In this video we are checking out the Soul X-Shock truly wireless earbuds. Now I’ve reviewed probably 4 or 5 pairs of truly wireless earbuds on my channel before, some I’ve enjoyed and others I wasn’t a huge fan of, but after using the X-shocks for the last couple of days, these are certainly one of my favorite pairs and I think if you haven’t yet tried out truly wireless earbuds, these might be a good starting option. I’ll of course be going over all the specs and features and talk a little bit about my experience with them, but if you want to learn more or pick up a pair for yourself, I’ll leave some links down below in the video description for you to check out.
Soul X-Shock (Amazon Link)
Soul ST-XS (Amazon Link)
So first things first as far as the packaging goes, you get a really nice presentation here with that flip open box, and you’re immediately greeted by the earbuds themselves. Right when I picked these up I immediately noticed how light they were, probably the lightest wireless earbuds I’ve seen yet and that’s something thats important to me since bigger heavier earbuds don’t really fit well with my smaller ears. There’s also the charging case for the earbuds, this one is maybe a little bigger than some others on the market but there is a reason for that which I’ll talk about in a second. Underneath the rest of the packaging you’ll find a USB cable for charging the case, a carabiner, carrying bag and 1 replacement ear tip, along with the usual quick start guide and paperwork.
With all that out of the way let’s go ahead and check out the earbuds themselves and like I mentioned, my first impression of these was that they are really lightweight which is great, they’re also relatively small with a simple shape, there’s no bulk, no awkward angles, they’re about as minimalistic as you can get. The rubber eartips are replaceable of course and those 3 gold pins you see there are the magnetic connecting points for the charging case
Each earbud has a multifunction button on the side that allow you to play and pause music with a single press, skip to the next song with a double press, and you can also launch Siri or google assistant with a long press. Both earbuds have the same button functions on both sides, so unfortunately there’s no customization options and also no volume controls on the buds themselves.
The charging case by itself is really nice, you get this sort of flexible flip cover with a textured material and flipping it open on the inside of the cover there’s also microfiber to ensure the earbuds don’t get scratched. When you drop the earbuds into the case, the connection is magnetic which certainly make things a lot easier, not sure where some other brands still don’t do that, and as far as why this case is a little bigger, well along with charging the earbuds up to 16 additional times, it’s also a 3000 mah battery bank with that full size USB port, so you can charge up your smartphone on the go along with charging your earbuds and I just think that’s a really cool addition to something like this. And the case is still small enough to fit in a pocket anyway, so I’ll take it being a little bigger if it gets me a battery bank too.
The most important things when it comes to truly wireless earbuds are how they fit and how they sound, now I have had problems in the past with these kinds of earbuds not fitting right and not staying in, but with these that just wasn’t the case. Because they’re so light and relatively small, they’re comfortable, they fit pretty well I don’t think they stick that far out compared to like the ones from Bose for example, and I think my only complaint more has to do with the button functionality, it takes a little bit of pressure to click the side buttons that can get uncomfortable since you’re sort of pressing on your ear, but it’s not a huge deal since I never really used the buttons anyway.
I was also pretty impressed with how they sound, I know a lot of truly wireless earbuds just don’t always deliver the best audio, but with these X Shock I’d rate them well above average with fairly clear sound and a good balance. They aren’t bass heavy, they’re more neutral than anything but overall they deliver a great listening experience. I should also note that during continuous listening for a few hours, I had absolutely no connection issues either, everything stayed connected and never cut out and these are instant connection type earbuds, so once you pop open the case and connect them via Bluetooth for the first time, they’ll remain connected to your phone and ready for you to use. My only critique as far as sound was that they didn’t get quite as loud as maybe I’d hoped, at full volume listening to music was actually kind of comfortable where as a other earbuds might sound great at 60-70% volume, so just something to note. They do block out noise pretty well depending on how deep you push them into your ears, but there isn’t any active noise cancellation or anything like that so really noisy environments where you’ll have to bring up the volume, since they’re not that loud it might be a little challenging.
As far as battery life, I was able to get a little more than 3 hours on a single charge, there are plenty of truly wireless earbuds out there that are better than that, but being able to get 16 more charged from the case means you probably won’t have to plug these in all that often.
And they’re also relatively water resistant, you don’t have to worry about sweat getting in them at all, they can even be submerged in water for up to 30 minutes
So all in all, I think the soul x-shocks pack a lot of solid features in a really nice and comfortable pair of earbuds. You are paying a little more for these at $169, but at that price you get a lightweight pair of truly wireless earbuds that sound great, that have good battery life and a charging case that doubles as a power bank, they’re really the complete package.
