Enacfire A9 Noise Cancelling Earbuds Review: Fine Enough

Who Are Enacfire A9 Noise Cancelling Earbuds For?

• The Enacfire A9 earbuds are ideal for someone who wants a decent pair of earbuds for a relatively low price
• The Enacfire A9 earbuds have a long battery life between charges
• The A9 earbuds are waterproof, making them ideal to wear while working out

Folks, it's wireless earbuds time yet again here at International Business Times. In this edition, we are checking out the Enacfire A9 noise cancelling earbuds, a fairly budget option that punches above its weight class in terms of audio quality and battery life. Us here at International Business Times thought the previously-reviewed Enacfire G10 earbuds were worthy of our Great Deal award, so will the A9s be able to keep up?

Perfectly Fine Sound Quality, With Lag

The Enacfire A9 earbuds sound fine. That's pretty much the only word to use here. The earbuds are certainly not going to impress any discerning ear with their quality, but they also aren't bad in any sense. The A9 earbuds' audio quality simply is fine.

The one downside for the A9s is that they do not have a low-latency mode. This means there will be a noticeable lag between a video and its audio when watching things on a computer or phone. If the A9s are just used for music or podcasts this isn't an issue, but it could be an annoyance if trying to watch a movie or TV show.

Not Fine Microphone Quality

Like just about every other wireless earbud option out there, the Enacfire A9 earbuds have a built-in microphone to make phone calls and communicate with digital assistants like Siri or Alexa. While the microphone started out decently enough, it quickly became a less than pleasant experience.

Over the course of about a half hour conversation, the A9 earbuds degraded the quality of my phone call multiple times. Often this resulted in either me hearing the person I was talking to sound pixelated and distorted, them hearing me sound pixelated and distorted, or both. The person I was talking to also said she regularly could hear echoes of herself while talking to me, something she hasn't mentioned during many other conversations I've had with her using other pairs of wireless earbuds.

Inactive Noise Cancellation

If you have read any of my previous reviews about noise cancelling earbuds, you've definitely come across a rant about how none of them work. It's true, noise cancelling earbuds have yet to be capable of making a meaningful impact on the ambient noise I hear while wearing them.

This stance holds true with the Enacfire A9 earbuds. These definitely don't decrease the sounds I hear from the outside world while wearing them. What's different here is that I can actually hear a slight shift in tone when activating the noise cancelling features on the A9s. It doesn't make things more quiet or block out sound, but there's at least a noticeable change. Normally I hear no difference with the noise cancelling features on or off with earbuds, so I guess that's something.

Small, But Weird Case

I both very much like and dislike the Enacfire A9 charging case. On the plus side, it's very small and compact. This is great for putting the case in a pocket or throwing it into a bag without any hassle. The case also holds a surprisingly large charge, especially considering its size.

However, there are a few downsides with the A9 case. The most annoying thing is how the earbuds fit into the case. Most wireless earbud cases have a fairly strong set of magnets to help the earbuds almost jump out of your hand and into their slots. The A9 case is oddly shaped, making it a little difficult to get the earbuds into their places. The case also flashes a bright LED light when the earbuds are charging, meaning any time the earbuds are put away the case is going to start lighting up.

Great Battery Life

While the case may be annoying, it has a surprisingly huge battery. The Enacfire A9 earbuds last for a whopping 32 hours when the earbuds and case are both fully charged. Of course, this involves charging the earbuds back up with the case intermittently, but that's still one of the longer use times I've come across.

The case charges fairly quickly, and can usually get up to max capacity in around two and a half hours. The A9 earbuds themselves seem to charge very quickly when in their case and regularly jump back up to 100 percent in around a half hour or less.

Final Thoughts

The Enacfire A9 earbuds are fine for what they are, which is an inexpensive pair of wireless Bluetooth earbuds. They fit comfortably in my ears, which is a surprising rarity, and have decent audio quality. The battery life for the A9 earbuds is very lengthy, and I like how small the earbuds and their charge case are. Their microphone quality does leave something to be desired, but for around $67 it's hard to expect perfection.

That said, if you're in the market for a budget pair of earbuds, may we suggest the even less expensive Enacfire G10 earbuds? The G10 earbuds don't have noise cancellation features, but have great battery life and are only around $40.

The Enacfire A9 earbuds are available right now on the Enacfire website with free shipping to the US and UK, and should be making a return to Amazon soon.