SOUNDPEATS 4+

TL;DR: all app features, including basic device setup, are hidden behind a login wall that doesn’t work. Literally impossible to even set up earbuds as advertised. Got new earbuds. Exciting! There’s an app, like other brands. Great. There’s a login to use the app and access all features including sound, controls, firmware etc. Weird but okay. Except… Tried to make a login within the app. “Please enter password correctly.” No instruction as to what this means. Failed to create account. But look! You can use Apple to log in! No, you can’t; it just gives an error message when you try. So I successfully make a login at their website. Success! Except no. Back in the app, I put in my login information and all I get is “please enter password correctly.” Will need to return earbuds since I cannot even set them up.

This app is required for firmware updates and equalizer control of the SoundPEATS Air 4 ear buds. The app is a complete steaming pile. Why should I have to register to use the app with the headphones? It should just allow me to do the needed things without intruding on my privacy. In either case, it doesn’t matter since the app will not allow me to enter a password on the registration screen; it just tells me the password is in the wrong format regardless of what I enter. So, no firmware updates and the Air 4 buds will continue to sound like crap because I can’t adjust the equalization. I would rate this a zero star if I could.

The app does work. What prompted me to write this review is that the custom equalizer high frequency bands are clearly erroneously mislabeled. Above 1.6khz we have 320 and then 80? Presumably this should say 3.2khz and 8khz but that would still be worrying because the range of hearing and most earbuds frequency reproduction reaches 20khz (or almost). The equalizer seems to do an OK job, or so I thought - now messing with those high frequency bands isn’t producing any audible change. Even someone with no recording engineering background should hear difference when it goes all the way down! This is absurd, maybe the labels are “correct” and reflect that this equalizer isn’t built right at all, it doesn’t affect high frequencies!