To make high sales and profits in the market, product perfection is significantly essential. However, in reality, it is challenging to offer products to the market that makes popular public image and give satisfaction to high consumer involvement, all together. So, most manufacturers make rational decisions by produce products with minimally acceptable quality. However, there always exist exceptional cases in every area. Let me talk about one of the manufacturer brands who care about both.
‘Mobifren’ has always been with the history of Wireless earphones in Korea. They released small Bluetooth transmitters compatible with smartphones in 2009 and already had technology high enough to be doing S.Q.A. (Software Quality Assurance) services to Samsung electronics. Not long ago, they put some items on Amazon to enter the North America market. Fortunately, I have a great chance to try one of the products and introduce them to internationals for the first time. The product is named as ‘Flex-L Air’ (MFB-NB7100A).
‘Flex-L Air’ is not of the TWS (True Wireless Stereo) type, so it is easy to be misunderstood as an anachronistic product. ‘Mobifren’ is said to have found that many consumers who prefer neck-band wireless earphone products still exist in the market by statistic research. Flex L series was designed to meet these consumers by incorporating the latest technologies to respond to the results.
The first thing that appeared to me was its high durability endures in a variety of Life-Cycle patterns. Its neck-hanger is made of shape-memory alloy, so that does not be twisted or changed at all. I kept ‘Flex-L Air’ in a pouch the size of folded the one-dollar bill (USD) in half for about five days and found that its shape was perfectly restored without any problem. Rubber or Silicon sealing protections are used in each part to prevent signal disconnection. All of the enclosed housings except flexible parts are made of anti-allergy treated metal, which gave the overall impression of being firm and safe.
One specific thing about the difference compared to existing neck-band wireless earphones is that ‘Flex-L Air’ is a semi-opened type and has a design familiar to the public. These two significant features provided a unique experience that was different from other existing products used in the past. ‘Flex-L Air’ is pretty similar to Apple Airpods. If you have any interest in earphones like that and have used them, probably will know what the earbuds of this design give you.
Ambient conditions outside of earbuds can be monitored easily by its low noise attenuation. When not in use, both earphone units can be dropped on the chest and stuck to each other with magnetic function, or only one unit can be hanged on the ear. Like TWS earbuds, there is no need to repeat the action of removing units from the case and storing it.
The table is offered by Mobifren.
It has high-intensity vibration in the hanger, so it’s easy to recognize and will rarely miss telephone calls. Overall, ‘Flex-L Air’ wireless earbuds do not require users to use rigorous methods, as shown. This intuitive design is very convenient for people who are busy in various situations. However, it is not comfortable in every way. Its application for the smartphone called ‘Mobifren SM’ is limited in some functions when connecting with Apple devices. (refer to Comparative table of available functions sheet) The limited codec support of ‘Apple Devices’ gives some negative effects on sound quality, which will address in detail below.
❖ Tested in an environment with AptX codec supported and default EQ setting.
Actually, this product may not be very attractive to you just by looking at specs and design. But there is a hidden critical weapon lurking inside of ‘Flex-L Air’. Even though it is a wireless product, ‘Flex-L Air’ also offers an impressive sound quality that is no less than a wired product of the same price. When you try it the first time, its bass might give the depths of heavy textured feeling by wide dynamic range. This heavy bass does not mean strong and tight damping with darky feeling just like other wireless products. The natural expression of reverberation attenuation and delay resembles the opened-type earbuds. Its bass has a bit rough and dense reverberation so that there was no uncomfortable listening to classical or jazz with wind instruments. On the other hand, this will give dullness of listening to music genres with numeric instrument sessions.
Overall, mid-frequency is slightly compressed than treble and bass, so that it gives a bit more wideness of soundstage. Mid-frequency shows a bit of airy sound-signature and hard feeling reverberation that expresses clear stage images. Its treble sounds quite similar to mid-range does but there was no hiss on its treble at all. ‘Flex-L Air’ didn’t give any irritated distortion or hiss through overall sound-signature. Although the expressions of mid to treble and bass showed different moods, the two performed distinctive sound tuning that blends excellently well.
Unfortunately, this distinctive and impressive sound is suppressed by the limited codec support (Only AAC) of ‘Apple Devices.’ This limitation can be dramatically improved by connecting the application ‘Mobifren SM’ for smartphones. However, there still exist firm compression on overall frequency by narrowed dynamic range, so that bass and treble get more inaccurate. I strongly recommend using a device with Apt-X codec supported.
Epilogue...
‘Mobifren ‘Flex-L Air’ was released in mid-2018 to the public in South Korea and become a popular product from audiophile to the public. Many consumers kept said that it is designed to be easy for anyone to use while providing excellent functionality and also has detailed sound performance that is sought out by audio enthusiasts. I agree with these comments, as well. If you want to enjoy the experience mentioned above, give a try with Mobifren ‘Flex-L Air’ wireless neckband earbuds.
Disclaimer
Bigheadfiler Studio is not affiliated with Mobifren. The above contents are produced for showing Mobiren's 'Flex-L Air' to internationals. The sample (Flex-L Air) is offered for making this article.
Bigheadfiler Studio has done our best to make articles practical and useful to the readers, made contents by free will without color. Please take the time and judge from the article whether this is honest.
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