The TW-E7B are Yamaha’s flagship truly wireless earbuds. Equipped with 10mm drivers and aptX adaptive support, the TW-E7B also includes a range of other features, including active noise cancellation and transparency mode, a Listening Care function to adjust the sound at low volumes, sound optimization mode. listening to fit your ears and a low latency game mode. Priced at $ 280, the TW-E7B competes with the likes of Sony WF-1000XM4, Apple AirPods Pro, and Samsung Galaxy Buds2 Pro.
Drawing
The Yamaha TW-E7B has an interesting circular design with another circular shape attached to the side. The smaller circle looks like a button at first, but it is purely aesthetic.
The earbuds are available in four colors, black, white, beige and dark blue with brown accents. All four have a spotted finish on the outside.
The TW-E7B has a rather chunky design with the tips of the ears sticking out. The tips are the only part of the earbuds that is actually inside the ears, with almost all of them leaking. Despite this, the earphones do not protrude too much from the ears.
The left earbud has a single button on the top to control playback and incoming calls. On the right there are two buttons, which control the volume and skip tracks. The buttons are also used to initiate pairing or call the voice assistant. None of these features are customizable.
The buttons are positioned to make them easy to use. They are also generally more reliable and comfortable to use than touch gestures. It’s just that the buttons are a little too snappy, which can be a little loud in the ears.
The case design is pretty standard, with a thin lid on top. The shape and color of the case make it rather difficult to tell which side it’s facing and most of the time you’d try to open it from the back. The lid is also very thin and has very little lip to open comfortably. There are four LEDs on the front, which indicate the charging status but are too bright. The case has the same speckled finish as the earphones.
The overall finish and build quality of the earbuds and case are good but not necessarily super premium or noteworthy. The earbuds are IPX5 water resistant but the case is not.
Comfort
The Yamaha TW-E7Bs were very comfortable during my tests. The earbuds attach to the ears in one place through the grommets, so there is no pressure on any other part of the ears to cause discomfort. You can literally wear them for hours without even noticing them.
The only problem with this design is that it creates a pendulum effect with the mass hanging from the ears. As you walk, especially barefoot, it sends shocks through the spine, which in turn causes the earphones to vibrate, sending small thuds through the ears. This is not very noticeable when something is playing or if you are wearing shoes, but it can be heard if you are walking barefoot without ringing.
A side effect of such large earphones is that they are delightful to take out of the case and put them inside your ears. Many TWS earbuds these days have tiny shapes that sink entirely inside the ears (like the Pixel Buds Pro), which leaves very little surface to cling to when inserting or removing the earbuds. There are no such problems on the TW-E7B, which can be gripped by all five fingers while wearing it.
Software
The TW-E7Bs are compatible with Yamaha’s Headphone Control app, available on iOS and Android. The app allows you to adjust audio, ANC features and update firmware.
Through the app you can control the equalization, which includes five-band adjustments. There is no frequency labeling, so you just have to fly close to the seat of your pants when adjusting. There are five presets with two custom slots.
There are two other audio options available here. Listening Care automatically adjusts the sound to lower volumes so that things like bass frequencies sound fuller. The Listening Optimizer feature uses the earphones’ internal microphones to monitor sound and adapt it to your ears and ambient noise on the fly.
You can also enable or disable ANC or turn on transparency mode, called Ambient Sound here.
A game mode has also been included, which claims to reduce latency.
Yamaha app for headphone control
Through the menus, you can also choose options to adjust the shutdown time and update the firmware.
The app has some problems. Each time it restarts, it must be manually connected to the earbuds even if the earbuds are already paired. Changing some of the audio options also causes an annoying crackling sound. Finally, the app simply didn’t work on iOS; even though the earbuds paired well, the app wouldn’t connect to them and kept saying “pairing failed”.
Performance
Audio quality
The Yamaha TW-E7B features single 10mm dynamic drivers. They support SBC, AAC, and aptX adaptive codecs with Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity, although there is no support for multi-device pairing.
The TW-E7B has a warm sound. Bass frequencies have generous sub-bass and mid-bass boost applied, which adds quite a bit of color to the sound despite Yamaha’s claims of authentic sound. To his credit, the tuning is more reserved than what you find in most other earphones on the market and the bass never gets overbearing. There’s a hint of bulge in the heavy bass tracks, but it’s not distracting.
Mid frequencies are generally well managed. The low-mid range is full-bodied and generous, giving good tonal characteristics to male vocals and percussion instruments.
Unfortunately, things go a little off the rails in the upper midrange, which is quite aggressive at times. Electronic music can be quite harsh, very advanced stringed instruments, and some female voices can crack ears and be overly nasal.
Things drift a little further, as the treble region is underrepresented. This creates a somewhat hazy and duller sound in parts of the frequency range. The highs are a bit choppy, however, so some frequencies come out well while others are particularly quiet.
Despite these shortcomings, the overall sound of the TW-E7B can be quite pleasant. The sound lacks consistency across the entire frequency range, but still works quite well in a broad music genre. Depending on the recording, it can sound a little V-shaped or just plain warm. The EQ helps smooth out some of the shortcomings in frequency response, but needed a few more bands (with labeling) for better results.
Technical performance is good. The sound appears reasonably detailed at times, no doubt aided by the general accentuation of the upper midrange. The picture is also decent with a so-so stage.
Microphone
The TW-E7B has mixed microphone performance. Voices sound natural and clear but are silent and require you to speak. Background noise suppression isn’t impressive either, and you hear a good portion of it on the other side.
Noise cancellation
The TW-E7B has poor active noise cancellation. Enabling the feature mostly eliminates the low-end rumble in the background. The only attenuation of the mid and high frequencies comes from the passive isolation of the grommets, with the ANC function making no difference in this range.
Attempting to use these earphones on a flight provided poor results, with only a slight improvement in background noise isolation compared to using earphones without ANC. I’d still leave the feature on to get rid of some of the background hum and rumble, but that’s all you can expect from these.
The Transparency or Ambient Sound mode is equally disappointing. It will bring in external sound but the sound is very artificial. It’s not about sounding natural like on the AirPods Pro, but rather about accentuating parts of the sounds around you so you can hear them clearly. This means it’s usable if you just want to briefly feel something around you but isn’t suitable for being left enabled.
Latency
The TW-E7B has good latency performance. When testing with AAC on an iPhone, video playback latency was exceptional, with no noticeable delays in video and audio. aptX Adaptive was oddly a bit slower on Android, with noticeable but still low overall lag. It would sometimes lose sync on Android too, but it was rock solid on iPhone.
Connectivity
The TW-E7B had excellent connectivity performance. There were no dropouts or connection problems when testing with an Android phone or iPhone. The aforementioned pairing issue on the iPhone was also an app-only issue as the earbuds otherwise worked fine with the phone.
Battery
The TW-E7B has a claimed battery life of 6 hours with ANC enabled for audio playback. Yamaha’s claim is correct in this case, as the TW-E7B lasted exactly 6 hours during my tests with ANC enabled and using aptX Adaptive.
Conclusion
Even at the currently discounted price of $ 250, the Yamaha TW-E7B is a tough sell. They have good audio quality, good comfort, decent battery life, and good design. However, the ANC’s performance leaves a lot to be desired, which in this price range is a cardinal sin, especially considering the competition’s pedigree. Plus, most of them have good audio quality too, so Yamaha isn’t breaking new ground here.
At around $ 100 less, the TW-E7B could possibly be a case for itself based on its specs, especially audio performance. However, at the current price, they cannot be recommended over more experienced competitors.
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