IT Blog | Mr. HiTech Tech Blog

Plus, there’s a new less expensive option that’s only slightly dialed down in terms of capabilities Master & Dynamic has two new sets of truly wireless earbuds for 2019: the MW07 Plus, a direct follow-up to last year’s MW07, and the MW07 Go, a brand-new $199 entry that will appeal to those who are looking for a slightly more affordable set of wireless earbuds. The MW07 Plus buds headline M&D’s pair of announcements, and at $299, it’s the same high price as the original MW07. Based on looks alone, it might appear that not much has changed. Each ear piece is still capped in a premium pearlescent design, and they ship in a heavy, glossy stainless steel case that looks luscious when it’s brand new, but will almost certainly get scratched up when it’s not tucked into the included cloth pouch. M&D states that these use the same 10mm beryllium drivers from the previous model (which are still fantastic), but a few new features might make their high price an easier sell. These support active noise cancellation, activated by tapping and holding the volume up button on the left earbud. They also feature an ambient listening mode to let you hear what’s happening around you, switched on by pressing the volume down button for a few seconds. In the few days that I was able to test out the MW07 Plus, both features made the experience better than before, and surprisingly, neither negatively impacted the sound quality. Granted, these features aren’t as robust in their ability to isolate you from your environment like what you’d experience in a set of over-ear headphones, but they’re effective enough at dampening most of the debilitating whirring and grinding of trains passing through a subway station. They also do a good job of silencing chatter and clattering train noises when I’m on my commute so I can focus on my music, or so I can focus on a book with some silence when my music is paused. I haven’t been on a flight with these earbuds yet, so I can’t speak to how they’d hold up on a plane. But short of using them to get sleep, the noise-canceling effect seems sufficient enough to at least hush the whir of airplane engines while you’re watching a movie or listening to music. Part of why the noise cancellation works so well here may be because M&D doubled the amount of microphones in the MW07 Plus to four. I’ve used M&D’s over-ear headphones before, and one of the things that I enjoy most about them is their attack. They aren’t going for a balanced, neutral sound. Instead, music sounds energized, with the mids and highs seemingly amped up in unison to make for an exciting listen. Surprisingly, very little from that sound profile has been lost in translation to the truly wireless headphones form factor. My favorite songs are richly presented, and again, the noise-cancellation feature is surprisingly effective at dimming down some of the ambient
Read More