Bluedio T7 Plus Wireless ANC Headphones Review

After that, you seemingly get to enable and disable various options, but at least for the ANC, this function can only be started or stopped using the physical button – the app apparently switches through various ANC modes. I did expect an EQ, but the app does not provide one, so, if you want to move through different preset settings, you will have to push the physical buttons (tap volume Up and Down at the same time).

Sound Quality

The Bluedio T7 Plus has two wireless modes available (ANC on and ANC off), a wired mode and the possibility to use a microSD card, without needing to pair the headphones to any device. And yes, the sound quality differs quite a bit between some of these modes. The active noise canceling technology was first developed for those long plane trips in order to cancel the annoying noise of the engines, which is why you will sometimes see the Bose headphones on some more expensive plane rides.

But a lot of people saw the value that ANC can bring at canceling the environmental noise, therefore improving the sound quality and allowing the user to listen to music at a lower volume in crowded places. Admit it, you do crank up the volume when you’re in a crowded place and the ANC can save your hearing in the long term. The problem is that the good implementations of ANC come at a cost and the entry-level market needs to cut some serious corners in order to remain competitive. The good news is that I have started to see some major improvements with some inexpensive devices, so things are looking better with every new TWS earbuds and wireless headphones that are released.

Wireless – No ANC

The first sound test that I ran was with the ANC disabled, and I have checked some ‘technical’ aspects, such as the driver quality, the driver matching and the sound stage. The driver quality is checked by running a low bass sound and the drivers should not emit any buzz for perfect performance. The Bluedio performed really well, since I heard no buzzing, so I moved on to the driver matching test. The results were a bit strange because to pass the test, the sound needs to be perceived in the center of the head, but the sweeping tone was not really in the middle, but vaguely moving from left to right and that was a strange tuning omission. To check the sound stage, I played a song that was recorded using some microphones (binaural) to mimic the way the human ear hears it. Ideally, you should be able to clearly tell where each person sits and plays its instrument, there should be a good instrument differentiation and the voices should sound like you are in the same room with the singers.

I noticed that some vagueness has also crept on this test because I could tell apart the instruments, but not the position of each person (the 3D stage was very vague), not as clearly as on some TWS earbuds, in any case.
As for the bass, mids and treble tests, I listened to a lot of songs over a few hours and have moved to other headphones to better understand the differences (mainly the Sony headphones, which are not really audiophile level, but they still sound really good). The deep bass was fine considering the price tag of the T7 Plus, it didn’t really go as deep as I would have wanted and it lacked that full sound I like to get with over the ears headphones, but things improved a bit with the middle and upper bass sounds. So, if you like songs with a very deep bass, the Bluedio T7 Plus may not rise up to the expectations, but most mainstream songs stay more around the mids, which means that a lot of people will not be bothered that much (I think).

The mids were alright, nothing too special. There was some acceptable instrument differentiation, but the potentially colorful sound can easily get muddied by even some light bass. As for treble, I listened to some songs with heavy instrumentals and the differentiation was not that bad, with the voice of the singer clearly defined from the heavy instruments, the guitar sounded good, the drums were fairly clear, but the sound can get busy when multiple instruments play at the same time.
Overall, the sound quality is average, as expected from an inexpensive pair of headphones – nothing too bad, but could have been better – still fine for most people that don’t expect audiophile level of sound from the T7 PLus.

Wireless – With ANC

I am not going to compare the Bluedio T7 Plus with the Sony WH-1000XM3 because it’s simply not fair, but I can compare it to another inexpensive pair of TWS earbuds. Yes, earbuds, the Coumi Freedom Dots are excellent in terms of sound quality and the ANC implementation is acceptable.

It works for low sounds, with just a little buzz when no sound is playing, so it’s perfect for this comparison. Bluedio has had some trouble with the ANC implementation and they don’t seem to have gotten it quite right with the T7 Plus either. I think I can break it down into a positive and two negatives. The positive is that the ANC technology works and you can definitely tell the difference when it’s enabled. I could immediately tell it was working fine after I could barely hear my fingers on the keyboard.

It will not work that great with higher frequency sounds, but that’s to be expected at this price point. The first negative is the hissing + halo effect combo. To be more clear about I mean, after enabling the ANC, you will immediately hear a hissing sound. It’s not overwhelming, but very much noticing and by halo effect, I mean you will feel like you have submerged your head under water. There is also a weird sharp sound that can be heard on the left earcup when I moved my jaw (eating or talking) which seems to be closely tied to the ANC trying its best at canceling the outside sound.
The second negative is the way the songs sound. The aforementioned halo effect makes the bass and the mid-range sounds to appear without substance and it’s the most noticeable with the highs. If you listen to a rock concert, it is not going to sound that good with ANC on.

Wired

After turning off both the Bluetooth connection and the ANC, and simply connecting the Bluedio T7 Plus directly to my laptop, the headphones came to life. The sound improved dramatically than when using the ‘ANC on’ mode and it’s still overall better than the simple Bluetooth connection with ANC off.

MicroSD

Similarly to the wired connection, playing songs from a microSD card will sound better than when using Bluetooth. So it’s clear that Bluedio needs to work a bit more at getting ANC right (other inexpensive brands got it, just check Coumi) and some slight tuning could dramatically improve the way the music will sound without ANC – an EQ would have been handy.

The Call Quality

Since it relies on so few microphones, the call quality is not that great. And it’s surprising because it’s far easier to add more mikes around the larger earcups than with the TWS earbuds. Surprisingly, some TWS earbuds do sound really good in terms of call quality, especially some of the newer models. But, when using the Bluedio T7 Plus, you will hear the person on the other end just fine (yes, even if you’re in a noisy environment), but you will sound far and unclear. So, no chance to have a proper conversation if you’re in a crowded coffee shop (I tried and it was not pleasant).

Battery Life

Bluedio says that the T7 Plus should remain operational for up to 35 hours with ANC off and if you only keep the heaphones with ANC on, but no music playing, they should last for up to 40 hours. And it’s somewhat accurate since I could listen to music (without ANC) for about 30 hours (two days) before needing to recharge them. And charging up the battery from 0 to 100% took close to two hours.

Conclusion

I admit that I was spoiled by Sony, but I have been using a lot of other TWS earbuds (not many headphones, it’s true), and some of them managed to sound really good. The Bluedio T7 Plus has gotten a few things right, such as the construction quality and the controls, but the sound quality with ANC is not that great. Sure enough, considering that they retail at less than 50 bucks (at the moment of writing), it’s hard to criticize the device too harshly, so if you’re fine with keeping ANC off, then the Bluedio T7 Plus will most likely work just fine for the large majority of people.

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