Music has long been a passion of mine, and running a new music blog means I spend a fair amount of time working through the ever growing pile of demos to find the next big thing.
A lot of this listening is done at home, but living in London means I also spend a lot of my life on public transport and so good quality earphones are an absolute essential in my life. Over the years I’ve gone through every major brand of earphones, trying to find the best sound for me, so when Swedish firm Sudio got in touch and asked if I wanted to review a pair of their top-of-the-line Vasa Blå bluetooth earphones, I was only too happy to oblige.
Look and feel
Sudio have taken a page out of Apple’s book in terms of packaging – the earphones come in a reassuringly heavy padded white box, with very Swedish minimal design. Inside you find the earphones – a single piece of flattened non-tangle black cable (they also come in white, blue, and pink) connecting the two earbuds, with the tiny speakers housed in sturdy rose gold-coloured metal.
On one side of the cable you have a microphone/remote so you can make calls while wearing your earphones as well as change the volume and play/pause your music. On the other side is a similarly sized little block that houses the battery with a covered micro-USB port for charging. These two blocks are equally weighted, so give the earphones a good balance – with the whole thing light, very light – they only weight 14g – which is less than my Klipsch R6m earphones, and these have a battery included.
Also in the box are a selection of rubber earbuds sizes, a clasp, instruction booklet, and a black leather case so you can make sure your earphones are protected while shoved into your pocket.
Setup
It is pretty straight forward to get the Bluetooth setup and paired with your smartphone – on my Sony Xperia Z5 it was as simple as these steps:
- Turn off the Bluetooth on the smartphone
- Press and hold the centre (play/pause) button on the earphone remote until the red and blue lights are blinking (around five seconds)
- Switch on Bluetooth on the smartphone and select “Sudio VASA BLA” and connect
That’s it.
Sound quality
I was very impressed with the sound quality of the earphones, they give a warm but accurate sound – a sound profile that reminds me somewhat of the popular Sennheiser CX500. The basses are good a deep without being too boomy, and the middle and top and strong and clear.
The earphones sounded great whether I was listening to folktronica, EDM, or some scuzzy punk, or even a comedy podcast and there was no Beats-like attitude to favouring bass over everything else – everything was warm and clear.
In Use
I’ve been using the Vasa Blas as my primary earphones for the last week, so had them on while walking the streets, sitting on the tube, and on a run in the park – so they’ve had a good work out – coming in and out of my pocket with the flattened cable stopping any possibly tangling.
I had long resisted moving to Bluetooth earphones because of the weight of the battery, but with these coming in at just 14g the weight was not noticeable at all. With the largest ear buds they fitted snugly in my ears and survived bouncing around for a 20 minute jog without falling out, and not having a cable getting in the way is fantastic.
The only downside of Bluetooth headphones, however, is that the connection is understandably just not as secure as a cable. You get the benefit of never accidentally getting the cable caught on something and wrenching your phone out of your pocket onto the floor, but you sacrifice a bit of stability – I found that the sound could cut out for half a second every few songs. This wasn’t a major issue, as it very quickly sorted itself out and resumed the music, but that has always been the downside of Bluetooth.
I was careful to switch off the earphones when I wasn’t using them, so after a good bit of use each day I still haven’t run out the battery – but according to Sudio the battery will last 8 hours of use or 10 days on standby.
Conclusion
The Vasa Blas are a great sounding and beautiful pair of earphones, and they have solved the issue of balance and weight when it comes to needing a battery for Bluetooth/wireless use. For me, the rare skips, a general problem with Bluetooth technology, are a small price to pay for not having to deal with that annoying cable when out for a run. These are now my go-to earphones for working out – so that says all it needs to.
Price at time of review: £69
We managed convince Sudio to offer our readers a 15% discount on the Vasa Bla earphones with the discount code “techfruit“
