Sony LinkBuds Open earbuds review: Great for hearing your surroundings, but audio quality suffers

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The Sony LinkBuds Open are not like most wireless earbuds. Instead of creating a complete seal in your ear canal to block sound from entering, they have a physical hole in their ring-like design. This allows you to fully hear your surroundings while wearing them.

The latest LinkBuds Open are Sony's second-generation model, and they improve upon the first-gen option with a comfier fit and upgraded audio components. However, these advancements don't translate to a dramatically better listening experience.

The open-ear design remains interesting and worth exploring for certain activities, but this approach limits sound quality. Earbuds like these remain a niche product for a very specific user base. If you're within that group, they're a solid option, but otherwise, I recommend going with a more traditional pair of earbuds.

Comfier than the first-gen model

The 2024 LinkBuds Open feature a revised design that improves upon the first-gen model. Each earbud consists of two parts: a bulbous head connected to a circular driver that rests just outside your ear canal, and a silicone cover with an ear wing, which Sony calls an "Air Fitting Supporter." The first part is hard plastic while the Air Fitting Supporters are removable and completely pliable.

Despite these pieces being detachable, you only get one wing per bud and they're meant to be a one-size-fits-all solution. The wingtip for each earbud is soft and bends with ease. I didn't feel any pressure from them, but they managed to secure the buds to my ears.

With the original LinkBuds, it took several days to adjust to their fit. I didn't have that same learning curve with the LinkBuds Open. That could be from familiarity with this style of earbuds, but generally, I think the new model is tapered and contoured in a few ways that make them more comfortable while still staying stable through a variety of activities.

I ran dozens of miles with the LinkBuds Open, and they fit great for active use. They don't feel like they're plugging up your ears, even when the sweat begins to roll in. They never shifted around, and the Air-Fitting Supports never added too much pressure or discomfort.

I also love the earbuds' Wide Area Tap feature. In addition to being touch-sensitive for media controls, the LinkBuds Open can detect when you double or triple-tap near them on your cheekbone. I have a hard time activating touch controls or even locating buttons on earbuds while I run. Wide Area Tap completely resolves this problem since I have no problem tapping near my ear.

I didn't experience any false positives; the earbuds never incorrectly detected my moves as pausing or skipping songs. But if you do have issues, this feature can be turned off in Sony's mobile app.

The open design is great for hearing your surroundings, but sound quality is lacking

Evaluating the sound quality of the Sony LinkBuds Open is a bit tricky because their open-ear design is limiting by its very nature. In general, the earbuds don't sound that great. There's relatively little bass that comes through and the overall range can sound dreadfully compressed in a lot of environments. The volume often needs to be turned way up to hear finer details. The midrange bleeds into the upper range and songs often sound more treble-heavy than I'd like.

But, it's important to remember that open-ear buds like these are more about the unique utility of their design than they are about delivering high-end sound quality. The LinkBuds Open work best in situations where you want to listen to music but still stay completely aware of your surroundings, and there are always going to be performance tradeoffs required to accomplish that.

So, while audio quality is lacking compared to the best earbuds with a traditional in-ear seal, the LinkBuds Open do an excellent job of allowing ambient sound to naturally pass through to your ears. For instance, I never had to pull them out when I needed to talk to the cashier at a store or while I was doing yard work with others. In other words, these are for casual listening, active use, and multitasking, not for when you want to sit at home and listen to high-fidelity audio tracks or block out distractions on a commute.

That said, Sony has still made some improvements in playback quality compared to the first-gen model. I noticed the biggest difference in the midrange, which was a bit fuller during my tests. It's not dramatic, but the upgraded processor and newly designed 11mm ring-shaped driver do slightly enhance the sound. In most situations, the volume doesn't have to be turned up quite as loud as the first version either. But, if you wear these on a busy city street, you'll still need to pump them up to max volume, and even then, they might not be loud enough.

However, there is one caveat to my critique of the earbuds' audio performance, and that involves their fit. When I use my fingers to put a tiny bit of pressure and push them closer inside my ears I can hear more bass and a wider range of frequencies. So, it's possible that the LinkBuds Open could sound better when placed in certain ear shapes and sizes that allow their driver to align better with your ear canal.

You can also change the EQ to "Bass Boost" to try to take advantage of the improved driver design a bit more, but ultimately sound quality remains rather finicky.

For better-sounding open-ear buds, I recommend the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds. That model offers better audio performance with my ear shape, albeit for a higher price. I also recommend the AirPods 4 with ANC. The AirPods 4 have a semi-open fit, so their design blocks a bit more ambient sound, but they have solid audio quality and feature a transparency mode that uses microphones to let in outside sound as well as an option for noise cancellation.

The charging case isn't wireless and you need to pay extra for other colors

The earbuds' charging case looks bigger and bulkier than the first-gen model, but ultimately they both take up about the same amount of space in a pocket. Battery life is solid with the buds rated for up to eight hours and the case offering 22 hours. Sadly, the case doesn't have wireless charging support, which is disappointing for $200 earbuds.

And instead of offering the LinkBuds Open in different color options, Sony sells different-colored silicone covers that can be added to the case or earbuds. Earbud covers cost $10, and changing the color of the case costs $20.

At first blush, this seems like a good idea since you can decide on colors after the fact and can even mix and match to fit your personality. But after spending several minutes just trying to put one of the earbud cover pieces on, it seems like less of a good idea.

The covers are much more fiddly than I would have guessed. They're also expensive for what you actually get.

Should you buy the Sony LinkBuds Open?

From their shape to their utility, the Sony LinkBuds Open are certainly unique. They offer unparalleled transparency, allowing the wearer to stay fully connected with their surroundings. Up until recently, people searching for this feature were relegated to using bone-conducting headphones. If always hearing your surroundings is necessary for your daily routine when wearing earbuds then these could be the perfect solution.

However, the earbuds' audio quality is limited, and they're terrible for situations when you want to block outside sound rather than hear it. Open-ear buds have their fans, but for most people, I think traditional earbuds offer a better balance between audio performance and utility.

If you're looking for an alternative pair of Sony earbuds in this price range, I recommend considering the brand's LinkBuds Fit. That model uses a traditional ear-tip design with a fuller sound. Though they aren't open-ear for passive awareness, they do use microphones to enable a natural-sounding passthrough mode.