With most of their buds CMF tries to position itself as the higher end of the budget TWS earbud space. Recently tested the CMF Buds 2A and it’s a good bud but it didn’t really scratch that high end itch for me.
Now, I have the Buds 2 plus, lets see if it manages to be truly luxury on a dime.
Design
Out of the box and you can very well see the whole I’m better than the rest vibe. The carry case is very unique, nothing looks like it on the market and this scroll wheel here is a nice party trick that many people appreciate.
Never really been a fan of it to be honest, what’s it purpose, fidget spinner, nah, it lacks that clickity feel of a fidget spinner. But it’s got holes bored into it here maybe for a string to hold the bud – that works I guess.
The buds themselves carry on with the hip design language. It has a circle element that’s kinda analogous to the fidget spinner thingy on the case. Here it’s functional though, it’s the touch sensitive area for the touch inputs and because it’s a different texture to the surrounding area it’s easy to locate and use.
The two tone finish on the buds, glossy on the earbud and matte on the stalk is standard for buds in this segment. It’s very well executed on the Buds 2 Plus, giving it a premium and dare say classy look.
What you can’t really take away from CMF though is the quality of the build. From the carry case with this matte finish and it’s solid closing mechanism to the buds that just feel tight all round you can tell they didn’t cheap out, at least not too much in manufacturing this.
Certainly very obvious that these will stand the test of time.
Fit and comfortability
On a scale of 1-10 I’d give the Buds 2 plus an 8 as far as it concerns the fit. These sit in ear very nicely and I wasn’t really expecting it to be so.
My experience has been that when the earbud is glossy finished like it is on the Buds 2 Plus it tends to slip more than when it is matte as you’d find on buds like the QCY melobuds N70.
These did not, they fit snuggly and stayed in place even for extended periods.
Despite the buds looking a bit chunky they didn’t have that slightly uncomfortable feeling of fullness I’d experienced with the Melobuds N70 when in ear. Ear fatigue does set in albeit in the slightest when you have these on for long enough say three to four hours but it’s not to the level that it makes them truly unusable.
Features
On the Bud 2 Plus you get:
- HiRes LDAC audio, also SBC and AAC
- Active noise cancelation
- IP55 rating for water resistance
- Touch controls
- Proximity sensing
- Bluetooth 5.4
- Fast pair technology
Pretty much the feature list you’d expect for a bud trying to be what the Buds 2 plus are trying to be. Support for HiRes LDAC audio means these can stream audio at rates up to 990kbps for even better details.
Fast Pair Tech
Fast pair technology makes connecting to these buds very very easy and intuitive. I experienced fast pair tech first on the Buds 2A and was very impressed, on the Buds 2 Plus it’s still very impressive.
Phones automatically recognize the Buds 2 Plus once they’re closeby. Once paired, you can seamlessly connect the Buds 2 plus to other devices provided they are signed into the same Android account.
Touch Control
Touch controls work fairly decently. It’s sensitive and accurate enough. I didn’t get that many false touches, and with the circular design element that works as a center point for the touch panel you’re not going to be tapping all over when you want to skip to the next song.
IP55 Rating
These are IP55 rated for dust and water resistance. Most buds at this price point will have some sort of IP rating so this is not really a differentiating factor but it’s cool its included.
IP55 means this will handle all the sweat from your most intense workouts, or light rain showers or a dip in a cup of water. I hosed them down with my makeshift water resistance tester, held up well and worked flawlessly after I dried em up.
Active Noise Cancellation
On paper, the Buds 2 Plus are capable of handling background noise up to the 50dB level. Again that’s to be expected for a bud like the Bud 2 Plus – the Melobuds N70 for instance claims noise suppression in the 56dB range. In practice these were good enough to suppress background noise in my living room and outdoors in the park.
Also, even though this is rated for noise suppression up to 50dB I couldn’t really pick out any difference in the noise cancelling performance compared to buds with slightly higher suppression threshold.
Sound Quality
On first impression these appear to have a more balanced soundstage than the Buds 2A which were sort of bass upstaged. So you get mids, trebles and everything in between, plus bass in just the right proportion.
Bass is punchy although it didn’t come off to me with as much detail as I’d experienced on a bud like the Melobuds N70. This was especially apparent when I cranked up the volume, at mid to low volumes less so. Mids were great you get to experience a whole range of instrumentals with super clear detail and preciseness.
Trebles, great too. Both male and female vocals sounded super interesting with preserved details whatever the volume level on these.
Where I would say the Buds 2 Plus sort of comes short in my opinion is on the clarity front. Although the soundstage is very balanced, components are not 100% separated from each other especially when you crank up the volume. With that it’s hard to get the exact breadth, depth and detail off the listening experience especially when listening to songs with a high mix of everything.
Here’s me listening to Labour by Paris Poloma and there’s this hook midway in the song where you a get a symphony of the the artist’s vocals, tons of mids and a backing vocals overlay. On the Buds 2 plus it’s hard to catch that overlay or the mids in clear detail. It’s there but I know this can be better heard cos I’ve heard better on some of the buds I’ve tested.
Now this is me being very nitpicky, even buds like the QCY melobuds N70 don’t render that part of the song with enough details and those are good sounding buds (for some reason the Melobuds N60 do it superbly).
Overall the Buds 2 Plus sound great, if you’re not getting granular with the details, you’re gonna enjoy listening to most of your songs on these earbuds.
Call quality
These are great buds if all you’re thinking about is making calls with them. The mics on these work well to pick your voice up with enough clarity even in very noisy environments.
And because these have very good ANC too you’re not going to have any problems listening to the other party however noisy the environment you find yourself in is.
Do check out the YouTube video up top for a sample of how the mics sound.
Battery life
I was able to get up to 5 hours hours of active listening time on these, fairly standard for a bud in this segment. On standby I got up to 52 hours on its best days, some times its off before the 48 hour mark.
Battery life varies depending on whether you’ve got stuff like ANC on or not so not too surprised at the variance.
No wireless charging here and usually I don’t mind that because it’s hard to find buds in this category with wireless charging. However, I just recently tested the Melobuds N70 and those come with wireless charging, so no one, certainly no one charging upwards of 50 bucks a piece gets a pass anymore.
What’s good, what’s bad
What’s good
- Good design and build quality
- Great fit and comfort rating
- Good battery life
- Good sound quality
What’s bad
- Pricing – Fact of the matter is you can get better for less in the current market.
Should you buy the CMF Buds 2 Plus
Great buds no doubt and in another world where we don’t have the extensive selection of TWS buds, I’d probably recommend these. But the fact of the matter is you can get better for cheaper.
The 1More Q21 is a great start if you’re looking at very cheap, barebones ear bud with comparable sound quality.
If you want to go fancier QCY’s recent N70 has a better feature list (bluetooth 6.0, 52dB rated ANC, wireless charging) and sounds slightly better than this in my opinion all at a similar price point.
Not sure why I’ve never been truly impressed by a Nothing earbud, I’m starting to think I have some form of repressed hate against them – gotta see my shrink. I’ll update you guys how that goes in my next video.
