Sound Peats RunFree Lite Review: Open Air on a Budget.

Lightweight, open, and unobtrusive, the RunFree from Sound Peats offers good audio quality and a very affordable price. My Review:

Sound Peats is a fairly well known audiophile brand in the headphone space as they have a history of producing exceptionally affordable options with features and audio quality that often competes with much higher priced offerings. In the outdoor space? Not so much. So today I wanted to shine a light on their newest open air headphones, the RunFree Lite. These are wireless (Bluetooth) headphones that use directed drivers to provide audio, without actually covering the ears. The advantage here is situational awareness, as the user can still hear people, traffic, and whatever else is going on around them, without sacrificing audio quality. The RunFree Lite headphones feature Bluetooth 5.3, USB C charging, 17 hours of playback, IPX4 water resistance (think sweat), a charge cable, 3 physical buttons, and retail for $49.99.

I’ve been using the RunFree for a little over a month now, in a combination of trail running, biking, work, and just doing things around the house. First, let’s talk about comfort. Even after several hours of continuous use, these feel rather nice. They’re extremely lightweight, don’t seal the ears so there is no internal friction, and they have a rather flexible headband that stays out of the way and generally floats behind the neck for a relatively friction free experience. The only complaint I have with the unit is that there is a rather stiff, linear protrusion coming off of the main body that is stiffer than the rest. This exists to hold the drivers in their proper position, but I do feel like this would be better with a bit more flex as the bulk of the headphone’s weight sits on a relatively narrow patch of my outer ear. The driver compartment also lightly touches my tragus, but hasn’t been particularly bothersome. Pretty good overall, but not as comfortable as others I have tested.

Audio quality is good for the price. A relatively large 16.2mm driver results in a strong, full, bass filled response. These have a relatively good amount of detail with insightful but not harsh treble, a relatively neutral mid response, and bass that is clean and well represented, but lack some depth on the lowest end, which is expected for this type of headphone. Separation and imaging and where these fall behind some of the more expensive offerings, with a relatively narrow (for open air) sound stage. Tones simply do not dance around the listener like more pricier options, but this seems like a reasonable tradeoff given the cost. At the price, these sound pretty good.

The controls are relegated to three physical buttons on the back / right hand side of the headset. There is essentially one power button, and a + and – button. Power of course turns it on and off, by holding it down, or holding it longer to pair. This button also answers calls with a single press when they’re coming in, or double tapping it switches to a game mode with less signal processing but lower latency. Quick presses of the + and – buttons adjust volume, while holding either button in switches tracks forward or back. It’s all relatively simple to use, but the buttons are a touch small. It’s hard to press just the power button if you’re wearing gloves for example, but didn’t really give me much trouble.

One gripe I do have is with the voice overs and power on/off notifications, if you call them that. When turning the unit on you get a “power on” voice that sounds like a lady in a bathroom recorded it from an old phone from 3 feet away. It’s sharp, full of reverb and just sounds cheap. All the voice overs sound this bad. It also says “connect” instead of “connected” when it grabs a phone connection, which sounds like you need to connect your device, not that it is connected. Seemingly an obvious translation issue. Minor, just something that sticks with the device.

Visually, I’m not a big fan of the aesthetics. They’re shiny and plasticky, but not overly so. They’re also a bit bulky and unrefined looking. They seem to actually be decently sturdy, however. These would do better with more matte color on the exterior, and perhaps a subtle logo. They don’t look bad, not at all, just look rather uninspired.

Overall

I like the RunFree Lite from SoundPeats. They sound good enough, especially for their price, and provide an enjoyable tone and enough thump to make working out rather enjoyable. I found them to provide a full, rich sound that wasn’t harsh or fatiguing. They also do a great job allowing sounds from the world in unobstructed, without having to sacrifice sound quality to do it. The controls are fine and the comfort is rather good, at least on my ears. I do wish they would update the notification sounds and voices, but otherwise I think they’re a good budget option for those who are searching for good enough, at a price that is rather great.