[paragraph]We did a Brainwavz S0 in-ear monitor review last year, which is a product meant for audio /music editing professionals, but this time, we have a consumer grade product – Brainwavz BLU-200, a Bluetooth earphone, something everyone craves for.
These new Bluetooth earphones follows the BLU-100s they launched last year, the first ever Bluetooth monitors from a company that makes rock solid in-ear monitors at impressively affordable costs. And the very few things that users reported needs to be upgraded, are all done well by the Brainwavz Audio engineers!
So let’s check out how this earphone lives up to its promises in our following review.[/paragraph]
Brainwavz BLU-200 Bluetooth Earphone Review
Design & Build Quality
Out of the box, I enjoyed how solidly built these earphones are, but the length of them scared me a little bit, considering it’s an in-ear design. But soft ear tips on the top felt very comfortable overall.
The provided ear hooks, makes wearing the Brainwavz BLU-200 look very cool, but at the same time, they hook the on-ear piece at right length. The contrast color of light green with black presents it as premium looking accessory, and something you would love to show off.
The earphones itself are solidly built with a bullet-like design, with the Brainwavz branding in the left one, and the USB charging slot for battery cover on the right one. Despite the battery on the right, the weight on both sides is well balanced, and it will feel a little heavy overall if you are not used to with the Bluetooth earphones.
The cover on the USB charging slot is solidly placed but feels delicate when detached. The hinging assembly is well-designed yet, I was a bit too much worried I might break it if used too frequently.
The remote on has three button design with again, a light-green contrast rings around them all. The top and bottom buttons are volume rockers and the middle button is for Play/Pause/Power/Pair. The remote feels solid to hands, and so the buttons. They give nice feedback to clicks, and should last very long. The Blu-200 branding is on the back side, along with the microphone input.
At a very unnoticeable location at the conjunction with remote and its flat cable is the indicator light, that blinks when pairing, connecting or charging the headphones. And yes, the cables are flat, so you are free from tangling, and can expect a long life overall. My last year’s Brainwavz are still intact, and they are the earphones that lasted me the most so far, apart from one pair from Sennheiser. But trust me, no other lasted me more than 6 months. So I can totally recommend Brainvawz’s build quality very highly.
Attention to design detail needs no more praising, but the Brainwavz BLU-200 comes with two indications of left and right earpiece. One is on the top side of both, that are very likely to get worn off after using 5-6 months, so they have provided another R & L sign under the earpieces, which are embossed in rubber. It’s a very thoughtful design element, that I think every other brand should adopt & A+++ for Brainwavz for this!
You also might want to check out our quick unboxing video…
Unboxing Brainwavz BLU-200 Earphones
Comfort, Accessories, Freebies…
Even though the earpiece looks unusually lengthy, it fits very well in your ear with the soft ear tips provided. And yeah, you get three of these – Small, medium & large, to choose according to your comfort.
You get the Comply foam tips S-400 within the box, which are like the standard for noise-cancellation. Two ear-hooks were not already mounted, and you can do that easily yourself. To hold the earphones together, you get a Velcro cable tie in the box, which is quite useful.
The micro-USB charging cable is small in length, something designed considering you will charge these Bluetooth headphones from laptop or PC, but it makes the whole package incredibly portable.
Last but not the least, you get a Brainwavz special, hard shell casing in black & red. This case can hold your accessories, charging cable, and earphone itself. Put this case anywhere, and rest assured your earphones will stay as it is. It’s a very high-quality case, with proper holding pockets and built with high attention to details.
The length of flat cable is adjustable according to comfort, and it keeps the both earpiece together all the time.
The comply foam noise isolation ear pieces are to be squeezed, so they can expand later on into ears, and provide you the perfect and comfortable noise reduction.
The perfect in-ear fitting will keep the earphones on even if you are doing a physical exercise or some fast action. It did lose the grip once in a while, but a simple push can snuggle them back properly.
Let’s Talk Some Music Now!
All that matter for a headphone is delivering consistent quality of music with a balance of music and vocals. And the Brainwavz BLU-200 delivers just about that.
I was very impressed with the intimate level of music these earphones can deliver, with a feeling that it’s being produced just around you and for you.
The bass feels a little bit elevated from what it should be, yet it is so much under control that it doesn’t get muddy even for bass heavy songs. I am personally a bass freak, and more is better for me, so I definitely enjoyed my music collection on BLU-200. I personally preferred using the volume settings from 50 to 60%, but even if you do not enjoy the bass too much, these earphones won’t disappoint for volume as high as 70%.
Despite the fact that BLU-200 earphones are on the high bass side, it never generated muddy or muffled sounds. The quality of individual music instruments was presented in very open soundstage, and overall experience was pretty impressive.
The mids are not very high, and they contrast very well with the heavy bass of these earphones. If you listen to streaming services, the vocals might get dominated by bass and overall music, but pure song quality songs of high bit rates provided the equal level of preference on both. The treble is very well-placed, which I’ve read many BLU-100 (previous model) users complained about, and the mid-bass humps are now down toned as well.
The microphone provided very good quality while on call, and in-ear noise separation makes it very pleasant to use these for calling, but you would not like to keep them on without any music, otherwise you will hear your breathing or even little rustling with the small cable that comes with BLU-200.
Battery Life
Battery of Brainwavz BLU-200 takes about one and half hour to get fully charged, and it can go 4 to 5 hours on consistent usage or 300 hours of standby time. A very satisfactory battery life and for normal use these headphones can go upto two days with just a single charge.
Verdict Of Brainwavz BLU-200
These are in fact the in-ear monitors, but I would still prefer them to be used as dedicated earphones. It’s a second model from the Brainwavz to make a very solid Bluetooth 4.0 powered earphones, and I can say they did a very good job. I used it for office, home & outdoors, watched some Netflix movies, played games on my laptop and, of course, enjoyed music from my OnePlus X, and I believe BLU-200 brings a very high-quality experience, considering it’s priced just about $60. The music experience will separate from the environment and make you do that drum beating in the air. What is more, to expect from such a great budget earphone?
I will highly recommend this headphone as ‘100% worth buy’, especially for using it outdoors!
