Samsung AKG Tuned Type-C Earbuds Review | needed to tweak with EQ

Samsung owns the AKG brand through Harman International Industries since 2017. I have been searching for some wired type-c earphones for quite a while now. The AKG-tuned Samsung earphones have been in production for a long time. About 4 years ago I wanted to buy them but their original versions were hard to get back then. Now you can buy the official product from Samsung’s showrooms or website - pretty easy. I was choosing between the Realme Buds 2 and Samsung AKG type-c earphones. They’re totally different in price but I finally settled with those AKG wired earphones thinking about better instrument separation and neutral sound signature. Today I am gonna tell you my experience using them.

Inside-the-box

I am gonna call them earphones instead of in-ear earbuds because that’s what the packaging says. The box was sealed and I unboxed it in the Samsung official store. The packaging has changed quite a lot compared to the past. Inside the box, the wired earphones were organized using a paper holder. You will get 2 sets of extra eartips like smaller and larger pairs, medium pair is already installed. There is paperwork, which has safety details written in many languages, but no specifications about the earphones. The back of the box says that they are made in Vietnam. Despite being a sturdy paper-box, it didn’t feel cheap.

Design and Build

I don’t have much to complain about their build quality. For around 30 USD, they offer decent build quality. If you look closely, there is quality everywhere. The type-c connector has engraved parts-number, type-c housing or injection-mold has engraved “SAMSUNG” branding, the injection-mold joint for the splitter cables for the drivers also has embossed “VIETNAM” writing and the buds have “AKG” branding on metal. The left and right earbuds have “L” & “R” labeling. Main cable is braided but the splitter cables are not - feels fine with a rubbery-feel. So it would have been slightly better if the splitter cables were braided too - in terms of build-quality. I really like the design, they are not bulky and sit nicely inside my ears. No weird pressure from the medium-sized eartips, pretty comfortable situation. But one weird thing, the eartips are pretty hard to remove and they are slightly different looking than others.

Controls and Mic-quality

There are 3 buttons and they have pretty good tactile feedback - pretty easy to press. The middle button is for play/pause and up/down for volume control. You can take calls with these earphones. The mic is in a good place and the quality of audio recorded via the mic is pretty good too. If you directly hold the control-piece and speak closely, the recording sounds thin and treble-heavy. So if you are in a quiet environment, don’t talk directly to the mic. They don’t have noise cancellation capability. Overall works fine for my usage.

Sound Quality Check

The default is a bright sound signature and it gets even brighter with brighter sounding audio tracks. The overall sound is kinda balanced with a higher high-end peak at around 15 KHz. Their frequency response shows that the bass and mids are pretty balanced, but treble is boosted like 10 dB at the higher brilliance region. I listen to all kinds of stuff, don’t care about the genre and I even listen to songs that I don’t understand a single word. I can listen to any type of song that has a nice flow and melody. So, out of all kinds of songs that I listen to, about 30% have bright nature - 15% pretty bright sounding. The AKG buds sound pretty thin and too sparkly with those particular songs already having a bright sound signature.

For balanced songs, these earphones sound pretty good kinda neutral with great clarity, sparkle and instrument separation. They offer an open and airy sound with an okay soundstage. Most songs may not have much going on in the higher high-end of the full frequency range. Although you get a reasonable amount of sparkle with most songs because of the 15 KHz peak, that won’t hurt your ears. But for songs where the treble is already boosted, you may feel uncomfortable because of the boosted high-end and not having boosted bass to balance that out. Some particular instruments that produced those high frequencies were hurting my ears. It was sounding a bit too thin and slightly ear-piercing. So, I had to use a custom EQ to fix the default sound. After tweaking it slightly, I love the sound now.

The good thing is that these earphones are highly EQ-able. I use the default 10-band EQ of my smartphone. Bring down or reduce the 16 or 14 KHz slider by 6 dB and increase the 30, 60 and 120 Hz bass sliders by like 3 dB. After that the treble sounds really good with all those rich characteristics that these buds already have plus a comfortable but exciting high-end. The default bass and mids are pretty balanced. I think these should have a bit better sub-bass as I was feeling like it’s rolling off from 35 Hz and below. The sub-bass should have been extended down to 20 Hz, but after EQ-ing the bass sounds even better. The bass, mids and highs have great clarity and separation on these wired earphones.

The vocals are great and they pop well. There is a nice sparkle and the right amount of sizzle with the vocals after being EQ-ed slightly and easily. Vocals have nice shiny edges and fizz which sounds really good while listening to quality podcasts. So these AKG buds are very good for watching movies and podcasts. With the default sound, you may get a perceived feeling that these don’t have enough bass as the treble is boosted. But if you tone down the high-end a bit, they start to sound amazing and more balanced in a very good enjoyable way. Even at 80% volume they get very loud, and at these higher volumes the sound signature changes a bit boosting some of the mids. I haven’t noticed any weird noise or distortion. I didn’t like the default sound that much but after EQ I am very satisfied. So, I will recommend these to enthusiasts who like a balanced neutral sound and are willing to tweak the sound.

One weird thing I want to mention here about the Onkyo HF Player android app. I wanted to check some information about my Samsung AKG Type-c earphones' DAC using the app. So I went to the settings and clicked "search for USB devices" and then some prompt like "allow HF Player to access Samsung USB C Earphones" pops up. After allowing it I can see some about-information like USB device name and sampling rates. The USB device's name was "Samsung USB C Earphones" which verifies their originality. However, after allowing access some bug in the app just turned the volume up insanely high - unlistenable.

I uninstalled and reinstalled the app to check that again. And that extremely loud volume problem happened when I tried to adjust the volume in the app. More specifically when I turned the volume all the way down, all of a sudden the music became extremely loud. So if you give the app access to controll your earphones' DAC, the default volume control is all messed up, super loud audio and no audio for other media apps like youtube and others. I had to uninstall the app and unplug my type-c earphones to make it normal again. After some research I know that that's an app problem - be careful when allowing access.

Features - Hi-Res

These AKG type-c earphones are stereo with dual driver configuration, one drives bass and another smaller one drives the rest of the frequencies using passive crossover. The type-c connector has a high-quality DAC attached to it for quality audio. The main chip CX31998 has a microcontroller from “ARM” in the DAC that supports 32-bit 384 KHz audio, but Samsung only controls it to 96 KHz - more info here. So, they are capable of playing Hi-Res audio. They offer a braided main cable with a durable design that has decent strain-relief on the cable for longevity. There is a quality microphone for taking calls and doing online conversations. Also, these AKG branded earphones have controls for music play/pause and volume up/down. Sadly they don’t have any certified protection against sweat, water, dust and such.

Conclusion - Tweak

Even though there isn’t any active noise cancellation going on here, the passive noise isolation on these buds is pretty good. They block outside noise pretty well and stay in my ear comfortably - not heavy at all. The design and build are pretty good in my opinion. The default sound signature is a little too bright for my taste, it can cause irritation when listening to some particularly bright songs that have high-frequency instruments.

So, if you are going to use the default sound signature and you also like a bit of powerful bass, then I am not recommending these earphones to you. However, if you are an audio-enthusiast or tech-savvy, then these earphones are gonna be a great choice for you. Pretty easily you can change their sound signature using a custom EQ and then they sound great. I feel like the official price at 2000 INR, 3000 BDT and 30 USD is slightly higher than what I think they should be priced at, but not a huge disagreement - for bass-heads these will disappoint you. Check the official Samsung-website for their presentation of these buds.

IF you're interested in portable small speakers, check my Soundcore Motion 300 vs Bose Soundlink Flex article. Both did well in a head-to-head.

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