I’ve had my hands full with a couple buds from Roseselsa including this one I have right now the Ceramics MK2. Roseselsa makes some interesting buds, the MK2, what I have here, has this bud look which is not something you’d see very frequently these days – most manufacturers right now just opt for the bud on a stick form factor.
Anyway, they look good on first impression. Not quite sure why this form factor went out of vogue and today I’ll be dissecting the MK2 to see if every other thing about it is good or perhaps great as well.
Design
This bud style design is Kinda refreshing to see cause I do think these are more stealthy if you compare them to the now popular bud on a stick look.
The buds themselves look and feel very premium. Love the metal detail they have, I’m sure it serves no purpose but it’s a really good look. There’s some brand lettering on the outer surface and usually I’m not a fan of that but it’s in very tiny print and in a weird or should I say surprising way it makes these look more sophisticated. Usually it’s the other way round with brand lettering – they make buds look tacky.
Build quality is great, no overlapping panels or space between panels like the stuff you’d see on the Soundpeats C30. In fact in low light, which was what I had when I first tested these it looks and feels like the whole bud is crafted from one solid piece of plastic. If you look closer though you can see the joint between the two parts of the plastic that makes the composite outer shell.
The case has a solid feel to it as well. Opens and closes with a premium thunk and no wobbles or creaky sounds when put to the stress test.
One nice touch is it seems like the case is made from thesame solid looking material as the buds, certainly feels that way to touch.
Fit and comfortability
Overall the fit is secure although you’ll need to push these way more in ear to achieve a tight fit.
That has implications for comoftability because the mere fact that these seat deeper in ear means they elicit that feeling of fullness more than the typical bud on a stick earbud. But it’s not that bad, I’d say it just takes some getting used to especially if your last earbuds were bud on a stick.
Even though the fit is secure enough for walking around the house and stuff like that, these are not the first buds I’d pick if I wanted to do a workout routine, certainly not the buds for jogging or running.
They weigh about 4.3 grams so on the lighter end of buds in these category. I’d say they were more comfortable overtime than I’d expected given their form factor. You’ll get some ear fatigue if you use this for long enough, anything from the 2nd hour but that’s to be expected for an in ear bud.
Feature list
These buds come with support for:
- LDAC audio
- Active noise cancellation
- An IPX4 rating
- Bluetooth 6.0
- Touch controls
The typical stuff.you’d expect from a bud at this price point. It’s missing fast pair tech and usually I’d give a pass for buds in these category that were made anything from early last year and back but these were released late last year or early this year, not quite sure but they’re recent gen buds from Ceramics. No wireless charging too but only outlier buds like the Melobuds N70 have that in this category.
Active noise cancellation
ANC on these buds was good I would say. It has a 40db rated suppression system according to Ceramics and while that’s lesser so to speak, than what you’d get on recent gen buds like the N70 or N60 or even older stuff like the CMF buds Pro 2, in my experience it did perform at a similar level to those buds. Was certainly better than the supposedly better system on the Soundpeats C30.
In my living room it was great at filtering off TV sounds and background talk – suppressed TV sound even to the 70% volume level which is what I got when testing the 56dB system on the Melobuds N70.
Outdoors and again it was quite good at blocking off background chatter and pretty much every other type of noise. High pitched noise, something like birds chirping gets through quite easily though but that’s something I’ve observed with pretty much every ANC system on buds in this category.
I think this good to great noise cancelation performance even though this has a lesser rated noise suppression system is mainly down to the tight ear tip fit (because you have to push these deep into your ear) and the good seal it creates. In any case, if ANC is your primary concern, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed with the MK2.
IPX4
The IPX4 on these mean they can handle light water splashes, sweat from a workout or maybe a dip in the swimming pool but I won’t recommend using them for that.
Not up to par with what you’d get on something like the Melobuds Pro which has an IPX5 rating but the difference in real world terms between these ratings is not so much – for the water resistance scenarios you’re likely to subject these to, it’s hard to tell apart how IPX5 outperforms IPX4.
Bluetooth 6.0
Bluetooth 6.0 This is pretty much standard at this point for buds released this year. Basically every recent gen TWS earbud ships with this so not so much a differentiating factor
Touch controls
For touch controls, I’d say the touch sensitive area on the MK2 is wide enough, probably wider than anything I’ve tested recently. It’s responsive and accurate overall.
I didn’t have any issues with using it to control my music playback.
Sound quality
Now to the meat of the matter, sound quality, the overall tuning on these come off to me to be treble leaning but not really in a way that makes it unbalanced. It definitely has a decent amount of bass and mids, just that the detail on the sub bass is a little bit thin if you ask me. Mid bass, upper bass, still very very good.
The detail on the mids is okayish, I would say it’s not as warm as buds like the CMF buds Pro 2 but overall these manage to deliver very clear and ‘sharp’ sounding instrumentals to make for an engaging listening experience. And that applies to the vocals as well, I think the presentation of vocals on these buds is one of their stronger points, it’s clear and very precise, which is what you’d expect since these buds come off as being treble biased.
The emphasis on trebles does add a bit of ‘shimmer’ to the overall sound profile similar to what you’d find on buds like the Oneplus Buds 3. It’s such that the overall texture or timbre if you like is a little bit dialed down, and somehow this just works to make the soundstage feel kinda open.
I like it, certainly doesn’t sound as compressed or muddy like the Soundpeats C30 but if you’re the type that wants a ‘deeper’ music listening experience, with very deep bass, then these might not be the best suited buds for you.
Call quality
As far as the sound quality on calls goes, these are great. The 40db ANC system paired to how deep these seat in ear make them great at taking calls in pretty much any conventional setting. The audio quality of the mic is decent as well and it works good even in very noisy settings. You can check the YouTube vid up top for samples of the mic quality.
Roseselsa Link App
You can adjust the sound profile with the EQ settings on the Roseselsa link app as well as customize the ANC mode. For ANC there’s like four main settings; ANC on/of, wind, normal and transparent.
ANC on toggles the default ANC system on, wind is what you want if you’re outdoors in windy environments like say in a car with the windows down and such. Normal turns of ANC and transparent makes it easier to hear what’s going in the background even with ANC on – so good for outdoor walks where you need to be conscious about traffic.
You can also adjust the intensity of the ANC with the noise reduction level tab. There are three options deep, moderate and light, I just found myself using the deep setting most times.
Overall I’d say the app is very clean and minimalist which is a nice touch especially when you consider the bloatware that is some companion app like that from QCY. Very impressively this doesn’t ask for your email or any sign up information for that matter, when you open the app.
I don’t know how to express how impressed I am by this, because practically every other cheap earbud manufacturer attempts to farm your email, some will even flood you with marketing material both in app and via your inbox. Thank you Roseselsa.
Battery life
For a bud at this price point you’re expecting anywhere between 5-6 hours of active listening even with ANC on and in my tests these lived up to that expectation. Without ANC these can stay on for up to 8 hours.
Charging is via the provided USB C cable. No wireless charging but I think only the Melobuds N70 has that on board in this price category.
What’s good, what’s bad
What’s good
- Good design
- Good audio quality
- Great battery life
What’s bad
I’d say nothing really, it’s hard to pick one thing to say yeah this is where the MK2 definitively falls short. Maybe the pricing, I think these retail for about 30 bucks on a good day and that’s money enough for the QCY Melobuds N60, which I think is a better buy than this.
Should you buy the Roseselsa Ceramics MK2?
You know when they say someone or someperson is the average Joe, yeah, for me the MK2 is an average Joe as far as budget TWS earbuds are concerned. Not a bad bud, does almost everything alright and is priced decently as well, but if you were to ask me what makes these bud stand out you’re gonna have me scratching my head to answer that.
Probably the design? It’s hard to come across good or decent buds in this form factor these days and it’s a form factor I kinda dig – subtle and undercover if you like.
If you want a bud that looks like this and ticks all the other relevant check boxes then yeah, you should consider the MK2. Otherwise there’s a huge selection of budget TWS earbuds that stand out in many good ways with some of them even cheaper than this.
