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Yamaha is trying to carve a niche in the TWS space all over again since they re-entered the wireless headphones market in November 2019. The Yamaha TW-E5B is one of the latest products in the lineup and here’s how it fares.
Experience
The Yamaha TW-E5B
The Yamaha TW-E5B is built out of plastic and has a matte finish to the earbuds, which makes it easy to hold in one’s hand. The fit on the ear was just right and didn’t feel like it would fall down at a moment’s notice when I wore it for extended stretches during the day.
I was able to tune the sound profile of the earbuds using Yamaha’s ‘Headphone control’ app. The app looks very basic, displaying the earbuds’ battery level, equaliser, and mode options.
While the E5B has buttons on top of the earpieces, they are a little hard to locate if you’re using the earbuds for the first time.
I could pause the audio with the function key on the left earbud and increase the volume of the track using the volume keys on the right earbud, and with a long press on the function along with the volume (+) button i could enter pairing mode.
Sound Quality
The E5B features a dynamic 7 mm driver along with support for Bluetooth 5.2 and SBC, AAC, and Qualcomm aptX Adaptive, which gives the user the whole lot of audio codecs that will give you the best in terms of bandwidth and quality.
There is a clear emphasis on being able to hear the vocals quite clearly and this device delivers on that front with clear audio during those long binge-watch sessions of the tv series, NCIS.
While the E5B doesn’t have Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), the earpieces are a good example of how efficient design can deliver excellent audio, no matter which device you are using it with.
Its ambient sound offers a decent rendition of transparency mode, but since these aren’t ANC headphones, they won’t be able to give you the “plug-in, tune out” experience that other ANC-enabled earbuds offer.
The Yamaha E5B is ideal for those looking to have an earpiece to make calls on a daily basis. It’s ideal for standard voice calls with both ends sounding clear, but I did face latency issues with the device connected to the laptop for VOIP calls. The gaming mode helps bring down the latency and audio sync issues while gaming and watching videos, but I couldn’t find a perceivable difference when turning on the mode on the app and using it with videos on the desktop or mobile.
Battery life
The Yamaha TW-E5B | Photo Credit: Siddharth MC
Battery life on the E5B was above average with a two-hour session on the headphone bringing down the battery from 100 per cent to 80 per cent, which means it easily comes close to its promised battery life of 8.5 hours.
The headphone’s battery life was impressive considering how often the headphone was away from the case.
Conclusion
While the Yamaha TW-E5B is a decent pair of earbuds, the lack of active noise cancellation and multi-point device support makes it hard to justify itsprice tag. While the emphasis on clear audio and vocals might be desirable, it might not exactly be a deal-clincher.
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