Denon PerL Pro True In Ear Wireless Earbuds, Personalised Sound Profile, Noise Cancelling Earbuds, Water Resistant Earphones, with Built in Microphones and Long Battery Life, Black

Pros: - good app for customisation of sound and touch functions - fantastic sound once tuned - comfortable fit - decent battery life - quality construction - noise cancellation very good Cons: - need the app to tune these to your ears as the sound quality out of the box is poor - large looking

Denon Perl Pro review: I would consider myself an audiophile. My life has revolved around a combination of music production, headphone collection and earphone/earbuds collection. I’ve spent 100’s and 100’s of hours A-B comparing different headphones and earphones over the years. My favourite earbuds for quite a long time were my Technics AZ70. These were then displaced from the top spot (only marginally) by the Technics AZ80. Then I got these Denons to give them a whirl. I wasn’t overly convinced that they’d be capable of bettering the Technics, despite all the good reviews I’d read. Well they have. Compared to both the Technics: models: 1. They go louder 2. Have a slightly wider and taller soundstage 3. Have smidge higher resolution 4. Better bass (they have a greater deep bass rumble and can deliver more punch in the mid-bass region). Now, it’s important to note that, in order to achieve the above, you must do the ‘hearing test’ and possibly perform it two or three times (saving them within the three slots provided), then choose the best one. I have spacial audio enabled, as this helps the soundstage. If you like what the spacial audio does - great. I’d recommend leaving the EQ setting until the end of the process. An interesting thing that I found was that there’s a span of about 10/15 seconds in one of my ambient remixes where the sound is quiet and low+high mids focused (no bass line element and just a little treble) before the main melody kicks in. Using any of my other earbuds, you’d think that all there was present in the recording were these high and low mids (plus the slight treble from percussion). Except…these Denon’s show clearly that within that section of music, there’s also a very low frequency bass element. It’s too low a frequency to properly hear it. It’s more something you feel. And you do. This is completely absent on all my other earbuds, including the Technics. My clear conclusion from this is that these earbuds go down deeper than the others. Comfort-wise, I like them. I have mid-sized ears and use the Medium size tips. I often prefer memory foam ones, but not with these earbuds - the silicon tips do them a lot of justice. I don’t use the wing-tips that they come with and they’re secure enough in my ears (once inserted properly with a slight twisting action). Some people will be put off by the flat round shape of them. But I like the design. With the bulk of the weight (centre of gravity) closer to your ears, my impression is that there’s a slightly lower leverage force downwards on the outside. In physics we trust. Anyway, I’ve had no problems at all with Bluetooth stability and connection strength, and the noise cancelling is good enough for me. Ultimately though, I buy earbuds, earphones and headphones principally for the audio quality. And these earbuds are a definite keeper. So impressed, I bought two (at a time when the price was reduced). Ordered one of each colour and swapped the earbuds over to get a nice contrast going…

There are so many things to love about these headphones! My Jabras finally broke and thought let's try em all, after 15 different product test this unknown brand (to me) won me over. The sound is absolutely incredible, the sound personalization actually creates a personalized, differentiated sound. I am a fan of the shape, they fit well in your ears and create a nice fit. I have smaller ears and I've been struggling to find something that fits and creates a proper seal. The look, design, all of it feels like it was built for someone who loves sound. It's not just another Bose or airpod look alike. The app isn't ugly nor is it difficult to use. Last but not least the mics are great and it keeps sound down to minimum for anyone speaking to me. The not so great - there are some Bluetooth connection issues, it does drop. I have been sat on a tube when suddenly my music is blaring thru phone speakers for some weird reason. It doesn't happen consistently but it has happened often enough to notice. Also sometimes the app doesn't think your headphones are connected when they are - sometimes opening the app can cut a currently working Bluetooth connection. Really odd left ear bud battery issue the second week of ownership. Somehow the battery was not charging. I had tried for about 8 hours to charge the left ear bud. I cleaned it, I reset it, I followed all the troubleshooting steps, and it was on the official charging cord. It was doing nothing. I was travelling on holiday came back home and magically the left ear bud had charged fully. The ANC is adequate. Overall from the sound perspective, the fit, the mic these shine but the flakey connection, okay anc, weird charging problems, the price is excessive. For me the sound quality is so good that I can tolerate the sting but if given the choice I would wait for a price drop.

I used Sony WF-1000XM3, Sony WF-1000XM4, and Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 3. When the batteries of the latter went bad, I started looking for a replacement. I initially got the Technics AZ80, but I found that the sound quality was below that of my Sennheisers. Also controlling volume was a bit awkward. I did like the smaller case, and the fit was quite good as well. But sound quality comes first for me, and for that reason I returned them. Then I purchased both the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4, and these ones. The Sennheisers sounded like I was used to with the MTW3s, but these are quite simply on another level. After AAT tuning, it is safe to say that they are like no earbuds I have tried before. The organisation, instrument separation, delicacy... is just way better. Additionally, the fit is better than the Sennheisers as well. The only downside is that they are a bit large, and so is the case. But for me, that is totally worth it. There may be better sounding buds like the Bowers & Wilkins Pi8, but they are more expensive as well, and the fit is probably not as good. Noise cancellation performance is good as well. Maybe not best in class, but I think it is better than my MTW3s, so I'm good with that. Transparency mode works fine too. Again, maybe not the best, but these are earbuds; as far as I'm concerned, that means they are made to enjoy music. And they let me do that incredibly well. I haven't tested call quality, but again, that's like... a 2% use case, maybe. the other 98% is about listening to music.

I have to confess I nearly gave up with these. Initially I had difficulty getting them to stay in. When I did I wasn't impressed with the noise cancelling. However - I tried every combination in the buds and wings and eventually found a good fit. Then I discovered you could toggle the noise cancelling on and off by tapping the buds and I'd turned it off by mistake. Go into the App menu and you can customise the way taps work the features. I switched off the noise cancelling tap. Now they are pretty much perfect. The personalised audio is really good, making it sound the very best for your ears. I hear things in music I'd never heard before - a singer taking a breath, backing vocalists I never knew were there, words that were a muffle are now a word. The noise cancelling works pretty well too - enough to cancel the noise of traffic etc. If you buy a set and feel disappointed persevere - once you have tweaked the options in the app menu, gone almost nuts getting the right combination of buds, you'll be rewarded with wonderful sounds and perfect connection. I've never lost the Bluetooth signal. I'm now very happy.

The one star rating represents my overall experience with the Denon Perl Pros. Let me begin with the only positive and this is the quality of the audio. It is excellent for wireless ear buds, the bass is goose bumps level of good, soundstage is wide, excellent separation and detail. The personalised audio seems more like a gimmick, nevertheless the sound is better with it turned on. I really wanted to love these earbuds, but they won’t let me. My first pair I returned immediately, the right ear bud was making “purrr” sounds when producing bass on certain genres like Hip Hop or electronic. I thought it was defect, feeling unlucky I sent it back, then ordered another one thinking it’s just QC issue. My second Perl Pros came, did not have the same problem. While I did get good seal, but not a great fit I was ready to make some sacrifices as I really like the sound signature. It’s been 5 months now and I regret this so much, my ears hurt after more than an hour of listening and I don’t feel secure. I am very careful around drains, toilets and train tracks. I would never wear while cycling. ANC worked well, I was very impressed in the beginning, it felt great while on the train and in public, until it stopped working. There is absolutely no difference with it turned on or off at the moment. Happened at around month 2 of owning them. I use Spotify, almost always when I pause the song and need to put transparency mode on via the Perl Pros controls(single tap) on the return it turnes transparency off, but doesn’t resume playing the mf song. This means I have to pull out my phone and do it from there. Annoying AF! Sometimes transparency only turns off on one ear bud, which means I have to put them back in then case and reconnect to fix this. Makes me want to smash them in the ground and stomp on them, but then I remember how much I paid for them. I think alongside my high salt intake these earbuds are another solid reason my blood pressure is high. Battery life is mediocre. 5 hours at most. Sometimes the case doesn’t fully charge, I am sometimes getting two recharges, sometimes four from 0% to 100%. The inconsistency! Sometimes only one ear buds charged. Very annoying to find this out when you are about to wear them, I.e entering the gym. I remember people complaining on a thread about white/static noise and I commented that I don’t have it on mine. Well a couple of months later I noticed that I now have it too. I can’t hear it when music is playing, but still, these are supposed to be premium quality. When someone is calling me while I’m listening to music, I get nothing in my earbuds until I answer. My phone rings, which I can’t hear trough the music, I am sometimes able to feel the vibration in my pocket and answer, sometimes the phone is in my backpack and it’s a missed call. I do get other notifications sounds in the Perl Pros like email and some apps like discord, but not phone calls. I am now outside the return window and cannot return, so I am on a mission to tell everyone who is considering these buds to just NOT.

Once set up with the App the sound is deep and very good the App fit to ear is also a great process. Sadly my left ear bud would not charge beyond 35% next day! Tried to do a return exchange but Amazon would only do return refund. The item is now listed £25 more expensive since purchase three days ago - due to this quality issue and price increase i wont buy these again and will purchase another brand instead.

The Good: Really nice sound. Clear differentiation between different instruments and track elements. Comfortable to wear. The storage box is feels sturdy. The automatic audio tuning is a marvel of modern technology; this feature has to be used to get the best out of these earbuds. I expect these earbuds to last me quite some time. The Bad: Why don't earbud manufacturers make storage cases with ejector buttons for the earbuds? Your guess is as good as mine. The earbuds are held in place magnetically. It can be fiddly to get them out of the case. I say that as someone with good dexterity. The Ugly: The control app works well but needs a few tweaks. The app can only be installed onto an Android / iOS device. This limits the app's usage to phones or tablets (I've not tried it on a tablet yet), or a user could install Android into a virtual machine (emulator/hypervisor). We need an app that works on desktop, laptop or smart devices like an Amazon Echo. Another issue with the app is that an account needs to be registered with Denon before it can be used and each time the app is restarted the account needs to be logged into. Why does the app need my name, my age and my gender? It shouldn't need any info about me. And why does the app sync with the Denon cloud service? I'm sure it does not need to do that in order to help me control my earbuds. Overall I am very happy with these earbuds. They are comfortable. They sound good. They look smart. I just wish the app could be installed onto a wider range of devices and OSs and that it did not require me to sign in to Denon's cloud service each time I want to manage my earbuds.