Nuheara IQbuds2 Max Review — Great for Android, Almost Great for iOS
Usual disclaimer: None of this is meant as a replacement for medical advice. As with anything medical, talk with an audiologist, ENT, or other hearing professional before deciding to use hearing aids, hearing amplification devices, or tinnitus treatments. These are just my experiences, and they might or might not work for you depending on your specific situation.
As many of you know, I have been super excited about the release of the Nuheara IQbuds2 Max since they were announced. They offer a great range of features on paper — Ear ID to customize the sound you hear based on your level of hearing, Active Noise Cancellation, Speech in Noise Control (SINC) which helps filter out background noises and amplifies speech, and a high quality Digital Signal Processor (DSP). How do these translate to the real world, and do these hearables help relieve tinnitus like I was hoping?
In summary, the answer is yes, they help relieve my tinnitus symptoms. This is a premium hearing bud that’s comfortable and does live up to the features it advertises, with some things to consider about battery life and streaming audio quality. I’ll get into more detail in the rest of this post, but overall, in my opinion, the IQbuds2 Max would be great for anyone using Android, and are great on iOS with one major caveat.
Packaging
The IQbuds2 Max come in a really nice package — there’s a manual that directs you to download the IQbuds app, the charging case with the buds in them, a small charging cable, and a ton of ear tips. I felt the product was packaged well, and unlike other products, is actually easy to open without completely destroying the packaging. This obviously doesn’t affect the quality of the IQbuds2 Max at all, but it’s a nice touch.
Setup / Ear ID test
Setup of the IQbuds2 Max is actually really simple, at least from my experience with an iPhone 11. Once you download the app, it walks you through everything — from putting the buds in, to entering pairing mode, to actually pairing them to your phone, everything was super simple and clear. I was impressed, as a lot of Bluetooth accessories with their own app have a convoluted and difficult (or nonexistent) set of instructions to get the item paired with your phone. Those of you who have ever tried to pair a Samsung Galaxy Watch with an iPhone will understand what I’m talking about.
Once you get the buds paired with your phone, you’re offered to take the Ear ID test. I’ve taken many hearing tests at audiologists at this point, and my personal non-doctor opinion is that the Ear ID test matches a lot of what I experienced at an audiologist. It measures the ambient noise around you to make sure you’re in a quiet enough environment, ensures that the buds are actually fitting properly, and then gets you started on the test. The test lets you know what ear the tone will be coming from, then you press a big button in the middle of the screen whenever you hear that tone. It covers a wide range of frequencies, and takes about 5 — 10 minutes to fully complete, so make sure you have a nice set of time blocked out to finish the test in the quiet environment. My hearing test ended up saying I have good hearing, which matches every audiologist test I’ve taken (whether in person or the Lively hearing aid test).
The app post-setup
Once you’ve finished setup, the IQbuds app is your main go to place to adjust your IQbuds2 Max sound. The interface is very clean and easy to understand, and lets you adjust everything with your IQbuds2 Max. This is where you can enable and disable SINC (speech in noise clarity), World EQ (which lets you adjust the bass and treble you hear), focus mode (which blocks out noise behind you), and adjust various presets (called locations in the app). You can also adjust what tapping, double tapping, and holding the touch-sensitive part of each ear bud will do, which is great for customization.
Overall, I feel like the app experience is fantastic. It’s stable, allows for all sorts of customization, and is just easy to use in general.
The case / charging
The IQbuds2 Max come with a charging case. This charging case is larger than the equivalent case for the AirPods, AirPods Pro, and Galaxy Buds, but isn’t too large where it would be something that would be difficult to carry around when out and about. It is definitely way, way smaller than the case that’s used for the Bose Hearphones (which uses a cable for charging).
The charging case has something that I wish every charging case had — a way to tell the status of the batteries in both buds as well as the case without having to open the case. The way the case is built, the two lights that show up for the earbud charging status are visible both when the case is open and closed, and the case charging status is visible on the right side of the case. This is a small attention to detail that I really appreciate.
The IQbuds2 Max fit really well into the case — there definitely seems to be some sort of slight magnetic force that helps lock them into place. Once they’re in the case, they’re super secure. I’ve never had an issue with them being in the case and not charging at this point.
The buds seem to charge quickly — I haven’t done any specific timing of how long it takes to charge them, but if you need some battery power in a pinch, I don’t think there would be any issue here.
Battery life
This is one of the areas where I was slightly disappointed, but it depends very heavily on your usage. The IQbuds2 Max is advertised, with Ear ID activated, to last 8 hours without music streaming, and 5 hours with music streaming. As someone who streams music frequently (pretty much any time I’m not socializing), but also wants to hear my surroundings well, I typically fall into the 5-hours-with-music-streaming bucket. Unfortunately, at least for how I’ve used the IQbuds2 Max, I tend to get 4 to 4.5 hours before I have to charge them. Having said that, this just about matches AirPods Pro in Transparency Mode. The IQbuds2 Max doesn’t even come close to the Bose Hearphones, which seem to last forever, but they’re a very different form factor. Overall, if you’re not going to be streaming music like I am frequently throughout the day, or are streaming rarely, battery life should be just fine. If streaming frequently, be prepared for the battery to drain quickly.
Streaming audio quality
Before covering streaming audio quality, I just wanted to say that the whole concept that certain manufacturers support certain Bluetooth codecs makes for a very unfriendly consumer experience. Depending on your phone, laptop, or device that you’re streaming audio from, your headphones may not support that device’s highest quality streaming codec, so the audio quality will be poorer compared to a different set of headphones. This is something that affects any headphone by any manufacturer, and is not an issue that is specific to the IQbuds2 Max in any way. If you’d like to learn more about Bluetooth codecs and the various ones available, check out this article from Android Authority here. I’ll only be covering the ones that apply to the IQbuds2 Max, iOS, and Android.
The IQbuds2 Max support the SBC, aptX, and aptX Low Latency codecs. SBC is the universally supported codec that is mandatory for all audio streaming Bluetooth devices, however it is the lowest quality. aptX and aptX Low Latency are higher quality codecs that support excellent sound quality, however they are not supported on iOS at all, and some older, less expensive Android phones don’t support aptX as well. This means that, if you’re using an Android device, you’re more likely to have higher quality, great sounding streaming audio through your IQbuds2 Max. With iOS, however, there is a noticeable difference between the streaming quality of a device that supports the AAC codec (Bose Hearphones, AirPods Pro) and the IQbuds2 Max. If you don’t plan on streaming music often, this is a totally moot point, since the environment audio quality is not affected by the Bluetooth codec on your phone. However, this is something to keep in mind in general if you are a heavy music streamer.
Environment audio quality
The IQbuds2 Max shine when it comes to environment audio quality. Even though my Ear ID test says that my hearing is normal, wearing the IQbuds2 Max makes it easier to hear just about everything around you. In just the default mode, speech sounds clearer, and environmental noises sound sharper. Adjusting SINC has made it easier for me to understand voices, and increasing the volume of the environment has made it easier for me to hear someone that’s further away. The directional FOCUS works well — it can’t completely eliminate sounds that come from behind you, but it definitely reduces them and enables you to focus on the sounds in front of you. I did have an issue with sharp loud noises (like dishes clanking together) coming through too loud, but that was completely addressed with a subsequent firmware upgrade — now the IQbuds2 Max handle sounds like that very well. Overall, you can really tell that Nuheara optimized the IQbuds2 Max to be excellent at picking up the surrounding environment. I have no complaints.
Tinnitus relief
For me personally, the IQbuds2 Max have done a great job relieving my tinnitus. The environmental audio that’s piped in through the headphones has just enough light white noise that it helps mask the ringing of the tinnitus. It’s still there if you really try to hunt it down, but on a normal basis it handles both the regular in-the-background tinnitus, and helps handle any flair ups of louder tinnitus. The best part is, if needed, you can stream a tinnitus therapy app from your phone to help relieve tinnitus symptoms even further. Again, this is my personal experience, and your mileage may vary, but I have been very pleased with how the IQbuds2 Max have helped my tinnitus.
Other tidbits
While active noise cancelling does not often help tinnitus, it’s worth noting that the IQbuds2 Max active noise cancelling is some of the best I’ve used. It truly does a great job blocking out any outside noise. Active noise cancellation does drain battery life faster, but I have yet to find a set of headphones, hearables or otherwise, that doesn’t drain battery life faster with active noise cancellation enabled.
The support team at Nuheara is top notch. Any support tickets I put in (both before and after I received my IQbuds2 Max) were responded to promptly, and the responses were easy to understand and customized to the request I put in.
Conclusion
Overall, I think that Nuheara did a great job on the IQbuds2 Max. I personally recommend them as a way to help with tinnitus (both passively and with a tinnitus treatment app), and, if using Android, can recommend them as a great audio streaming device as well. If using iOS, and you don’t plan on streaming music frequently or don’t care about streaming music quality, then these are a great choice there as well.
