- In this video, I'm talking
about my favorite set of Bluetooth earbuds,
the custom-tailored Bragi Dash Pros, coming up.
(upbeat music)
Hi guys, Cliff Olson, Doctor of Audiology
and founder of Applied Hearing Solutions in Anthem, Arizona.
And on this channel,
I cover a bunch of hearing-related information
to help make you a better informed consumer.
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One of the biggest problems
that I have with earbuds in general
is how these fit inside of your ears.
They don't fit very well.
When you get them in, they start working their way out
or they don't create a good seal,
and this poor physical fit of these things
ends up resulting in poor sound quality.
That's why I got super excited when I learned
that Bragi, who's making wireless earbuds,
was actually teaming up with Starkey Hearing Technologies
in order to make a custom version of their wireless earbuds.
I basically had my earmold impressions ready
and waiting to send off as soon as they release them.
You see, one of the main reasons
that hearing aid users can wear
custom-molded hearing aids all day long
is because they're super comfortable
and they're custom-made for their actual ear.
And when you have a device that is custom-made for your ear,
it doesn't matter whether you have a huge ear or a tiny ear.
You're going to get a device that perfectly fits it.
And as long as it is done
with a really good earmold impression
by a really skilled hearing care professional,
you don't have any issues with those devices
falling out of your ears or causing any kind of discomfort.
And ultimately, it ends up resulting
in better sound quality.
Sound quality improves because custom-molded devices
prevent the leakage of sound.
When you wear a generic device like this,
sound can leak out around the edges of it
because it is not perfectly fitting inside of your ears.
When this happens, you lose the perception of bass.
Bass is those low frequencies
and low frequency sounds don't stay inside of your ear
unless they're trapped inside of your ear.
So, this is what makes
the custom-tailored Bragi Dash Pros different.
When you have a custom-molded earbud inside of your ears,
you are actually not going to get any of that leakage,
so you get a fuller, richer sound.
But before we get too much into the details
of the custom-tailored Bragi Dash Pros,
let's go ahead and do an unboxing.
All right, so this is the box that you get
when you get the custom-tailored Bragi Dash Pros.
And it has the user manual here at the top
and shows you how to basically put them
and get them all set up.
And a couple of the different things it has in here
is a traditional USB to Micro USB charging cable.
You have the Hear Clear wax trap sticks,
which I'll show you how to use these here in a second.
And then of course you have the Bragi Dash Pros.
Now, I've been using these a little bit,
so this case is a little beat-up for me,
but it's got my name laser-engraved on there.
And then when you open it up,
there you have a custom-tailored Bragi Dash Pros
inside of their charger case.
And when you take them out and check them out,
you can see that there is laser engraving there as well,
depending on how well you can see that on the camera.
That is pretty small,
but these are perfectly custom-tailored to my ears
because of the earmold impression that was taken
and that was sent in to Starkey.
They were able to make these purely custom for my ears,
so they wouldn't fit anyone else's ears.
And the best part about that
is that it really traps in all the sound
because it prevents any leakage of that sound
from around your ear canal,
which can often happen when you use generic rubber domes.
All right, so you can see
these little white tips inside of there.
Those are where the sound is actually coming out of,
so I'm gonna show you how to actually change those
while I'm doing the unboxing here.
These right here are pretty traditional wax traps
that are used in standard hearing aids,
but you also use them with these,
which is a nice aspect of being able
to keep these clean and free of earwax.
So, you can actually pull out the old wax trap right there
and you flip it around and push in the new wax trap.
And there you go.
And so, I'm gonna change both of these on here.
Remove the old one.
If there's any earwax in there, it's going with it.
Push in the new one, there you go.
Now the sound can definitely come out
of this device cleanly.
And that's pretty much it, very simple,
but very nice setup that they have here
with the Bragi Dash custom-tailored devices.
All right, so now that you've seen
the custom-tailored Bragi Dash Pros up close,
let me go ahead and show you what they look like
when they're inside of my ears.
They go in very easily.
They have a pretty slim profile.
I have an average size ear.
If you had a smaller ear,
they might stick out a little bit further
but I mean, once you get them in, they're in,
they're not going anywhere.
I've even gone swimming with these things
and they stay inside of my ears, they don't fall out.
Other than that, not only can you customize
the actual physical fit of these devices,
what Bragi has done is they've actually teamed up
with Mimi Hearing Technologies,
which is actually letting you customize the audio
from these devices as well.
In the Bragi App, you can actually do a hearing test
while you're wearing your custom-tailored Bragi Dash Pros
and it will take you through a full sequence of tones
that you're actually gonna press and release a button for.
Once you get through the entire sequence,
you're gonna be able to toggle on
the customized version of your audio
and it is a absolute huge difference.
So, you can toggle it on and toggle it off
while you're actually listening to music
and you can hear a huge difference.
I can tell you this.
If I ever run into anyone from Mimi Hearing Technologies,
I'm buying 'em a drink.
You also don't need a smartphone with these.
You can actually store four gigabytes worth of information
inside of these devices, which is about a thousand songs.
So like I mentioned before,
I've taken these things swimming.
They stay inside your ear, so that's not an issue,
but you can actually store a bunch of music
or podcasts or whatever you like to do
while you're doing whatever water activities you're doing
and you don't have to worry
about keeping your cell phone around
to have Bluetooth signal.
The other thing is that their app features
are borderline insane.
You can do pretty much anything with these devices.
You can connect to Alexa or Google by tapping your cheek.
You can change music by tapping the Dash.
You can answer or reject calls
just by shaking your head up and down or side to side.
You can track basically any aspect
of swimming, biking, and running.
You can do heart rate, you can do speed,
distance, cadence, breathing, calories.
You name it, you can track it.
There are only two issues that I have
with the custom-tailored Bragi Dash Pros
and the first one is Bluetooth connectivity.
These devices are pretty small,
which means the Bluetooth antenna inside of them
is also pretty small,
but a couple of the workarounds that I have for this
is first off, don't walk too far away
from whatever device you're streaming audio from.
And the second one is that when I'm actually at the gym,
I'll stand my phone up against like a water bottle
or against a piece of equipment
rather than laying it down flat on the floor.
I noticed that I get better Bluetooth signal
when my phone is upright.
The other thing is that I always try
to keep my phone on my right-hand side.
When I have my phone on my right-hand side,
that is the main device
that picks up the audio from that device
and it will stream it over to your other ear.
So, whenever in doubt,
go ahead and keep your device on your right.
The other issue that I have
with the custom-tailored Bragi Dash Pros is the cost.
These bad boys will set you back around $600.
That's because it requires an earmold impression
and 3D printing of your custom device.
This will actually cost you about double what it would
if you just go on Amazon
and buy the generic form of the Bragi Dash Pros.
Now, if you're thinking, Cliff, there is no way
that I am going to shell out $600
for a custom set of Bluetooth earbuds,
I really can't blame you, but I can tell you this.
Now that I've gone custom, I can never go back.
I have gone down that road
and these things are so comfortable
and sound so much better than anything else
I've ever tried other than an over-the-ear set of headphones
that I really can't go back to just the generic type.
That being said, if you wanna get yourself a generic pair
of the Bragi Dash Pros, you can go on Amazon.
I have a link in the description below.
They'll set you back only about 270 bucks a pair.
Now, if the price doesn't scare you off
and you are willing to spend $600 for these devices,
then the steps to follow
are to actually go online to either Starkey.com
or Bragi.com and run a search for a provider
that actually does the custom-tailored Bragi Dash Pros.
The clinic that you're gonna end up going to,
they have to be a Starkey dealer.
Otherwise, you're not gonna be able
to get those earmolds sent off to the manufacturer.
So once you schedule an appointment,
get your earmold impressions done.
They will send those off to Starkey.
They will have your devices made
and they will have them shipped back to their clinic.
This process will probably take you
anywhere from a week and a half to two weeks.
You will then go back into their office,
either to pick them up or to have them fit to your ears
to make sure everything's working perfectly.
And if it's not working perfectly, they will fix it for you
and make sure that by the time that you are done
with the custom-tailored Bragi Dash Pros,
you will have a perfect fit and you will be extremely happy.
These earbuds are by far my favorite
that are on the market right now.
So if you're looking for a better-fitting pair
of wireless earbuds that have way better sound quality
and a ton of extra features, you may wanna give
the custom-tailored Bragi Dash Pros a try.
That's it for this video.
If you have any questions,
leave them in the comment section below.
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I'll see you next time.
(upbeat music)