- Hey, Short Circuit, Adam here.
What is an earbud?
(suspenseful music)
Every time we title a video with the word headphone
there's somebody in the comments who goes,
"They're not headphones, they're earbuds."
Well, look here, these are the Fairbuds.
Do they look like an earbud to you?
Do they look like a headphone to you?
Well, news alert, names mean nothing!
That's why you get a 4090 in a laptop
that only runs at 30 watts because names,
they just make 'em up.
Fairphone.
You've probably heard of them because of their cool,
repairable, sustainable phones.
One that we sadly can't get over here in North America.
I'm hoping that they really start introducing
products over here soon.
But they're bringing that sense of sustainability
and repairability to the new Fairbuds XL.
(laughs) Why are these called Fairbuds?
Well, they've already released a pair of Fairbuds
and I guess they wanted to keep the branding in it
'cause if you can have AirPods and then AirPods Max,
why can't you have Fairbuds and Fairbuds XL?
Oh, they left the-
Well this isn't addressed to me,
so I probably shouldn't read it.
It's addressed to Matt and then Linus.
"Hey Matt.
Hi Linus.
We're tired of your wasteful excess."
First off, I'm already excited to see the design.
I've always been kind of a fan
of this speckled recycled plastic look.
I think it's funky.
So what do they promise?
They promise superior sound, sustainably designed.
We have 40 millimeter dynamic drivers.
I'm not sure what material those dynamic drivers
are made of.
Active noise canceling
30 hours of battery life,
seamless dual point connectivity, great.
AptX HD, awesome as well
for high resolution audio over Bluetooth wireless.
I don't know if we have aptX low latency or adaptive,
so these might not be the best headphones for gaming.
They're climate conscious, asterisk,
fair and recycled materials.
Modular design for easy repair, and fair working conditions.
Now, (object clatters)
let's see what they're doing with these headphones.
A nice minimally printed, easily recyclable box.
All the packages, paper, and look at that.
There they are.
No pointless plastic, no extra fabric.
It doesn't feel like it's moving at all,
which is really slick
'cause of how minimal this packaging is.
It's been great to see a lot of companies moving ahead
on making smart, recyclable packaging.
This looks like it's almost entirely made out of
just a couple of pieces of cardboard.
So one,
two,
three.
We got a bag.
And then this box.
What does gesundheit mean?
Like gesundheit?
Because they say it right here and I haven't sneezed.
(crowd laughing)
You get a quick start guide with documentation
for every place in the world that they're selling this.
You get a bag, you get the headphones.
We got a screwdriver, that's probably just because they know
that we're gonna want to take these apart
to see how repairable they are.
Don't expect to get this with your set of headphones.
The bag itself is a plastic material,
but there's also some sort of fabric in the middle.
So just for carrying your headphones around.
I assume that the bag is made of recycled materials
and it's probably mostly plastic,
I imagine it's polyester.
Nice.
That's pretty cool.
Let's take a look at the headphones themselves.
Materials for this,
we have vegan leather, also known as plastic.
We have recycled aluminum and tin for the construction.
And the plastic on this is 80% or more recycled.
Awesome.
The more recycled materials the better.
Looking at the headphones,
the green is an interesting color.
It might not be everyone's kind of green.
I wish that the speckled plastic motif was carried over
through more of the phone.
It feels a little bit lost in the overall green.
I do really like the orange, or maybe copper accents.
Look at, you have your navigation dial here in copper
and as well as these wires.
On the right ear cup we have a multipurpose button
as well as a nav joystick.
So I imagine left and right
can be forward and backward skip track,
up and down will be your volume.
This might be power button
as well as your personal assistant.
And on the bottom we have the USB type C charging port.
What looks to be a microphone and maybe an LED.
This USB port is for charging,
but also it provides digital and analog music
so you can listen to a device via a USB-C.
Thank you so much.
I really, really appreciate that.
That means that if I have these at my desk, I can use them.
Can they charge and be listened to at the same time?
We will have to find out.
And on the left ear cup we have nothing.
Maybe a port for the speaker.
Do I even see a microphone hole?
Interesting.
Maybe it's all concentrated in this port.
We'll have to find out
because this whole thing comes apart like this. (laughs)
I wish.
I would never do that.
I was like, "Oh, let's pull these down."
Uh oh.
A little bit of a gap.
Probably because this thing is removable.
So we have a smooth adjustment
rather than say a ratchet mechanism for the headphones.
Not a ton of movement on the cups themselves.
Not much swivel,
not a ton of tilt.
The ear cups also aren't particularly deep.
And we have some sort of what feels like a memory foam
for the ear cup that's in there.
I do think the texture of the vegan leather
is pretty nice.
It's a very luxurious kind of plastic leather.
(laughs) Luxurious plastic leather.
These aren't the biggest ear cups.
Wow, they echo a lot.
It's roomy in these.
For my head they're producing quite a good seal.
I feel like I'm very enclosed right now.
They're not on, so there's no active
noise canceling happening right now.
People who have bigger ears,
they might have a little bit of discomfort
with these smaller ear cups.
As well as they're not particularly deep ear cups.
I mean, you could probably replace these.
These are a pretty typical size.
So if you wanted you could buy thicker ear cushions.
I don't know if Fairphone will be stocking customization
or just replacement parts.
They have an IP54 rating, so a five in the dust resistance,
four in the water resistance.
That's gonna be like splashes.
You could wear these if you wanted to work out,
but maybe not wear them in a torrential downpour.
Shall we turn 'em on and take a listen?
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We're just gonna get set up with the Fairbuds app
before we get anywhere, 'cause maybe there's firmware stuff.
The app itself looks pretty slick.
There's nothing connected.
Let's get started.
So, we use the joystick to turn it on.
If we're having trouble pairing automatically,
then we can pair manually by using the ANC button.
Left and right on the joystick,
previous or next song.
Wow, I called it.
I'm a genius.
This multifunction button is for your ANC.
Turns noise canceling on, off, or ambient mode.
Thank you for including an Off.
So many brands only include ANC or transparency mode,
and I really, really dislike that.
Sometimes I don't want the noise canceling,
and I also don't want to hear the world
pumped in through the headphones.
I just want it off.
Double press the joystick to see how much
battery I have left.
Press the joystick once to accept an incoming call.
Are we connected yet?
Let's see.
Okay. - [Fairphones] Pairing mode.
- Pairing mode.
If you're rubbing up against anything
these are gonna be quite noisy.
That's probably a downside
of how much plastic is involved in the build.
(fingers tapping)
It's so echoy.
Any touch on the side of the ear cups
really, really loud and distracting.
Hey, do you guys wanna talk to me?
- [Oliver] Hi.
- [Andrew] Hi, Adam.
I'm still talking.
I'm not gonna stop talking.
You can't even stop me from talking.
I love talking.
- That's actually okay.
The transparency mode sounds quite natural.
I'm really impressed actually,
'cause that sounded like you were just talking to me.
And when I took my headphones off it sounded like the same.
That's great, that can be hard.
A lot of headphones will make it sound
very, very synthetic or just not good.
But, obviously we're in kind of a studio scenario,
so there's not a ton of noise that they're trying to
block out when it comes to the microphones.
Swipe.
Whoa!
Yo, did you see that?
(Adam beat boxing)
If you're having a problem with your headphones
and you don't like what the word is
or you don't know what part exactly you're looking for,
you can go into this app and they have a breakdown
of all of the components of the headphones.
This is really cool.
And a link to their website to replace it.
They have some EQ presets.
We got Amsterdam, Copenhagen.
Amsterdam, dial it up to eleven.
An all around powerful sound with real presence.
Is there really no actual EQ in here?
(clicking tongue) That's a bummer.
Powered by Sonarworks.
Interestingly enough their EQ's are all with Sonarworks.
Sonarworks, you may have heard of them,
they produce Sound Id Reference.
Sound ID Reference is digital signal processing software,
you can use it to fine tune the sound of your headphones
or your speakers, and you can go so far as to
take actual measurements with a reference microphone.
They know a lot about sound at Sonarworks,
which is a pretty cool team up, I think.
However, take it with a grain of salt.
It's the same thing being like,
"Oh yeah, sound by Harman,
or Meridian Sound on LG headphones."
It's just kind of marketing fluff.
It doesn't really indicate quality.
I'm interested in how these EQ presets work.
I really, really wish that there was a 10-band EQ
or something in the app, and I'm really disappointed.
I hope that they add that in soon.
But let's take a listen.
Let's take a listen.
Did you love it?
Did you hate it?
What would you rate it?
You're the best, you're the best.
What should I listen to next?
We're currently listening to the Amsterdam setting.
To me it's a bit basey, a little bit bloated.
You can tell that there's a V-Curve applied.
But it's making vocals and stuff, like the mid,
sound a little distant, almost pushed back in the mix
in a way that I find kind of unsatisfying
and almost empty sounding.
A little disappointing.
And on the top end things are a little bit harsh,
like they've really cranked up some of the brightness
and sounds like it's a little brittle.
We're gonna try it Copenhagen.
It's all about sophistication.
Bright and pleasantly neutral.
Which is it?
Is it bright or is it neutral?
Soundstage is decent.
Things are sitting in the right spot in the mix,
but it doesn't sound incredibly spacious.
It is a closed back headphone,
so soundstage is a little bit more difficult to deal with.
The Boston sounds bad.
I would not use the Boston (laughs) preset on the signature.
The Boston, the band, they sound great.
Yo Skrill, drop it hard.
Let's listen to the new Skrillex album.
The difference between noise canceling on and off
doesn't seem to have too big of an impact on the sound.
Maybe there's a little bit of extra brightness
when you have noise canceling on.
Yeah, there's just a kind of a harshness in the highs
that makes it sound a little bit cheaper than I'd expect.
I'm not super impressed by them currently,
but that's just my opinion.
We got a robot that has facts.
And the robot says they sound okay.
In the upper mids we can see at 3K, there's that dip.
This kind of causes a lot of vocals
to sound a little bit recessed and lost in the mix.
And the peak at seven kilohertz
makes things sound a little brittle.
There is a slight bump in the lower base,
which makes things sound a little boomy.
But overall, not the best, not the worst.
For noise cancellation the red line is passive,
which does a pretty good job of blocking
out noise in general.
And for active noise canceling, it's a little disappointing.
While it does a good job
of blocking out stuff down in the 100 hertz region,
when we get to this stuff like the 400 hertz region
which is where people are talking at,
we don't really see much reduction in noise,
which is a bit of a bummer.
Let's tear 'em apart.
Let's see just how repairable they are.
(Adam imitates object crackling)
I don't know how to repair them.
They gave me a screwdriver
that's a Phillips' double zero.
And I don't know if I can- (headphone clicks)
Oh.
Hey, look at that.
They even have replaceable batteries.
Thank you so much.
This is such an important feature.
So many headphones, especially nowadays, go to waste
because you can't just buy a new battery.
You have to throw the whole thing out
because you can't replace it.
Or replacements are prohibitively expensive
because they're difficult.
It looks like to get this headband off
we'll have to take out,
we'll have to take off an ear cup.
So, let's start there.
It's really, really great that not only
do they use all of the same screw type or screw head type,
but they're using a normy screwdriver.
They're just using Phillips.
I will not be putting this back together,
just so you know.
This is probably unavoidable.
Making repairable stuff can be very difficult.
But, they do have multiple types of screws.
I've found at least two.
Now let's see if we can take out the driver.
With the framework laptop
there's only three types of screws,
and they all require the same screw head, I think.
This is a little bit more complex
in terms of what it requires from you.
Yo!
Look at that.
You got access to a lot of the logic circuitry.
You can see that everything is connected
with ribbon cables, with easy Lego latches.
Be careful with those
because you can break stuff really easy,
but that is super freaking cool.
Oh, there we go.
This is pre-release.
There's no instructions currently available.
A lot of their support materials are still embargoed,
so I'm going in blind here
and then hopefully not breaking anything.
This also seems to have a mechanism
with which we can detach.
Oh, two screws to get the headband off.
Two screws and a little latchy boy.
Same thing with the USB cable.
Oh, maybe a couple more USB cables.
There's another couple screws right there
that hold this USB cable in part.
And yeah, it's all plastic.
The metal must be just for the drivers
and for the batteries and stuff, just for the traces.
That's probably as far as we're gonna get today.
They don't advertise you being able to
just get a replacement for a circuit board.
Though, it's nice to know that if you're like a hobbyist
and you wanna try your hand at doing some repairs
or modifications, you can do that yourself.
It's really, really neat.
Even the circuit boards just held in by screws.
All the replacement parts should be available
for purchase on launch,
but the headphones themselves are gonna run you 249 euro,
which is not particularly cheap.
That's gonna come up to like around $300 US.
(buzzer buzzes)
$270 US. (bell dings)
Assuming everything goes okay for Fairphone in the future,
this could be the last pair of headphones
you ever really need.
Easily replaceable battery, easily replaceable headsets,
easily replaceable ear cups.
You can consider this an investment.
And sound quality,
while I wasn't super enthused about it,
it's definitely not bad.
Feature set includes ANC, aptX HD.
It's pretty solid.
It's a cool package, it's a great cause.
I really support seeing repairable products like this.
Oliver asked an interesting question, which was,
"Would it be cheaper to buy
all the replacement parts individually
and build it yourself?"
That we don't know, as this is still pre-release.
But that would also be kind of cool.
That's a fun little project.
Fairphone, I like what Fairphone does.
I think this is a big step up from their Fairbuds,
which were completely unrepairable, which was weird.
If Fairphone can make this repairable,
every other company who doesn't do it is just being greedy.
I really hope that they'll sell this
on this side of the ocean pretty soon
because I think that we need to see more products like this
in the market.
Thanks for watching.
If you like this, why don't you check out a video
that has completely non-repairable headphones,
like the Alienware Dell A721TH.
Yeah, you can't fix 'em.