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House of Marley is known for its funky designs and eco-friendly packaging and design. Their audio gear ranges from budget to high end and it's all great stuff. Or is it? The House of Marley "Uprise" Wireless Bluetooth Earbuds are reviewed and turn out to not be quite up to the company's usual standards...
Tech expert Dave Taylor of https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ gave the House of Marley Uprise Wireless Bluetooth Earbuds a listen and found that while the design is cool, the audio quality isn't in line with the price. There's more to know about before you make a purchase decision too, as he explains...
Check 'em on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2ZfqT5Q
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0:00
Cool looking wireless earbuds, but do they sound good? Let's check them out
0:11
Dave Taylor here, and I'm looking at these. These are the House of Marley Uprice, Wireless Bluetooth earbuds
0:17
And I know it looks a little strange because I wanted to demonstrate that you can add an ear hook and what they call the ear, what do they call this, the ear fin, or ear, I guess, hanger and fin
0:30
and the ear tips. There's three pieces here. You can do all of that, or you can strip all those other pieces out and just have it as just
0:36
a regular old ear bud. So was just actually trying both of them
0:40
And I have to say, rather to my surprise, this whole setup is quite comfortable
0:46
Basically, you just get that to go over your ear, or around your ears, the case maybe, and then
0:54
everything else just slips in and you're good to go. So notice that the piece at the piece
0:59
actually the wire comes out and then goes down. So that's important to know orientation-wise
1:06
if you're gonna wear it just like this, so you do the same thing. You just have it sticking basically straightforward
1:13
And it's Bluetooth wireless, so it has a very short wire, and it has a three button controller
1:19
which is kind of an interesting experience if you're on an Android phone
1:23
On the iPhone, it gives you volume up, volume down, next track, previous track, pause play
1:27
all that sort of stuff. On Android, it doesn't do volume up and down
1:32
I don't know why. It's weird because I've never experienced that, but it does do previous and next track, pause, and play
1:37
So all the other functionality is there, but for some reason it can't control volume on your Android phone
1:43
Bit of a drag. And House of Marley knows this. This is something they acknowledge on their product page
1:49
So it goes. So let's talk about the specs. So these are eight-hour battery life, IPX-5, sweat, and weatherproof
1:56
So if you wear these on a run and it starts to rain, or you are like yucky sweaty, it's good
2:01
Nothing bad is going to happen. Customizable fit because in the product includes both the two ear hangers and it has a bunch
2:11
of different size of these little ear fins I trying to get all their product names for things So you get different size fins to match your ears And then there also different size ear tips So between
2:23
all of them, there are a lot of combinations and you want to spend the time, especially with
2:29
those ear tips. Please, please, please. The better you find the right size ear tips, the better
2:35
it's going to sound. So, you know, if you listen to these and you say, oh, there's no
2:39
base at all, what up, right? The answer is you probably have the wrong size ear tips
2:45
So I think a lot of people just pull these products out of the box and put them in and
2:48
just get going. It's not exactly the best strategy. Take a few minutes when you first get it
2:55
Now, they also have the microphone built into the three button controller, which is a little
3:01
bit of a problem because if you like most people wear it like this, your microphone's pretty
3:06
far away from your mouth and people will complain. When I tried this with voice calls and stuff, it was a little bit of a little bit
3:12
not really great volume. Works a lot better if you do it like this, but then invariably someone
3:18
will say, dude, man, like your buyer is supposed to be behind your head? And, you know, it doesn't
3:23
work well that way if you're using the microphone and if you're taking phone calls. If you're just
3:28
listening to music, that doesn't really matter and you can just put it back there. Although
3:32
again, I will note that if I do something like this, it's a little bit more tricky to get to the
3:38
controls to be able to pick what track I want in similar. So there are
3:42
couple of reasons you might want to have it in the front but then again it also might be the case that
3:47
you say whatever and you just have it the way you want and you don't care about any else so that's fine now
3:54
so the three button controller we already covered that it's a braided wire so it doesn't tangle and in fact
4:01
i just got to give these guys a huge compliment here this is the nicest micro USB cable i've ever
4:07
seen included in a product it's this really great little braided cable and
4:12
they aren't using twist ties, they're using a little piece of eco-friendly twine
4:19
So here's your little charging cable, so it's a good length, but it's just this great little
4:25
braided cable It micro USB and that goes into the side of the three remote And so that actually is how you charge it It takes an hour or two to charge And then you get eight hours of battery life depending on how loud and what you listening to
4:41
So pretty darn nice. The whole packaging. In fact, one of the things I really love about House of Marley
4:46
is they have really great eco-friendly strategy. Their packaging is not only easy to open, but it's made out of
4:54
mostly recycled materials. Their products are made out of as much as they can recycled materials
5:00
recycle friendly materials when you're done with the product, it's not going to just sit in landfill, hopefully
5:06
So, you know, is this recyclable? I don't know, but it's such a cool why you're going to keep it anyways. That doesn't really matter
5:14
So having said all of that, so they know how to produce, they know how to manufacture, they know how to design
5:21
It has a reasonably attractive look, though I think the other colors. It also comes in brass and teal
5:27
both of those colors are a little cooler looking than black, but be that as it may, the real problem with this is the sound
5:35
So let's be honest, even with the right ear tips and everything, they don't have very good sound
5:41
And I actually had to figure out how to get to EQ on my pixel 3A
5:46
which is not obvious. So in Spotify, I went to figure out
5:50
I got into the EQ, I set it as you can see, and still I was left wanting a little more base
5:57
Not only that, but with the EQ running, I had to turn it up almost to maximum volume just to have it be reasonably present music in a quiet environment
6:08
So in a loud environment, I suspect it doesn't even get loud enough for it to be something where you're going to be really happy with them
6:15
And that's really disappointing because they make some great products. This just is not on that short list
6:21
Now, I will also say there's a latency issue on video. So I watched a bunch of different videos off of YouTube and Netflix, and some of them were just about in sync
6:31
but others were off by as much as a second or maybe half a second
6:35
But it's really noticeable when the mouth of the actor or something is speaking
6:41
and you're hearing sound that's out of sync with their actual face, and very disconcerting
6:47
If you going to use this as something for like watching Netflix or Amazon Prime or Hulu or whatever your favorite streaming services or even just live sports or something anytime a person on camera you going to be like
7:00
what? That's weird. So know that too. But really my biggest issue with this is that the sounds really
7:07
clean and precise. There's just not a lot of dynamic range there. And even using the EQ
7:13
even pumping up all the bass and everything, it still left me wanting. I'll listen
7:18
to a lot of different audio gear probably upwards of two or three hundred in a given year and
7:24
this just doesn't really stand up to even others in the same price range which just is a real
7:30
drag because i like house of marley i like their design i like the whole eco-friendly approach that
7:36
they have but at the end of the day it really is about the sound and unless you're just going to
7:41
be listening to podcasts or you're really really forgiving because you want to support the company
7:46
they're just not necessarily going to be on your short list either
7:50
Now, before we talk about the price, let me ask if you can subscribe to my channel
7:54
Really appreciate when you do that. And you can keep up, and as hopefully is very obvious, I am really honest in my reviews
8:01
If I alienate a company and they won't work with me again, whatever
8:05
You'd like to think that companies can handle the truth, but I am going to give you the honest review, the honest feedback that I have for a given product
8:14
And that's not always what you find here on the internet, right? So, subscribe to my channel, and you'll get to get lots and lots more reviews
8:21
So, having said all of that, these are the House of Marley Uprise, wireless Bluetooth earbuds
8:28
and they are 7995 at Amazon.com. You know, they might match your needs, they might match your listening style, and they might work great for you
8:38
but know before you buy that there are a lot of people that have had a lot of concerns about how these sound
8:44
and how they function. So with that, I'll catch you in my next video
#Audio Equipment
#Gadgets & Portable Electronics