Baseus Bowie MC2 Open Ear Clip-On Earbuds REVIEW – Too Much Ain’t Enough

Note: we got the $59.99 USD Bowie MC2 as a review sample form Vivi at Baseus and they can be gotten here: www.baseus.com or from any amazon outlet. So we sent a jetlagged, unschooled dementia patient and his idiot son to China to hobnob with a razor-sharp, ruthless, and disciplined strongman whose aspirations for Iran, Taiwan, and the rest of the world are wholly antithetical to ours [=US]. What could possibly go wrong? At least we have sober, stable hands guiding our FBI and military. Normally we wouldn’t get excited about yet another me-too product from a Shenzhen-based maker with a hard-to-pronounce name. Baseus, however, has earned a lot of cred with their consistently good, high-value phones—their recent Bose collaborations such as the XH1 over-ears and XC1 clip-ons (review here) are genuinely outstanding, their enticing prices notwithstanding, while the Eli Sport 1 remains an easy recommendation for open-ears. The $59.99 MC2 don’t look much different than its legion of competitors, but feels a tad lighter, plus the thin silicon connecting bridge fits over (as opposed to on top of) your helix, which maximizes comfort. I do note that these will sound unfocused and thin unless you push the earpieces close to your concha. Battery life is very good (I got around 8 h at my normal too-loud volume) and I really appreciate the physical control buttons, which works much better than the usual touch panels and prevent accidental triggers. The Baseus app allows for EQ and customizing the control buttons. Call quality (incoming and outgoing) is very good for the genre. OOTB, in their default (Baseus Classic) tuning and with bass boost enabled in the app MC2 sound warm and balanced with some emphasis on the low end. Ignore the other preset EQs, which sound flat or bass-shy. There is an app setting which enables LDAC, but which curiously disables the bass boost; I found the default (LDAC-less) tuning to sound fuller and better and my impressions are based thusly. Tonally, the MC2 straddle the line between accuracy and sweetness, which is to say that you’ll hear an overlay of sheen even as a fair amount of nuance and snap shows through. Soundstage is impressively wide, although imaging is somewhat imprecise—especially if the drivers aren’t placed right over the ear canal the position of some of the performers tends to float a bit. Bass is slightly wooly and has more width than depth—it thumps appealingly but doesn’t extend super-deep, while mids are clear, nicely-bodied and forward. Treble has limited extension but sounds very smooth, without sharp edges or sibilance, and even with the low-end emphasis overall coherence is good. Compared to our comparably-priced favorite, the Tozo Open Earring (review here), the Baseus sound fuller, bassier and present a larger stage; the Tozo have the more revealing high-end and a more natural, less-smoothed-over tonality. The excellent $69 Soundpeats Clip1 likewise show more high-end detail and sparkle; the Clip1 also have the more sculpted, deeper bass, although the MC2 actually have a more expansive, enveloping stage. Moving up to Baseus’s TOTL, $129 XC1 yields you a tauter, punchier low end, a more open-sounding soundstage and better instrument separation, although overall resolution and treble extension is otherwise fairly close; whether the “bigger” sounding presentation of the XC1 justifies the cost premium will be dependent on your use case. The MC2 aren’t a sonic breakthrough, and you can find equivalent sound quality for the same price (or in the case of QCY’s C50 even for a few bucks cheaper). However, haptic, design, call quality and battery life are as good as you’ll find for this style; given that you’re probably not choosing a clip-on for critical listening the MC2 register as one of the better picks is this this bracket. I like ‘em. Specifications Bowie MC2 NameBaseus Bowie MC2Driver Unit11 mm dynamicFrequency Response Range20 Hz – 40 kHzAudio CodecSBC, AAC, LDACBluetooth VersionV6.0Multipoint ConnectionYesLow Latency38 msBattery Capacity55 mAh/ 0.212 Wh (per earbud), 600 mAh/2.22 Wh (charging case)Playback TimeApprox. 11.5 hours (with volume at 50%, Bass Boost on) Approx. 13 hours (with volume at 50%, Bass Boost off)Playback Time with Charging CaseApprox. 55 hours (Bass Boost on) Approx. 60 hours (Bass Boost off)Water ResistanceIP67 Disclaimer Our generic standard disclaimer. Click To Join Our FB Group! 576 Reviews – A World Class Earphones DatabaseThe post Baseus Bowie MC2 Open Ear Clip-On Earbuds REVIEW – Too Much Ain’t Enough appeared first on Music For The Masses.