xFyro ANC Pro TWS Earbuds Review

The pairing process with an Android device is as simple as with any other TWS earbuds: enable Bluetooth on your phone, take the earbuds from their charging case (make sure that the LEDs flash red and blue) and then click Pair new device. ANC Pro should appear as ready to be paired, so pair with to your smartphone. I use a Pixel 2 XL and, as I said before, there seems to be support for AAC.

Sound Quality

Before checking out some songs and see how the lows, mids and highs are rendered, let’s delve a bit into the ‘more technical tests’ that can be run on the ANC Pro. The first one checks the driver quality by playing a sweeping tone and ideally, you should not hear any buzz. The good news is that the ANC pro performed really well in this regard, as I heard almost no buzz (only a very faint one, which puts it above most earbuds that I have tested, including the previous xFyro models). The second test checks the driver frequency response and the sound should be straight in the center. Most earbuds have no problem passing this test and so does the xFyro ANC Pro, but I had the surprise to see that a pair of headphones from Bluedio (the T7 Plus) has actually managed to fail this test.

Lastly, I like to hear the 3D sound stage that gets created by using a binaural song registered by some professional singers. I could tell the position of each person and the instruments were properly differentiated, but the sound did feel a bit busy, so I am interested to see how this translates into the actual sound performance. Before moving on, I have to mention that you get only two modes and no way to listen to songs without one or the other. Of course, I am talking about the ANC mode and the Transparency mode.

ANC mode on

The active noise canceling technology is tricky on small TWS earbuds because of size, therefore the limited space for microphones, but there are successful implementations on some more expensive models from Sony and even the AirPods work great in this regard due to the higher budget to get it right (the research needs to be paid). At the same time, I have recently tested a pair of earbuds that were, at the moment of writing, underneath 50 bucks and they got it right. That’s on the Coumi Freedom Dots and no, it wasn’t perfect, since there is a light hiss all the time, but these earbuds properly cancel out the environmental noise.

And the sound quality is very good not because of an audiophile level of tuning, but because ANC helped create a fuller sound, whereas, the small earbud would always take you out of the immersion due to outside noise creeping in. The xFyro ANC Pro uses a single microphone, so, from the get-go, it’s clearly not going to be able to cancel that much environmental noise. But, when ANC is active, there is no hiss and it does not seem to have a noticeable impact on the sound quality, as it happened with the Bluedio T7 Plus.
Additionally, it does cancel out some noise, but only the really low frequency ones, so, if you were hoping to go into a coffee shop and completely be immersed into the sound, it’s not going to happen.

Now, as for the sound quality itself, it is as expected for a mid-ranger and perhaps a bit closer to the performance that usually seen on TWS earbuds that cost somewhere in the vicinity of $50. The low bass is fairly reproduced, with a good instrument differentiation, but there is a perceptible lack of depth and I did miss the fullness that I could hear with my Sony headphones and even with the aforementioned Coumi earbuds. The mid and high bass is a bit better and the sound stage was good, so, overall, the bass, in general is correctly reproduced, but lacking in fullness. The mids were clear, but a bit flat – would have liked them to be a more colorful. And the highs had a good instrument differentiation, but at the same time, the sound got a bit busy when more instruments came into the stage.

Transparency mode on

The Transparency mode is the default mode that you will have enabled when you take the earbuds from their charging case and it can be a bit confusing for most people because some of the external sounds are amplified, resulting in some hissing noise. I initially thought that this is ANC and that xFyro messed something up, but no, after enabling ANC, everything went relatively silent and could hear the songs in peace.

The manufacturer says that it uses AI to dynamically select sounds that the earbuds deem as being important, while ignoring the ones that are not. I assume it’s a certain frequency of sounds, such as people talking or cars passing, but in my experience, there was a noticeable layer of hissing noise. And, yes, some sounds were slightly amplified, but I could just take the earbud from my ear and properly hear what’s going on, especially since I do have to tap on the touch-sensitive area to enable this mode.

As for the sound quality, it’s pretty much the same as with ANC on, but just with a hiss sound in the background and the occasional sudden louder noise. So, if you want to use this mode, do it only for a short period of time (such as when there is an announcement, but you still want to hear your favorite song) and then go back to the ANC mode.

The Gaming mode

Like I said before, this is essentially the same technology that is implemented into both Naenka Lite Pro (that I have tested a few months back) or the Redmi Airdots S and its role is to minimize the lag between the video or game and the sound you hear in the earbuds. I have not seen a noticeable delay between the sound and the video on YouTube, but, since I often play games on Stadia (first, because it’s a convenient way to play proper games on mobile and secondly because the GPU market is currently insane), I did see some sound delay from time to time. I did notice some improvement using this mode, but, as I saw on the Naenka Lite Pro, you will get less battery life by enabling it (a cut of about 30%).

The Call Quality

It’s not very often that I get to use a pair of TWS earbuds that are capable of offering a decent call quality and the good news is that the xFyro ANC Pro did perform really well in this regard. I was able to hear the person on the other end perfectly fine, even if there was some noise around me (I was in a coffee shop) and my voice was also very clear, with a minor difference from when I was talking directly into the microphone of the Pixel 2 XL.

The Battery Life

xFyro says that the earbuds can go up to 10 hours of a single charge, but, in my tests, with ANC on, they lasted only 4 hours and 20 minutes. The Transparency mode will add about an hour more, but it’s still about half than the advertised amount. Maybe there’s a way to not use any of the two modes, which may deliver a better battery life, but I have not yet found a way to do so. Going from 0 to 100 percent took about an hour and 15 minutes, which is a very good result.

Conclusion

The adoption rate of the new technologies on the entry-level and mid-range TWS earbuds is incredible and I have already seen some very successful implementations of ANC on devices that cost less than 50 dollars. I felt that if the xFyro ANC Pro would have taken a bit more risks, it could have taken the battle with some of the best ANC earbuds on the market. But, in its current state, it’s a decent mid-ranger, offering a good ANC implementation, an acceptable battery life (yes, it’s not going to go to 10 hours, bust 4-5 hours is good) and, while the sound quality wasn’t incredible and far from audiophile level, it was still fine for the mainstream music. At the same time, the entry-level TWS earbuds are starting to catch up with not only the mid-rangers, but some are able to go head to head with devices that cost far above 100 dollars. So yes, I do hope that xFyro will do a bit more on the next generation of TWS earbuds and perhaps make the price tag somewhat more competitive.

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