Soundwear SD10, Bluetooth Stereo Headset With Exceptional Sound Quality [Review]

Bluetooth headset isn’t something new in today’s tech life. Many of us use bluetooth headset to free ourselves from holding mobile phone while talking on the devices. However, there’s something more that a bluetooth headset can do. You are also at the liberty of streaming audio (A2DP supported) via bluetooth wirelessly to stereo bluetooth headset…! Meaning, you can stream music, get audio of video, all on your bluetooth stereo headset! And Soundwear SD10 does this effortlessly.

Since we are discussing a bluetooth technology, mentioning about the comfort of being connected wirelessly is understood. No need to emphasis that fact. Now, what Soundwear SD10 does is take the concept of bluetooth mono headset one step forward and deliver wired handset like experience. As a matter of fact, bluetooth stereo headset is all about doing the same.

Courtesy MobileFun, I had the chance to experience what Soundwear SD10 is capable of doing. Following is my review of Soundwear SD10:

Design Factor

Generally bluetooth headsets are tiny little ear jacks that fit right into your ear and get easily lost in your pocket. But with stereo headset, such is not the case. SD10 has a rear-wear headphone form factor with flexible pulley giving an option to fold the headphone. This makes sure that the portability feature of a bluetooth headphones isn’t lost.

The right side of rear-wear headphone has multipurpose functional keys, capable of switching tracks, changing volume and picking up/ending calls. Nicely done.

Performance – The Real Deal

I have used Plantronics bluetooth headset before and was limited to answering calls only. So, considering this, I was excited to go completely wireless with Soundwear SD10. And guess what, I was blow away seconds after using it! Reason? The sound quality was excellent. Bass, Trebel, etc all delivered like my Sony In-ear headphone does. Since it is based on bluetooth technology, delivering a connected wired like experience is actually asking a lot! And believe me you, Soundwear SD10 did it without any hitch.

Treble was crisp, I listened to Ashley Wallbridge and was able to make out which instrument was being played. And mind you in trance music, it takes a quality sound system for some to make such a statement. In terms of bass deliverance, SD10 didn’t disappoint me either. It’s correct that true bass experience is best achieved with in-ear headphone but Soundwear SD10, being bluetooth stereo headset and coming with rear-wear form factor, I have to say, the bass experience was good. And excellent when you compare it other stereo bluetooth headsets. You can actually feel the miniature vibrations in SD10 😉

Add to this, there’s mild puffing present on headset serving as cushion to ears, thus reducing time fatigue (from wearing headphone, obviously).

Wearablility – Comfort Level

One thing, you will be using SD10 for streaming audio from your device rather than attending to calls. So, you can write off the fact that you’ll be wearing them for long hours. And you’ll be better not wearing it for long hours. Why? Well, I hate to say this since SD10 is such a great gadget but unfortunately for some reason (engineering complicacy?!) the makers did not include the ability to stretch it’s arms. They aren’t flexible. The perimeter of SD10 stays the same for all the users.

But as we say, to every problem there’s a solution. Same applies to SD10. You can shift it’s position, upward or downward and there will be a position wherein you’ll feel comfortable. Call it a blessing in disguise or Soundwear’s out of the box thinking but it just works. But this doesn’t cover up for fatigue part. I won’t mention the time interval, since every individual has a differing tendency but yes, you’ll be fatigued at some point. Reason being, the rear-wear will cause your ears to hurt a little bit.

Battery Backup

There’s not much for me to say. Soundwear SD10 does what it says. The manual mentions 20 hours of music/talk time and I was able to extract almost the same time out of it. No grudges here. A dead battery took nearly 3 hours to reach full recharge. Considering I attached it to my laptop, 3 hours is fair enough for 400 mAh battery. All’s well in battery department for SD10.

Nitty Gritty Of Soundwear SD10

Nifty little things like presence of a micro USB charger cable, a 400 mAh battery, standby time of up-to 400 hours (approx. 16 days), 20 hours of talk-time and healthy range of ~10 meters, all work in SD10’s favor. You’ll also get a nice black pouch to carry around SD10!

SoundWear SD is available £24.99 at MobileFun and can be purchased from their online store via this link – Buy SoundWear SD10

A word on MobileFun’s delivery. The guys are exceptionally punctual when it comes to product release, delivery and packaging. Most impressed with their service. I have been dealing with them for a long time now and can now safely say that they do focus on consumer satisfaction 🙂 And mind you, this is my personal opinion, NOT any kind of sponsored advertisement.