Sony Pulse Explore Earbuds: Setup and Hands-On video – CNET [CNET]

Sony’s new Pulse Explore earbuds sound great and work nicely when connected to a PlayStation 5 or PlayStation Portal.

Speaker 1: Alongside a slew of new gaming hardware. PlayStation is releasing its first pair of wireless earbuds. These are the Pulse Explorer. They’re designed to be used with the PlayStation five and Sony’s new gaming, handheld the PlayStation portal, but can also connect to phones and other devices via Bluetooth. I’m going to show you how to pair them, what features they offer, and we’ll see whether they’re a good fit for your gaming setup. Speaker 1: These earbuds sound great thanks to the included planner Magnetic drivers. A feature typically [00:00:30] found in high-end over the ear headphones and rarely in earbuds. They’re also lightweight and come with four different Eart tips sizes. PlayStation says they have a battery life of around five hours with an additional 10 hours of charge available. In the included case, that case has A-U-S-B-C port for charging, and your purchase does include a charging cable. To use the Explorer earbuds with your PlayStation five, you need to connect this PlayStation link USB dongle to your console. PlayStation Link creates a lossless low latency connection between [00:01:00] the buds and your device. I also recommend using this if you’re connecting with a computer, even though the buds do support Bluetooth, this low latency connection will be ideal for anyone playing games where audio lag would become distracting. Simply plug it into your device. Speaker 1: Then hold down this button found in the earbuds case to activate pairing mode, and it’s that easy. Sony’s recently released PlayStation portal also works really nicely with the Explorers. You can use these earbuds directly with the device, but considering the link dongle comes packaged in, there’s no reason [00:01:30] not to keep this plugged into your PSS five. Since the portal is streaming the video from the PlayStation, the link is sending the same audio info and this keeps the video and audio synced. You can also swipe down from the top right corner of the screen to access some quick controls, one of which is a panel that will connect to the earbuds and also show the remaining battery. It’s worth remembering that the portal doesn’t support Bluetooth headphones, so these are one of the very few options available. If you don’t want to connect a wired headset, just like connecting to the link Bluetooth pairing is [00:02:00] activated the same way, and this will let you use the Buds with a phone. Speaker 1: One of my favorite features of the Explorers is that they feature dual device connectivity between a PlayStation link and Bluetooth device. I love this since it means I can listen to a podcast or chat on Discord while still being able to hear my game since they do have built-in microphones. From my experience, I’ve been told the mic quality was good and quite clear, and that’s likely due to the included AI noise isolation. The Pulse explorers are not the most robust earbuds for phone use. The case and earbuds themselves are both a little bulky for my [00:02:30] taste, especially since I typically use AirPod Pros, and while they are comfortable, I didn’t find them as easy to secure into my ears as my AirPods. The only controls on the buds are volume up and down. There’s no way to skip tracks or pause playback, no ear detection to pause music when taken out, and no companion app with an equalizer or other features. Speaker 1: The Explorers also don’t have active noise canceling. They’re designed to be used in the home while gaming. Typically a space that isn’t super noisy, the Pulse Explorer buds cost $200, which is definitely [00:03:00] on the higher end of earbud and gaming headset prices. However, the added benefit of its compact design and portability definitely helped justify that. If I didn’t own any earbuds and was in the market for a gaming headset. This checks a few boxes at once for me. The Pulse Explorer is available for pre-order now and comes out on December 6th, but what about you? Are you looking for a new gaming headset and are these earbuds something you’d consider? Let me know in the comments and thanks for watching.

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