True wireless headphones are taking the world by storm, and for good reason. They’re compact, portable, and pretty convenient too — and they’re getting better at staying comfortable while also staying in your ear. One of the newest brands to enter the true wireless game is Optoma, which has its NuForce lineup of headphones — including the true wireless Optoma NuForce Be Free8 headphones.
Like many other true wireless headphones out there, the buds aren’t overly cheap. But are they worth the $150? We put them to the test to find out.
Design
True wireless headphones take on a number of different designs. There are the classic bud-style design, similar to the Apple AirPods, and there are slightly more ergonomic takes, which are clearly designed to fit better in your ears. Optoma seems to have taken the second route here, and you’ll see that the overall design of the headphones is aimed at sitting in your outer ear. Theoretically, that should keep them a little more safely in your ears.
The buds are a sleek black color, and each features a lone button, which you’ll simply use to turn the headphones on and off. They’re built largely out of plastic, though thankfully they seem to be pretty tough — and they’ll largely reside inside of their case anyway.
Speaking of the case, it’s a little bigger than the cases many other true wireless headphones come with, and it’s pretty light too. It doesn’t seem like Optoma skimped on battery in the case either — it’ll give your headphones up to 12 extra hours, or 3 full charges. On the bottom of the case, you’ll find a battery capacity indicator.
In general, the headphones look and feel pretty good. They don’t seem overly strong, but they’re still built enough to withstand most day-to-day abuse.
In the box, you’ll get everything you need. The headphones come with a charging case, microUSB charging cable, and a total of five pairs of ear tips.
Comfort
True wireless headphones sometimes have a hard time when it comes to comfort. Thankfully, the Optoma NuForce Be Free8 headphones seem to do pretty well. For starters, they come with a pretty huge range of ear tips, and as usual, we recommend going through the ear tips to find the most comfortable fit for your ears.
We found that once we found the right ear tips, they headphones were pretty good at staying nice and firmly in your ears. No, they’re not good for running — they’ll fall out if you want to use them for things like running or going to the gym. But, for day-to-day use, like your commute to work, they should stay in your ear perfectly fine.
In general, we found the Optoma NuForce Be Free8 true wireless headphones to be pretty comfortable. It’s imperative that you find the right ear tips — but once you do, you’ll be able to wear them four hours at a time with no issue.
Sound
When it comes to sound quality, the headphones are a little hit and miss. The frequency response is fine, to be sure, but there are some issues that make the overall experience a little bumpy.
Let’s start with the bass, which is generally pretty well-tuned. Kick drums feature quite a kick, and while the bass extension isn’t quite as deep as we might have liked, in generally bass fans will be happy with what these headphones have to offer.
The Midrange is also pretty well-tuned. The low mids are generally pretty warm, while there seems to be a slight dip in the high-mids, helping give the headphones a slightly soft sound profile.
The high-end also doesn’t extend as much as we would have liked, but it still doesn’t sound bad. In general vocals and guitar solos were able to cut through mixes perfectly fine.
Safe to say, the sound profile isn’t bad, but it’s not overly accurate. If you’re an audiophile looking for a pair of ultra natural-sounding headphones then you may want to keep looking.
Our main issue with the sound quality had nothing to do with frequency response — instead, it had to do with how noisy the overall connection was. In the absence of music, there was quite a bit of hiss, which was certainly audible during the listening of things like podcasts.
Of course, not everyone will take issue with that. If you don’t really care about background hiss, or plan on mostly listening to music pretty loudly anyway, the Optoma NuForce Be Free8 headphones will be fine for you.
Performance
The headphones use near-field magnetic induction to connect to each other, and we found that the connection in general was pretty decent. It was rare that the audio skipped or stuttered, which isn’t always true of inexpensive true wireless headphones. To connect to your listening device, the headphones connect with Bluetooth, so theoretically you’ll get 10 meters, or 33 feet, of connection range. We found that to be largely true, though any obstacles will cause interruption.
When it comes to battery life, the headphones themselves will last 4 hours, which is really quite good. The battery case will give you an extra three charges, or 12 hours of charge.
Conclusions
But they face some stuff competition — namely the JLab Audio Epic Air headphones, which come at the same price, offer a much longer battery life, and they also sound pretty good. In fact, if you’re willing to put up with the sportier look, we think JLab Audio’s offering is a slightly better choice.
If, however, you’re looking for true wireless headphones in the $150 range, prefer a sleeker look and don’t mind the background hiss, then these may well be the headphones for you. In fact, thanks to their high-quality, we’ve awarded them the Headphone Review Bronze Medal.