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With all the time I had spent with experiments on my headphone work recently, I had noticed that when switching to the Uboom X it sounded somehow too different for my taste and I started to think if this could be improved even more. Here I would like to show you my first results although I cannot promise that these changes will ever be realized as in the end this will heavily depend on Earfun's kindness, but I would definitely like to replace 949 with an improved version based on my current tweaks with further changes as follows:

Studio mode should be included again in an improved state like shown here because many have wished for it.

Indoor and indoor+ should also be slightly more natural sounding now, the differences are rather subtle, but I think in real life they are more obvious and trained listeners should definitely welcome the changes.

Instead of outdoor I would like to include desktop now and maybe improve this as well, unfortunately there is no way to change the app or the labels somehow, therefore this is the only way to squeeze in these modes instead the original ones somehow.

I would like to apply the same "clarity" trick used for the indoor modes also for outdoor+ and Boom xXX. Unfortunately Boom xXX within 949 has the limiter settings screwed up a bit which resulted in too much distortion compared to 048 as I had tried to squeeze out even more bass at high levels, therefore I would like to get it back to the same state as before.

Ground O will remain the new ground mode which I would also like to tweak a bit maybe, as I found some areas for possible improvements.

Please let me know what you think, if you can hear any difference at all or it's worth the effort to invest further time into this, or simply leave it as is and forget about all this. But just to satisfy my own personal demands I would definitely like to finish all this.

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Comments

big man

I think the treble is way too exaggerated on 949. It makes Beyerdynamics sound tame! Ends up sounding very "hollow" because the exaggerated bass and treble makes the mids sound scooped. My idea of perfect is Studio 048, but with the sub-bass and dynamic volume of Outdoor+ 949.

Fernando Espinoza

Personally, I'd love an update. I've been using the 949 for several weeks, mostly indoor+ and outdoor+. However, sometimes I like to use "boomxxx" on the boat, and this is when I do notice the distortion. While it's only noticeable after 80-90 dB, an upgrade would be appreciated. I already think the effort to get the 949 is wonderful!

Flasher Factory

Outdoor is always my default mode, on my terrace. I sometimes switch back and forth to test, but always end up on Outdoor. (949).

JonnyB

Updates and refinements are always welcome. Another issue is that I had to concentrate very hard to hear the difference. In other words, (for me) this is no longer a case of one being bad to listen to and the other being good, but rather of the very good competing with the even better. It would be great if Earfün went along with the update, but if not, it's no big deal. I mostly use desktop mode and Indoor+ anyway. You've already gotten 101% out of this speaker. It's not mentioned, but I think at this level, the sound could easily be worse for some people just because of the codec (Android phones are said to not handle AAC well). I would recommend that if you have an Android tablet or phone in your family, you try it with that as well. I'd be curious to know if you think there's a difference. I don't know if this speaker will ever have a successor, but if it does, it deserves a better DSP and codec. While cheap earphones have aptX or LDAC, we're still using AAC here. LDAC might be overkill here (it would cut into the battery life), but I think aptX Adaptive could greatly improve the quality. Of course, then it might be worth getting a separate amplifier for the tweeters, or perhaps a higher-quality one for the latter...

oluvsgadgets

Actually there is less treble in 949 than 048 just more boosted for levels below half. I also tamed this a little bit more now and due to better upper mids rendering it doesn’t appear as sharp now.

oluvsgadgets

I need to sacrifice some mode as there is no way to include an additional one. I personally hardly use outdoor but prefer ground in that case.

Dean

Outdoor is my favourite too.

Sebastian Heubeck

Oluv, i appreciate your enthusiasm for this product and appreciate the effort (which should be clearly hearable to everybody who likes good sounding music). Besides that i have a question, did i miss some posts from you or why are the Uboom X available again through Amazon and Earfun HP? Did they find some storage left or have they continued producing the product again?

Marioragcurtain

I would welcome this for sure. I never use outdoor anyway and to have studio and desktop in the same firmware would be awesome!

Chris

I would be very interested to hear any sonic changes that you consider to be an improvement. I listen almost exclusively using a DAP, (playing FLAC files) connected by audio cable and I'm pretty happy with 949 and "Indoor" mode. Thanks, Oluv 😁

oluvsgadgets

I noticed that sound played over aux results in more treble boost, there seems to be some difference how aux gain is interpreted compared to the internal Bluetooth signal and the dynamic EQ gives false results

oluvsgadgets

I have no idea as they won’t disclose any stock they still seem to have with me.

Arturo

I personally still think the desktop mode of version 039 sounds the best. I use it quite a lot. It would be great if you could include it in the new firmware.

Chris

I've never listened using Bluetooth and I had noticed that sound can be a little bright, however it's still very enjoyable. I currently don't do any 'critical' listening; I am always off-axis with the UBoom X sitting on top of a shelf in the kitchen where we can enjoy the quality of sound for under £100! Off axis and at some distance, the bass is almost unbelievable for such a small setup and easily fills the room without sounding bloated 😲

Chesco

I noticed excessive treble as well, when connected to aux. Any way to fix this? Or any idea how to offset this issue using a 10 band EQ?

Sturmflut

anything regarding the improvement of the uboom x is very much welcome. i bought 4 uboom x and have noticed rattle from the left passive radiator in 2 units now. this is very annoying and i begin to wonder if this is some kind of production error? i need to RMA both of them. did anyone else experienced the same rattling?

Sebastian

Yeah, same here. Not every unit, but strangely it's always the left passive radiator.

Luka Bošnjak

I really like this approach of making a single cabinet speaker more similar to stereo studio monitors, makes sense if you think about. Form what I heard when comparing 949 and 048, I actually preferred the stereo enhancement setting from the 048, to me it seemed like that one actually has more width rather than enhancing echo effects like 949 did (949 is better in everything else). Also I'm not sure if the dynamic treble adjustment filter needs to be so high up in the frequency response, it can get a bit sizzly between 20 and 40% volume, I have no idea how do those dynamic filters work but I would prefer if it was slightly wider Q. Tonality improvement is immediately obvious here on every mode and new settings sound surprisingly similar to the hd58x, I thought that I was crazy sometimes when playing with eq and 0.1db in one filter seemed to change the entire response but it seems to be true and it's so interesting how the overall smoothness and balance immediately improves every part of the speaker from "sound stage" to off axis performance. And of course, thank you for keeping the Studio mode, hopefully Earfun decides to make the new firmware...

oluvsgadgets

Yes, I went back to the values from 048 for indoor mode, I didn’t change indoor+ also not sure if I should adjust desktop to the same value like indoor or leave it as is.

oluvsgadgets

I have no idea, it could be maybe fixed by Earfun, but they have no clue and won’t. It’s most secure to use studio, as there is no dynamic EQ, in my new setting it’s very subtle

Luka Bošnjak

Not sure if you can see my entire comment above, something is buggy. Anyway, I can't try desktop with values from the 048 indoor but if it sounds wider and more natural, sure (although desktop usually sounds more spacious than the 949 indoor). My issue with desktop is some peek in the upper treble (around 14.6khz depending on the angle ofc), it can be a bit sharp. The rest is pretty nice, calms down the boomines, maby you could reduce bass slightly as well, I don't know how people usually use desktop because I place it right at the wall (otherwise I'm not gonna compromise on sound and use indoor while placing the speaker at the edge of the surface).

Patryk Frączyk

The new changes are definitely an improvement. The old one sounds kind of matte and the treble in 5-7kHz sounds much better with the new adjustments. I would definitely keep the Outdoor mode as in the current 949 it is the one I use the most when listening outdoors around my house while placing the speaker close to a wall. The Outdoor+ has too much bass so the regular Outdoor fits perfectly. Maybe if the Ground mode would be tweaked to fit that scenario then it would be perfect.

Patryk Frączyk

I also favor the Outdoor to the Outdoor+. Especially when placing the speaker next to a wall Outdoor+ has too much bass and regular Outdoor fits nicely.

Steve Roman

I can hear the difference and I'm very happy you're still looking to improve it. My speaker is coming tomorrow and I wanted to ask as a basshead I should purchase firmware 949 yeah? Not doing TWS for now. Thank you :)

oluvsgadgets

Basswise they are all the same, 949 is just fine tuned for low levels and has desktop and ground mode

oluvsgadgets

You can always PM me, also noticed that comments are cut somehow

DominikReviews

I would love a mode with just clean undistorted sound with just a bit of compression on high volumes, doesnt need to be bassy, but just to play without any distortions

Patryk Frączyk

Ground mode works really well in an open field, but when I place the speaker against a wall when I'm outside, the bass is overpowering due to the boundary effect. I think using the regular Outdoor mode and letting the wall naturally boost the bass is a better approach than having the speaker produce all the low frequencies on its own.

Chesco

I actually think this might just have to do with the fact that AAC (also sbc) trims a lot of upper treble. I notice that on the motion 300, your eq's sound very nicely balanced when the Bluetooth is set to AAC, and using Spotify (which at the moment still uses ogg vorbis compression). But when I set it to ldac (and especially when I listen from Qobuz (lossless) instead of Spotify) I really have to lower the upper treble like 2-3db, otherwise the sound just becomes way too sharp.

DominikReviews

not bright enough, i was thinking more about this ground mode but just undistorted and only compressed a bit

oluvsgadgets

I cannot start tweaking the compressor settings from scratch, it’s very bothersome to listen to it at maximum volume and try to optimise everything. I would suggest to reduce volume until you are satisfied.

Chris

That sounds logical as my listening is all done using a connection through Aux with FLAC files , which are a lossless format. Most are at 16-bit CD sampling quality, but some are 24-bit HiRes, which are very revealing. Thanks 🙂

Ra K

@oluv: wie ich sehe , arbeitest du immer noch an Verbesserungen - Respekt . Ich habe 3 UBoom X, betreibe 2 im TWS und 1 solo und habe mir daher dein komplettes Custom Firmware Paket mit 039,048,949,950 gekauft und betreibe die 3 nach deinen damaligen Empfehlungen ...gibt es denn nochmal Updates des Paketes bzw. ist ein solches geplant?

oluvsgadgets

Ich kann noch nichts sagen, es hängt stark von Earfun ab und ich bin nicht im besten Verhältnis mit denen. Ich würde auch gern den Outdoor Modus behalten weil viele den mögen, aber dazu müsste ein zusätzlicher Modus rein, und Earfun war von Anfang an dagegen. Ich mach jetzt mal und wenn ich denke dass alles so ist wie ich es mir vorstelle, kontaktiere ich Earfun und mal schauen ob sie noch eine weitere Firmware anbieten können.

Juan Carlos

Hi Oluv, been following for sometime and always enjoy the reviews, I recently dowloaded foobar for iOS and messing around with it saw that it had an eq, moved a bit of the sliders and it works over Bluetooth with the AirPods pros 2, I instantly remembered the earfun eq you did and how good it was and you mentioning that because of the low quality control of the earful making an eq that would be universal would be hard because of these variations. Do you think making an eq with foobar and the better quality control of the AirPods por 2 would be viable? would it even interest you to try? would love to know what you think

oluvsgadgets

I think the AirPods have improved a lot over time. The AirPods Pro which my son uses sound really decent out the box

LeJJ

Same, happened in 2/3 of mine (returned them). Luckily I still have one without this issue.

Gilad

Do you have EQ profiles for HD6XX/HD650?

Gilad

Have you ever got into convolution / room simulation? I recently tried the app RootlessJamesDSP and used "Joe0Bloggs Realistic surround" under the crossfeed section, and it sounded AMAZING with my EQed earfun free pro 2. It doesn't really change frequency response, but it just gives the feeling of being played on a good speaker setup in front of me. I wonder what your opinion on this would be.

Sturmflut

where did you buy them? amazon or directly from earfun? did you get new units or did you get your money back?

oluvsgadgets

Well the 3d audio feature from Apple does something similar and with head tracking the effect can be really stunning. But I probably wouldn’t use it often. There is much interesting stuff out there for sure just not enough time to play around with everything. Also AI generated music could be fascinating to start but then I would be missing the real creative part of making own music.

Gilad

I recently tried the 3D effect with the airpods mac and it sounds much worse than the effect on this app. Don't know about AI music and if it's really good wnough yet, but as an audiophile, I love any software that improves how music sounds to me, and this really does it to many songs

w8stin

Hello, I just received my Uboom X and love it, specially with your 048 and 949 firmwares (didnt try any other). Thanks a lot for your hard work on this speaker, i appreciate it! I found this post on Patreon which intrigued me, did you release this changes so we could try it ?

oluvsgadgets

I had prepared new settings to be released in a final firmware but Earfun didn’t want to release it.