Brainwavz BLU-Delta

[testman78]

Introduction

A company known for making neutral-sounding in-ear monitors (IEMs), Brainwavz is again foraying into making Bluetooth earphones. It makes perfect sense for Brainwavz to bring its expertise to the wireless audio space because the demand for such peripherals is on the rise. People want to be rid of wires.With the Blu-Delta, Brainwavz promises a full-bodied sound with punchy bass and that too at a bargain. Let's find out if the attempt impresses us.



Specifications.




Packaging & Contents

Brainwavz BLU-Delta come in the black and white packaging.



One thing I point out in almost every Brainwavz review and one I have no qualms about pointing out time and time again is the beautiful and sturdy case Brainwavz provides with their earphones.The case is both practical as its very hard and protects your earphone easily. And it looks great to boot! Honestly, I haven't seen a better case in the budget arena ever! Some of the more expensive earphones provide more beautiful cases but most of those aren't terribly practical. This one is both beauty and brains!



The BLU-Delta comes with a manual and 3 sets of silicone ear tips in small, medium and large sizes and 1 set of Comply foam tips for added comfort and enjoyable listening.



In the box, you also get a Micro-USB cable for charging.



The included cable clip provide for an even more secure fit.




A Closer Look

Design- and material-wise, the BLU-Delta is well executed. Its metal casings look great and seem pretty durable. The short cable that connects the two ear pieces is equally well made and feels like that of other Brainwavz in-ears despite probably having a few more leads in it.



Brainwavz clearly designed the cable solution with a behind-the-head route in mind. The small adjuster allows you to take up slack, which is essential if you plan on exercising with it.



The remote has three dots for the play/pause, next/forward and previous/rewind buttons. These buttons have decent tactile feedback and are easy to locate as well.



The Micro-USB charging port is covered by a rubber flap on the side of the remote



The Blu-Delta uses two 8mm dynamic drivers and has an impedance of 16 Ohms. It operates in the frequency range of 20-20,000Hz. Sound is receivedover Bluetooth 4.1 and there is support for the apt-X codec as well. The Blu-Delta can pair with two devices at once.



There is a small metal grill that protects the drivers from debris through the canal. Since it is made of metal, you can clean it, but whether these are better than the user-replaceable filt covers is up for debate.




Performance

The earbuds fit perfectly in our ears, especially with the Comply Foam 400 tips that Brainwavz bundles with the Blu-Delta.Pairing a source device to the Blu-Delta is a fairly simple process and once the connection is established the device remembers it for future connections.



We used an iPhone 7 over regular Bluetooth 4.1, and an HTC One (M8) which streams audio using the aptX codec. Two of our test tracks were Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve and Avicii's Wake Me Up. Unsurprisingly, the Blu-Delta had more spunk when we used it with the HTC One (M8) thanks to the aptX support. The highs started sounding a little more bright and the clarity improved by a great margin. Your listening experience will definitely be enhanced if you have an aptX-enabled device. That's not to say the Blu-Delta didn't sound great on the iPhone-it is just a different sound. If you are going to be watching videos, the Blu-Delta is also pretty good thanks to its really good mid-range response.The sound stage is pretty cramped, which you would only notice while sitting still for a critical listen in a quiet environment. Tuning is definitely geared more toward a decent bass response, which is a good call by Brainwavz as the BLU-Delta will probably be used on-the-go or while out exercising. The bass is big and powerful and goes surprisingly low.The sound quality is as you would expect of a $50ish set of wired in-ears, which is pretty good considering this is a wireless-ish offering.Thanks to the solid built-in microphone, the BLU-Delta worked perfectly when used for making phone calls.Brainwavz claims that the Blu-Delta can last 8 hours on a single charge and it takes two hours to charge the battery fully. In our time with the earphones we managed around 7 hours of playback before the battery completely ran out of juice. The microphone was decent for calls and we faced no connection drops during testing.




Final Thoughts

Brainwavz managed to pull off yet another product that balances sound quality, price, and portability well. The design not only looks great, but feels great, which has a large impact on its performance. It does take a little time to get used to routing the cable, but that is largely down to me being used to having a y-split somewhere in the mix to tie the cable down to.After taking them for a few runs and using them while messing about with various bits of gear, this in-ear has proven itself. The sound quality is good enough, and with its entertaining bassy nature, it is great company for a run or on the go.



We quite like the neutral, laidback sound of the Blu-Delta, and would easily recommend it to anyone looking for a no-frills pair of Bluetooth earphones. Moreover, the price of the Blu-Delta is its biggest advantage ($49.50) .We can't think of any competitor that can match up to the level of the Blu-Delta at this price.