Last June, a team led by mechanical and design engineer Olle Lindén embarked on a Kickstarter campaign to bring some new Bluetooth earphones into production. There are a good many wireless earphones already available of course, but what made the Earinsstand out from the crowd was a world's smallest claim, and that they really were wireless. Where other BT plugs, like the NuForce earphones we reviewed a couple of months back, have a cable running between each earpiece, the Earins have none. Project backers started to receive their Earin earphones in early October, and they've just recently been made available for non-backers to buy, too. Gizmag was sent some to try out.
Back in 2008, when Lindén was working for Nokia Denmark, a romantic comedy calledDefinitely Maybe hit cinemas around the world and simply blew audioholics away. Not for its sometimes catchy soundtrack, or the Dolby/DTS/SDDS audio mix, but for an intro that sees actor Ryan Reynolds pop in a pair of small profile, totally wireless earphones and make his way through busy New York streets. The following months saw hi-fi community boards abuzz with chatter, queries and theories about exactly what was being used to replace the sounds of the city with "the other perfect song." Despite virtual forum fingers pointing to Sennheiser, Plantronics and Motorola as possible manufacturers, only frustration resulted from fruitless online searches.
Spin on six years to June 2014 and a project launched on Kickstarter aimed at bringing a pair of movie-inspired, slick-looking wireless ear bullets called Earin to market. The goal was to develop Bluetooth plugs that offered "one thing, and one thing only ... the best and most comfortable music experience possible." The effort attracted 8,359 backers and a crowdfunding pledge pot of £972,594 (about US$1.6 million at campaign close), with a promised delivery date for the first units of January 2015. Now, a little later than originally planned, the Earins have jumped off the production line and into the ears of most – but, as of writing, not all – Kickstarter supporters.
Even before getting to the Earins, there's a quality look and feel to the stylish hard card box. Its lid is held in place by magnets and the lower section of the box sports four shaped, sunken recesses. There's a slot for the Earin charging capsule, one for each of the Earin earphones (which are held in place with magnets) and another for a slide-open box of accessories containing medium Comply foam earphone tips (two pairs are provided with consumer versions), a short USB charging cable and a pair of ear stabilizers. Basic operating instructions are printed on the inside of the lid (a more detailed user guide is available on the Support section of the Earin website if needed).
The aluminum charging capsule contains a 600 mAh Li-ion battery. An LED status indicator next to the micro-USB port to the top changes from red to green when fully charged via the USB cable. Each Earin earphone has its own mini Li-ion battery, rated at 60 mAh and promised to last 2 hours and 50 minutes of continuous wireless playback. The polycarbonate housing sports a conductor to the rear that's printed directly onto the PCB assembly, and is also home to a Knowles balanced armature driver and amplifier.
The battery in each Earin is topped up by sliding open the capsule, popping the earphones into the tray so that the conductors touch the three pronged contacts at either end of the charging bay and then closing the drawer until the LED on the front goes out. The capsule's energy bank can juice up empty Earins three times before needing a top up itself.
There are no power on/off buttons on the Earins. They're in an off state when placed in the capsule and come to life when removed. But they do go to sleep after a short period of inactivity for battery saving (around 60 seconds) and restarting involves placing the earphones in the capsule and removing them again.
The Earin earphones connect to a music player using Bluetooth 4.0 wireless technology, with an A2DP profile and aptX codec support for high quality streaming. Pairing was straightforward enough, simply being a case of looking for Earin L in the Bluetooth settings screen of the source device. The wireless signal is sent to the left Earin, which auto syncs with the right earphone over a secure and interference-free wireless connection.
We tried a number of different foam and silicone tips, including double flange and sport buds, but found the supplied Comply pair the best for a secure fit, most comfortable for marathon music sessions and pretty good at keeping the sounds of the outside world from spoiling the party.
On the few occasions when an Earin did come loose and fall out, the safety net offered by other Bluetooth earphones – the cable running behind the neck – wasn't there of course, resulting in a frantic floor scramble to find the missing unit, embarrassingly demanding that anyone in the area stand perfectly still while the search for the missing thumb nail-sized unit was undertaken.
Once in situ, the 14.5 mm diameter by 20 mm long (0.57 x 0.78 in) Earins look the business. With the tips firmly lodged in the ears, the earphone housing only just pushes out beyond the antitragus/antihelix. Still, as they're not a common sight (yet), they do manage to attract a fair amount of appreciative and puzzled looks in roughly equal measure. When explanations are given as to what exactly is plugged into each ear canal, looks of wonder and amazement generally follow. Very few of our many conversations while out and about turned to audio quality, but we'll take a look at that now.
Since Bluetooth is handling the wireless streaming, playback of hi-res music is pretty pointless but we found the quality of the MP3s and AAC files pushed through the balanced armature drivers to be quite high. In fact, the Earins served up a goodly offering of quite impressive clarity and detail, with instruments spaced out nicely and good stereo imaging. The company's Sebastien Domingues told us that the sound signature has been designed for natural reproduction of the source audio, which found favor with us.
That said, though the lower registers proved nice and tight, such things as kick and bass were perhaps a little less pronounced than we would have liked. The better the seal afforded by the foam tips, the stronger the bass proved to be. But even at their most secure fit, Beats lovers may not find satisfaction without massaging the EQ on the source player or the app (more an the latter presently).
We did note that the volume of source devices was consistently pushing the upper limits in order to achieve comfortable listening levels through the Earins, particularly during commutes, in bustling shopping malls or in a busy cafe. And we also detected an ever-so-slight operational hiss, which only appeared detectable between tracks and not during playback, even in quieter musical moments.
Some users have reported frequent dropouts, even when the source device was well within wireless reach. Though we did experience a few "in range" dropouts with our review units, with the right Earin losing sound for less than a second before connection was reestablished, to be fair, even big name Bluetooth in-ear headphones with a cable running between the earphone capsules can suffer such connectivity blips.
As there's no microphone in either Earin, phone calls can't be taken using them. When a call is received on a paired smartphone, the music will stop playing and the phone's ringtone will sound from its speaker(s). An Earin will therefore need to be removed and the call taken as normal. Music playback through the Earins is resumed when the call is ended. Having said that, there are a number of apps available that allow users to control which route audio takes through a smartphone (such as SoundAbout), but it's much simpler just to use the smartphone for calls.
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