Loud noises can be detrimental to ears, yet noises are part of every day life and can sometimes be helpful or needed! Take for instance, the piercing noise of an ambulance siren or the ear-splitting noise of an alarm clock, which is at best annoying but needed to jolt you out of bed!
Even seemingly benign past times such as watching your favorite artist at a concert can be seriously detrimental to your health. According to statistics, rock concerts are, by far, the worst environment for ears to be in because rock concerts carry painful, consistent decibel noises (150dB).
.To put in perspective, the noise at a rock concert is louder than the noise of a jackhammer (130dB) or jet engine taking off (120dB), all of which are in the threshold of painful noise.
A neat way of turning painful noise into music to your ears it's with the ISOtunes FREE, which is both a noise blocking earplug and audio solution for those who want to lower the decibel volume of noise, while listening to music or favorite podcast.
In terms of comfort, the ISOtunes FREE are more convenient to wear than the ISOtunes PRO version because no cables get in the way, which is nice. That said, the PRO versions are actually more comfortable to wear because of the larger foam tips. The ISOtunes PRO version are also feel more secure to wear around machinery. The PRO over-ear hooks provide piece of mind that the earphones won't fall out of the ears and/or possibly getting jammed inside machinery.
Being wireless, the ISOtunes FREE also integrate a bluetooth chip (bluetooth 5.0 chip) that supports aptX, a long wireless range and lower power consumption. You can get 7 hours of playtime from a single charge with an additional 14 hours from the included charging case, which recharges via 5V/0.5A input, taking 3.5 hours to fully charge. Standby time is 5 days.
The ISOtunes FREE earbud shells are made of rubberized plastic and are sealed shut to prevent water/dust ingress (IP45 water resistant). The nozzle neck is also rubberized and threaded. The ISOtunes FREE earbuds weigh 4.5 grams each so, they are extremely lightweight.
The front panel is made of plastic and hides a physical button, which is tactile but requires pressing, which forces you to jam the earbuds slightly into the ears. The buttons control several functions, including power on/off, audio playback (volume, skipping) and call functionality (answer/end calls). The easiest way to turn off the earbuds is by putting them inside the charging case.
Inside the ISOtunes FREE charging case, there is a bright neon green color scheme and three charging prongs that deliver fairly quick charge to the earbuds (full charge in just 1.5 hours). The charging dock area has access points on either side to make it easier to grab the earphones out of the case.
The charging case has a rather unique design with a tall but slimline frame body. Total dimensions of the charging case are 80mm long, 26mm wide and 34mm tall. The weight is 32 grams.
As far as sound quality, the ISOtunes FREE also come with limited volume at 85dB. Just like the PRO version, the ISOtunes FREE true wireless version are also OSHA approved and NIOSH compliant. The ISOtunes FREE do have a lower Noise Reduction Rating (22dB NRR) than the ISOtunes PRO, which have a 27dB Noise Reduction Rating.
The lower NRR rating of the ISOtunes FREE true wireless earphones is a good thing if you don't want too much isolation. At 22dB NRR, the ISOtunes FREE will reduce 7.5dB so, if you are exposed to 120dB, the noise will be reduced down to 112.5dB. The calculation for working out how many noise decibels are actually being reduced, you simply subtract 7 from the NRR and then divide by 2.
Audio-wise, the ISOtunes FREE deliver good sound at high and low volume with exceptional deep bass, thanks to the noise isolating earplugs, which do a better job than regular foam tips at sealing in the bass frequencies.
The bass doesn't overwhelm the upper frequencies so, you still get a good reproduction of vocal and instrument sounds. The audio call quality is also good, thanks to dual microphones (one microphone on each earbud).
The pickup pattern is omni-directional, which is not the most ideal, unless it has noise cancellation, as it picks a lot of background noise. The ISOtune Free microphones do integrate noise cancellation on the microphones so, background noise is minimized. Check out the review of the new PRO 2.0+ Aware music earplugs. Check out the review of the Free 2.0 earbuds.