Apple is apparently seeing declining AirPods and AirPods Pro sales, and a part of that will be the rise of rival wireless earbuds like the new Lypertek PurePlay Z7. The Chinese brand just announced this $199 set of true wireless buds, which launches in June and features an unusual triple-driver design.
Whereas most earbuds use a single dynamic driver in each bud to pump out sound, the PurePlay Z7 mixes one dynamic driver with two balanced armature drivers. It’s a unique approach to maximising sound quality, and one Lypertek will be counting on if it wants to join the ranks of the best wireless earbuds.
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Dynamic drivers are designed to cover the full frequency range, which is why they’re so common in true wireless buds where space is at a premium. Balanced armature drivers can be tuned to better reproduce a more specific frequency range, and can produce more detailed sound as a result, though this has the obvious drawback of leaving the other ranges underrepresented.
By having two balanced armature driver and one dynamic driver per earbud, the PurePlay Z7 promises the best of both worlds. It will be interesting to see how its overall sound quality compares to that of the similarly-priced AirPods Pro, which uses one custom dynamic driver per earpiece. The PurePlay Z7 is also compatible with the high-quality aptX adaptive Bluetooth codec, which the AirPods Pro is not.
Lypertek’s buds don’t have active noise cancellation (ANC), in one big advantage to the AirPods Pro and other ANC earbuds like the Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro.
However, its battery life figures sound very impressive: in addition to 10 hours of playtime per change, the charging case can apparently provide another 70 hours. That would easily put the PurePlay Z7 among the longest-lasting true wireless earbuds, at any price.
The PurePlay Z7 will also launch alongside Lypertek’s new PureControl app, which will include the ability to manually adjust the EQ or set it to use one of several presets. And, despite the lack of ANC, these buds will include an ambient sound mode (again, enabled through the app) that will let you hear your surroundings when necessary.
Lypertek might not be a huge name, but it has produced the SoundFree S20 headphones: a recent addition to our best cheap wireless earbuds rankings. So we’re curious to see how the PurePlay Z7 performs when it releases “from the beginning of June,” costing $199 in the U.S. and £199 in the U.K.
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