So, I just got the XM6 earbuds, and if you were like me and debating if to get these or not…do it. They are phenomenal.
The ANC is so impressive, and they’re more comfortable than they look. Microphone for phone calls is next level and people can’t tell I’m talking to them through earbuds. Audio quality is top tier and when they say these step into audiophile territory, I can confirm these absolutely hit!
Great job Sony! 👏
Here’s my quick review of the Samsung Galaxy Buds 4 Pro – what are Samsung doing?
They absolutely nailed the Buds 2 Pro, then flopped hard with the Buds 3 Pro (godawful build quality, muddy sound, and glitchy everything else).
Now, with the Buds 4 Pro, they’ve kind of gone back to their roots with a Buds 2 Pro style case and buds just with a stem.
Sound quality has certainly improved, but it still comes across as overly bass-heavy and muddy. In turn, some mid-to-high tones can be ear-piercing at times. The app EQ is decent for tweaking this, but I just couldn’t get it right, so the audio always felt off and muddy to me.
ANC is okay…that’s it. Maybe a hair better than the Buds 2 Pro. It blocks enough lows and mids, but I could still hear the air conditioning rumbling in my office, and voices/high tones leak through similarly to the Buds 2 and 3.
Transparency / Adaptive mode is where these lost me completely. The hissing and white noise. Oh my days! This would give me a migraine after just a few minutes and completely ruined the buds for me. I could also hear my own voice way too loudly, like it was channeling back into my ears through the buds, which is extremely distracting during phone calls.
Something that I’m surprised more people aren’t complaining about is the audio shifting between earbuds in real time. This was super prominent in the Buds 3 and also exists in the Buds 4, but not in the Buds 2. Often when listening to podcasts, TV shows, or movies, voices and deeper tones would shift between earbuds - mostly to the left bud, making the right bud sound quieter. It was always random and didn’t happen every time, but the issue exists and can be very distracting, to the point where I’d just get frustrated and take them out.
Conclusion
The Buds 4 Pro aren’t inherently bad, but they also aren’t great and certainly not worth the price tag. When compared to devices like the WF-1000XM6 or Apple AirPods Pro 3, these issues simply don’t exist; the quality is in a completely different league. The Buds 4 Pro are being marketed to compete with them, but they’re just not there.
They’d need to be at least half the price to justify the quality-to-price ratio, and even then, maybe they’d be worth it. I’m finding it hard to recommend them. Perhaps people just “deal” with these issues and accept them as normal, or maybe a firmware update will fix them later… maybe, maybe not. I’m not inclined to trust that it will.
I think Samsung has gotten so busy copying Apple and their ecosystem that they’ve lost sight of the roots of their device quality, design, and overall user experience.
That’s my 2c. Take it or leave it. 😊