7.3 Score
This year isn’t Samsung’s best year for a variety of reasons. One of which is the lack of originality from a company that knows how to be unique in every way possible. That said, in this Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Review, we have a lot to address about these new earbuds and more importantly, for RM 999 – Samsung took 2 steps forward and one step back.
Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro Review
More Generic, Less Unique
The Galaxy Buds FE happens to be the last one to tout the unique pebble-or-candy-like design and it’s also our favourite earbuds they have made so far. With the Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, they have taken a rather generic approach: a part-transparent part-opaque case which houses earbuds which now have proper stems that protrude and extend out of your ears. The grey colour looks pretty nice, but if you look at the White variant, it looks similar to an Airpods.
One important thing you need to do is get a silicon case for the earbuds as the coating (or paint) is prone to scratch and it’s not as great as the older buds case – which is somewhat scratch-resistant. On the bottom, the earbuds have the USB-C port and the pairing button – which I will talk about in a bit.
The earbuds have a bulb-like shape on the top and the stems are more angular with “lights” dubbed as Blade Lights which looks pretty sexy, to be frank. The only time we have ever seen the lights go off is when you take them out of the case and that’s pretty much it. The earbud’s head shares a similar shape to the older Buds 2 Pro, however, Samsung claims that they have tested with different ear shapes to get an ideal shape that would give a comfortable experience for most users.
Speaking of Comfort
Samsung has revamped the entire ear tip design and how it “clips” onto the earbuds – which is the reason why these earbuds were recalled and delayed. Since it uses proprietary ear tips, you are out of luck if you lose the tips by accident as Samsung does not sell spare tips for them. Let’s talk about the fit.
In my ear, the concha is not quite as deep as it is and the anti-tragus is not tall enough to hold earbuds that well. So, when I do put these earbuds for the first time, it feels like it fits but minutes later I can feel it slipping slowly and out of my ears, even when I am sitting idle in an upright position. The movement of your jaws does dislocate the earbuds out of your ear canal – which can be a frustrating moment. Therefore, requiring you to adjust from time to time.
Personally, the earbuds didn’t give the best fit possible though it was okay while it stayed and I had to adjust every few minutes constantly. This happens because the earbuds have a curved surface on the inside, which should fit nicely with the curvature of the Concha. But when it’s shallow, you don’t get the best fit possible to let the earbuds sit inside comfortably.
If you have the chance to head over to your nearest Samsung store to try them out before you purchase, I’d suggest you to do that.
App Support and Features
It’s no surprise that Samsung puts a bunch of features into their earbuds, and from a lifestyle standpoint and connecting their ecosystem, it makes sense. That said, we are going to list all the features and give you a quick review on those as to how well it works.
- Voice Control: Saying commands to play/pause/skip music and answer/reject calls is pretty cool and it works extremely accurately. Out of the box, it only supports English and Korean. We tried Google Translate speech to see if it would respond, and hey, it does.
- Reading Notification aloud: works too well in my opinion to the point you probably will turn it off.
- Seamless Buds Connection: this only works if you have paired the earbuds with other devices beforehand to switch between them without the need to repair them.
- Neck Stretch Reminders: requires calibration. But once done, the prompts to stretch and get your posture right are pretty nice.
- Gaming Mode: it uses a specific codec to reduce latency – which works alright.
Most of these features are available across Samsung and non-Samsung devices. Non-Samsung users won’t get to enjoy the Gaming Mode as it relies on SSC codec which is proprietary to Samsung and you don’t get access to Bixby as well.
Hardware
If you didn’t realize by now, this is the first time we have seen a Pro earbud that isn’t “Tuned by AKG”. Not that it matters but it’s pretty surprising to see it, especially since they had the partnership ever since the S7. That said, under the hood of the Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, it has a dual-driver setup (2-way speaker): 10.5mm Dynamic Driver and 6.1mm Planar Driver with Dual Amplifier which claims to diminish interference between speakers for a broader spectrum of sound and balance.
The earbud features 6 microphones which help with ANC, Ambient Mode, Adaptive Mode and calls as well. With the help of an Accelerometer, Gyro and Hall sensor – it helps with 360 audio which works with select devices.
Controls
The Controls for the earbuds are entirely on the stem and this is by far the best execution we have used so far. The stem’s pressure sensor is very good in detecting pressure and you don’t have to adjust the earbuds to be able to grip the stem. The angular design is not just stylish but functional. So, the single, double and triple press works well – sliding on the stem helps with the volume control. Overall, I feel other earbud manufacturers with stems on their earbuds can learn a thing or two from Samsung.
ANC, Adaptive and Ambient Sound
To give a quick gist on these features, ANC works well, though I feel the intensity right out of the box is too strong that it could make people feel a little disoriented. But it is okay, as I could granularly control it. The feature I found interesting is the Siren Mode, which brings the volume of the music low and makes the siren of an Ambulance or Police a lot more audible. Adaptive gives a nice clarity and it’s miles better than the previous Pro buds we have seen from them. The ambient mode will please a lot of consumers as it gives a pretty good clarity – though it’s nowhere near what proper audio earbuds achieve (i.e.,) Bose, Sony, Sennheiser – just to name a few.
Sound Quality
Now let’s talk about the audio quality because this is where the Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro takes a huge hit in performing well. Before I go any further, we tested these with two devices: Samsung Galaxy Z Flip6, which leverages over SSC and Xiaomi 14 which uses AAC. The sound quality has a marginal difference because SSC outputs at 24-bit 48KHz without UHQ and at 24/32-bit 96KHz with UHQ whereas with AAC, it stops at 16-bit with a sampling rate of 44.1KHz.
From this point onwards, when I mention Xiaomi 14, it’s AAC and for Z Flip6, it’s SSC.
We are going to address the audio quality of two devices playing the same song. Starting with Timeless with Playboy Carti by The Weeknd. With the Xiaomi 14, it starts alright but the moment the beat kicks in at 0:24, the bass is extremely heavy and the snare gives a high-pitch treble response.
The vocals sit in between those and there are moments at the 1-minute mark where it fails to offer clarity. Throughout the song, it almost retains the same staging, but once The Weeknd’s vocals kick in, at 1:38 you can hear his vocals clearly without the low and high ends. But once those kick in, his vocals combined with the high snare-like beat give a rather irritating treble-heavy sound.
With the Z Flip 6 with UHQ turned on, the experience is completely different – with slightly toned down treble, but the bass is still strong as I remembered. Playboi Carti vocal’s sound is muddled and as it gets to The Weeknd’s vocals, it sounds more toned down and with the beats, you can hear the highs with that slightly discomforting pitch. Turn off the UHQ, the difference is a bit hard to tell because in real life the difference between 48 and 96KHz is marginal – where it’s cleaner, though, to the untrained ear, it isn’t easy to pick the difference.
Moving onto a song I listen to for his amazing baritone, Leonard Cohen’s You Want it Darker – the orchestral effect at the beginning of the song is positioned more in the middle and high range. Then comes Leonard Cohen’s vocals which just sound muddled with little to no clarity and don’t give you the feel you would expect. Most parts of this song just fall short with no oomph if you will. That’s with the Xiaomi 14.
The orchestral opening on the Z Flip6 is more amplified and Leonard Cohen’s vocal has more raspiness with more obvious enunciation of the words, though at certain parts it just straight up fails to reproduce his vocals very well. Turn the UHQ off, the “dynamic-ness” in his voice is lacking and you have a narrow sound staging and presence.
Next, we play something EDM, well more specifically – trap – Solid by SLUMBERJACK and Troyboi. It starts with a somewhat okay presence with the audio, at 0:21 where the instrument kicks in, you can hear it’s more in the highs and then the beat drop that follows it, too, goes into that highs, giving a bit of a discomfort. Once the beat drops at the 0:43 mark, you can immediately hear how the bass takes such precedence and every other instrument, synth and mix just gives a rather discomforting experience. Funny enough, Sony’s ULT wear headphones didn’t blow us away this much.
Surprisingly with the Z Flip 6, everything feels and sounds more in control. The more obvious treble response would be at the 0:32 mark and then as the beat drops, the bass is more widely present with a rather even reverb-like effect. But you do hear some discomforting notes here and there. Turn the UHQ off, it’s hard to tell the difference.
So, overall – you are looking at a sound signature of earbuds that’s catered to the masses who think, having the strongest bass and treble response = better audio quality. You can easily tune with the EQ to get the right audio profile you want to enjoy less bass or treble. Even though as an audio enthusiast, who enjoys bass from time to time and disagrees with that statement, I do understand and see the appeal… here lies my biggest issue.
My Biggest Issue: The Deception they are promoting in the name of HiFi
If you head over to Samsung’s official site, they have a graph that depicts 16-bit and 24-bit audio curves – this is completely false and misleading. The graph they use, which is called “Stair-steps” on the left is a misleading way to visualize the audio sampling and most audio enthusiasts know that Stem plots are more proper and a better way to visualize. Samsung Seamless Codec isn’t the only one out there that does 24-bit 96KHz. LDAC and aptX Adaptive are capable of that and are widely supported by more devices. (LDAC more than aptX Adaptive due to Qualcomm’s limitation).
The folks over at SoundGuys have a fantastic article explaining all about this (which gets extremely technical, but a great read) but one point to summarize the whole debate between 16 and 24 or 32-bit for that matter is this:
“The difference between 16- and 24-bit depths is not the accuracy in the shape of a waveform, but the available limit before digital noise interferes with our signal.”
Whatever Samsung is doing here, is just straight-up misleading and most importantly, purely a marketing tactic to sell 32-bit. To be perfectly honest, 16-bits is pretty fantastic enough to give you all the details you require when you listen to music and movies, especially when the source of audio comes from Streaming platforms more so than from a local audio source. In all honesty, you’d be resorting to much better headphones and audio systems to enjoy higher bit rates.
If you do want the high-fidelity experience, which I do go for at certain times for specific songs, that’s fine too – but this is where things get even more complicated.
Best Works with Samsung Devices than other Android devices
Because SSC (Samsung Seamless Codec) is exclusive to Samsung devices, non-Samsung users will not get to experience high-fidelity audio with the Buds 3 Pro. In fact, for Samsung users out there, UHQ will only work starting from the S23 Series onwards for the S Series. Z5 Series onwards for the Foldables and Tablet S9 onwards for S Tab users.
While Samsung can say that they made their earbuds to work with other phones, which any manufacturer can do to be honest, only the chosen ones will reap the benefits these earbuds offer.
Conclusion
At RM 999, Samsung has made an audio product that would make Samsung household owners happy as they are selling a product that completes the ecosystem – by even just owning a phone and a Tablet, which gives the earbuds to switch and sync seamlessly.
But from the audio standpoint, it’s a hit-and-miss for us. If you want that bass and a lot of treble, sure go for it. If you want it for smart features, sure go for it. But if you are looking for high-fidelity earbuds that aim to give you an absolute eargasm but you are not a Samsung smartphone user, then, there are better ones out there, which even play better with all sorts of devices with widely accepted codecs.
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