking the battery both earbuds were sitting at 80%. There is also a Low Power mode that can help improve battery life further. The one strange thing observed was recharging in the case. Since the first usage, the earbuds never seem to have the same battery remaining out of the case. One earbud can be at 100% while the other is at 70%. It might be something intentional with battery charging or it might be the two small charge pins didn’t fully line up while placing back in the case. So far both earbuds have had ample battery life for each session, but it is unclear why this is happening. Final Thoughts The Denon Perl Pros are a good overall set of earbuds with a solid feature set. While others might beat them in certain features, they are hard to beat when it comes to music quality. If you want a quality set of earbuds that value music quality above all else, the Denon Perl Pros are a solid offering.