Plantronics BackBeat Fit Boost Edition - Review 2022

The Plantronics BackBeat Fit Boost Edition earphones aren't specially novel, but their carrying case is—it features a battery for charging up on the go. Otherwise, the $159.99 earphones are pretty average—and expensive—compared with our favorite exercise-focused neckband-style in-ear pairs. You might non get a charging example, but you lot can definitely get a pair with better sound for less money.

Blueprint

Available in black-and-light-green, gray-and-blackness, or blue-and-black designs, the earphones feature a rubbery, flexible neckband that loops up over the ears and fastens on to aid maintain stability. The flexible over-the-ear blueprint tin can be a slight challenge with chunkier glasses, but the fit is quite secure—that is, the on-ear fit, as there is no in-canal seal to speak of.

In that location'southward just 1 pair of eartips included, which is a definite negative for the price. And while the tips have a nozzle that rests against the outside of the ear canal, they don't actually seal information technology off. Plantronics calls this an open up pattern, so that you lot can hear your surroundings more than clearly while you do. Information technology's a feature that may exist attractive to joggers, simply there'due south no reason to ship with only one pair of eartips.

The left earpiece'south outer panel houses buttons that control playback, call management, and track navigation. There's as well a dedicated volume button, with bizarre functionality—y'all press information technology rapidly to raise volume levels (which work in conjunction with your mobile device'due south chief volume levels), and printing and hold it to lower levels. The correct earpiece'southward large button answers and ends phone calls, while its smaller button is for ability/pairing.

The earphones have an IP57 rating, so they're protected from dust and can be submerged in water upward to a meter. They'll definitely be able to handle your sweat and being rinsed off.

Plantronics BackBeat FIT Boost Edition inline Other than a micro USB charging cablevision, the only other included accessory is a carrying pouch. The pouch features a born micro USB cable that charges the battery pack at its base. A safety cover protects the micro USB port next to the pack that charges the case itself, while the hardwired micro USB cable located inside the pack is for charging the earphones. Plantronics estimates battery life to be eight hours, but your results volition vary based on your volume levels. The pouch holds an extra full charge.

There's a free BackBeat Fit app that seems well-nigh useless other than providing you with a detailed battery life estimate and a user manual. There'southward almost nothing else the app does (at least for these earphones) and there'south no need to download it. The earphones also ship with a half-dozen-month trial membership for the Pear coaching app, with unlimited admission to 12 different do routines.

Plantronics describes the BackBeat Fit Boost Edition as noise-canceling earphones, but is referring to the inline mic, and not the noise cancellation of ambient audio in your ears. So now that we're clear on that, information technology'due south worth noting the mic offers only modest intelligibility. Using the Voice Memos app on an iPhone 6s, we could sympathize every word we recorded, merely the recording was non exceptionally clear. The mic sounds a little distant from the mouth, and in that location are sound artifacts that make voices sound a scrap fuzzy and distorted.

Performance

On tracks with intense sub-bass content, similar The Pocketknife'south "Silent Shout," the lack of an in-culvert seal near makes for diminished bass response. The earphones just lack the traditional added bass presence we often find in exercise-focused in-ears.

Bill Callahan's "Drover," a rails with less deep bass in the mix, illustrates this even more clearly. Bass-boosted earphone pairs will often push the lows on the drums to a thunderous place, but here the drums sound like weak tapping. There's barely a semblance of low frequency heft, and fifty-fifty Callahan's baritone vocals sound far more bright and crisp than they do rich in the lows or depression-mids.

On Jay-Z and Kanye West'southward "No Church in the Wild," the kick drum loop gets enough of the loftier-mid presence so that its attack remains precipitous and slices through the layers of the shell. But it sounds a picayune thinned out, and the sub-bass synth hits that punctuate the beat are more implied than delivered—we become their raspy tiptop notes and trivial of their bass depth. The vocals sound clear, but the unabridged mix is merely besides bright—there'due south too much vinyl crackle in the forefront (rather than in the groundwork where it typically is), and at that place's just no real bass presence to speak of.

Orchestral tracks, like the opening scene in John Adams' The Gospel According to the Other Mary, sound well-baked and articulate, with the college register brass, strings, and vocals given their typical prominent, bright place in the mix. But the lower register instrumentation has little presence to speak of, and once again, things sound thin.

If you press the earphones into your ear (without pausing playback or skipping a track), you get tremendously improved bass depth. But the eartips won't stay that way for fifty-fifty a 2nd once you remove pressure. This tells united states of america the drivers are capable of low frequency performance, just the eartips just forestall it.

Conclusions

The Plantronics BackBeat Fit Boost Edition earphones comes with a cool charging example, only the in-ear fit actually kills the audio experience. You might be able to hear your surroundings, but it's at the cost of bass response. Throw in the fact that y'all only get one pair of eartips, and $160 seems far likewise expensive. For less money, you will get better do-friendly wireless audio from the Jaybird X3, Bose SoundSport Wireless, JBL Reflect Fit, and JBL Reflect Mini BT.