Tozo Open Buds Earbuds – Air Conduction HiFi Redemption
Tozo Open Buds is a 69 USD pair of TWS Bluetooth Open Ear Earbuds, which comes with adjustable angle for the earbud, waterproofing and Bluetooth 5.3 support, to match up with your active gym-infused lifestyle. Today we will take a deep dive in the sound, design and world of the Tozo Open Buds and see if they are worthy of becoming your next gym partner.
Introduction
Tozo is an entry-level Earbud / Earphone designer having a large number of cheap but effective products in their offer, usually focusing on delivering wearing comfort, and a casual, fun listening experience. As an Amazon Influencer, I earn from qualifying purchases, and using the purchase links in my reviews helps me maintain this website and Youtube Channel. Huge thanks to Tozo for providing the sample for this review, in exchange for my honest opinion.
PROs – Good comfort and a good fit, now with bi-axial adjustments, a mid centric sound that is warm and sweet with no harsh or fatiguing textures, and they offer a fair battery life and build quality. Thanks to its low price, it has a strong value.
Cons – Textures are almost non-existent, very smooth, bass rolls off below 40 Hz, treble rolls off above 14 kHz, and soundstage is rather small, with a compressed dynamic range.
Product Link
Amazon – https://amzn.to/40aeJy3
Aliexpress – https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_Dl4Nniz
Build Quality/Aesthetics/Fit/Comfort
Tozo Open Buds is the latest incarnation of the Tozo idea of offering a good experience for an entry-level price, and they come with a multi-angle adjustment, innovative biaxial rotation design, and this means that they should be able to adapt your head and ears much better than the average of Open Buds earphones. We have reviewed the Tozo Golden X1 TWS Earphones in the past, which were a normal pair of IEMS using silicone eartips, while the new Open Buds do not make contact with the ear canal, being perfect for those who cannot use silicone eartips for their earphones.
Sound is provided by the 14.2mm dynamic driver at the core of the Open Buds, and Tozo Origx 2.0 Acoustic Technology is what Tozo calls their processing to make the Open Buds work. The transport case is made of a very hard plastic and offers a strong protection for the Open Buds, while the buds themselves have around 12 hours of playback, the case has around 30 extra hours, so around 2 charges and a half extra.
To connect to your smartphone, Tozo Open Buds use a Bluetooth 5.3 protocol, but it is AAC and SBC without support for aptX or LDAC. There is a reset button inside of the transport case, and Tozo includes DSP Call Noise cancellation, along with IPX6 Water resistance for their Open Buds. Control is touch based, but the chance of a mis touch is minimal. Every time you take the Open Buds out of the case or put them back inside, you have to reset the angling and position of the ear hooks, as the case cannot accommodate them in the same way as you’re wearing them.
In my subjective experience, the earphones have a shorter battery life, of around 6 hours of playback, but I also found the Tozo Open Buds to be the first earbuds to date to have a proper comfort for my ears, they are the first to actually offer any kind of seal or allow me to push the earbuds close enough to my ears to actually hear the music properly. There is no passive noise isolation, as the sound can freely pass by the earbuds, and they leak your music a lot to the outside, but at least the wearing comfort is excellent, and I can see myself wearing them to the gym. These days I even forget some of the earphones I test are bluetooth, I have not had connection problems for a really long time now.
Call quality is decent, with the person on the other end not struggling to understand what I’m saying, and the shape / design of the open buds makes them perfect for taking long phone calls, but not ideal for taking important business phone calls.
Sound Quality
Overall Signature – While we have established that the Bluetooth source has an impact on the sonic performance of your setup, I cannot recommend testing with every smartphone, as a smartphone is more of a personal item than just a music player. I am using the Samsung S23 Ultra to power the Tozo Open Buds as it offers a fair Bluetooth sound, combined with a good reliability. The sound of the Tozo Open Buds is mid centric, with a warm bass, smooth and laid back midrange, and a smooth, softly rolled off treble above 14 kHz, but with a fair amount of energy and resolution below 14 kHz. The bass rolls off entirely below 40 hz, but has a good amount of energy starting with around 65 Hz if you angle the earbuds correctly. The maximum volume is extremely high for a pair of open buds, and Tozo Open Buds have a separate volume from the smartphone volume. You can hear a slight noise floor if no music is playing, or if you let the music play and set the phone volume to minimum, but the noise floor is only audible in an extremely quiet room with no music playing, and it disappears quickly if any noise is present in the room, or if music is playing.
Bass – Most Open Buds fail to deliver any kind of bass, which results in a hollow, empty sound, but Tozo Open Buds deliver one of the lowest-reaching bass, with a good presence starting with around 60 Hz, the bass having a warm, slow and pleasing tone. There’s a good amount of body and substance to music, and while the sub-bass is entirely absent, music does not sound hollow, and most closely resembles an older radio regarding the amount of bass it can present.
Midrange – The midrange is the focal part of the Tozo Open Buds’s signature, and it is a detailed, clean and pleasing midrange, with a musical tonality. Tonality emphasizes both male and female voices equally, giving both a happy, slightly poppy sound. There is a good amount of detail and resolution present with Tozo Open Buds rendering and revealing background information nicely, and present music fairly pleasing to the ear, revealing far more micro details than most of the open ear competitors. Upper treble has a bit more emphasis than the lower treble, making thinner and higher voices sound more pleasing.
Treble – If you’re looking for a really bright and airy treble, Tozo Open Buds can deliver it right to your ears, and if you don’t mind the presence rolling off after 14 kHz, Tozo Open Buds has a pretty energetic treble in the lower treble, but it is the airy / present type, and not the harsh and metallic type, and at times it is a bit too low in amount for my taste, especially when I’m listening to rock, metal and crisper music.
Dynamics / PRaT / Textures – I can hear a bit of compression in the dynamic range as Tozo Open Buds render both the quiet and the loud instruments at about the same volume, and sound is a bit on the flatter side, but I get a feeling they do this in a bid to overcome the limitations of the open ear design. Textures are all smooth, with no harshness or fatigue, sound flows freely, even rock and metal being really smooth, to the point where I would say there is too little texture in music most of the time.
Loudness Saturation Gradient – Sound changes with volume, at high volumes the sound becomes more detailed, the dynamic range increases but so does harshness and texture in music. I clearly favor listening at high volumes with the Open Buds, it creates a more fun, more revealing experience. The loudness is saturated more at the higher end, while at low end, it stays quite flat and neutral and Tozo Open Buds struggles a bit to reproduce quiet music well. The sound is best with normal music, as very loud music like tracks from Camellia reach the limit of Tozo’s dynamic range too.
Soundstage – The soundstage of the Tozo Open Buds is much smaller than that of most open buds, if you push the IEMs closer to your ear canal, which I recommend you do for all the other advantages. But it creates a small, forward soundstage with a strong focus on the lead / foreground instruments, while pushing the background instruments only slightly behind, creating an in-your-head and around-your-head listening experience.
Value and Conclusion
For the meager 69 USD price point, Tozo produced a good open ear earbud, with strong build quality and good comfort, and they are slowly overcoming the limitations and drawbacks of an open-ear design, so we can totally congratulate them, the Open Buds have a strong price / performance ratio, as long as you’re realistic about your expectations from an entry-level product.
At the end of the day, Tozo Open Buds is an excellent example of a good open-ear earphone, with more bass, better resolution than most of the competition and if you cannot wear IEMS that use a silicone or foam eartip for contact and seal, Tozo Open Buds can still accompany you to the gym and allow you to have a bit of fun with music there, thanks to both their uplifting sound and their loud maximum volume.
Product Link
Amazon – https://amzn.to/40aeJy3
Aliexpress – https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_Dl4Nniz
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Full Playlist used for this review
We listened to more songs than those named in this playlist, but those are excellent for identifying a sonic signature. I recommend trying most of the songs from this playlist, especially if you’re searching for new music! The playlists are different for Spotify, Tidal and Youtube, and based on the songs I enjoy and are available on each!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_cjBXGmwSHSdGcwuc_bKbBDGHL4QvYBu
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5J3oloz8Riy9LxEGenOjQ0?si=979ba4f082414be7
https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/330fd544-8e5b-4839-bd35-676b2edbb3d5
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