Verdict

The Edifier W240TN are a true wireless stacked with features at an affordable price. They’re good value for money with solid noise-cancellation and warm audio presentation. Of the affordable noise-cancelling true wireless, they’re one of the most rounded efforts available.

Introduction

Any audio brand worth its salt will have all avenues covered with its headphones. When it comes to true wireless that usually means budget options and premium wireless earphones.

It’s the budget area that the Edifier W240TN looks to make its mark in. Regularly bouncing between £70 and £80 on Amazon UK, these are budget true wireless earphones that boast noise-cancellation and transparency modes.

From brands as diverse as 1More, Earfun, OneSonic, and Ugreen, we’ve seen plenty try to wade in on the cheap noise-cancelling bandwagon – does the Edifier manage to jump on?

Design

• Comfortable fit
• Good build quality
• Strong water and dust resistance

The Edifier looks a lot like the Beats Studio Buds; they’ve got the same sculpted boot appearance that helps them slip into the ear easily, and they also make use of physical controls, which is again helpful in operating the earbuds. There’s that sure-fire recognition and response that comes with presses than there is with touch controls.

Aesthetically they’re a nice-looking pair, the glossy finish of the surface is far above the usual plastic efforts. The hexagonal, slightly chunky, and fake metal look of the control area does feel a little on the cheap side but then again, I’m reminded of the price and that, for the most part, these are a polished-looking pair of buds.

The seal made by the earphones is a very good one, a solid amount of environmental sounds is kept at bay before the noise-cancelling plays its part. Comfort levels are also good – they don’t feel too intrusive when worn even though they’re 11.6g per pair – and the stability and security of the buds are good too thanks to their snug fit. Four pairs of ear-tips are provided from extra small to large to find the best fit.

An IP55 rating protects them against ingress of dust and water, so the W240TN would be of interest to those who work out and exercise a lot. The charging case is fairly compact in size, with a LED light on that front that shows the current charge, and extracting the buds is a fairly easy process. Choices of colours for the Edifier W240TN come in black, blue and white.

Features

• ANC is susceptible to wind noise
• Below average call quality
• Stable wireless connection
• Strong battery life

Thanks to its design, as well as its stable and secure fit, the W240TN’s noise-cancelling performance mostly impresses. Walking about with them in central London, the ANC thins out vehicles on the road without erasing them from your general vicinity, and they do this without applying a noise-cancelling ‘whine’, so what you get here is a fairly clean performance.

Voices are also dulled and nipped in the bud so they become less noticeable, though I do find that in busy areas these wireless earbuds need some assistance from the volume control as some noise does still leak through.

The problem with the noise-cancelling is that it is susceptible to wind noise, which is something to factor in on a blustery day as the noise can be constant and distracting at its worst. Switch to the noise-cancelling off option and that puts a stop to it, relying on the buds’ passive noise isolation to stop sounds from interfering. The transparency mode does what it says on the tin – greater levels of awareness and more scope of what’s around the listener.

The Edifier comes with a Bluetooth 5.3 connection, which is currently the most up-to-date version available, and I’ve had no issues so far as the W240TN has performed very reliably in busy areas. The buds only support the SBC codec, which is the lowest quality Bluetooth codec. Is that a significant issue? Perhaps if you’re listening to higher quality music services but even then, the driver design will have more of an impact on what you hear.

Call quality I’d rate as being below average. Like most true wireless they sound good in quiet places but struggle in louder ones as the person on the other end said they could hear what other people were saying around me at a food market. When it became very loud it really was a struggle for them to hear what I was saying.

The Edifier W240TN supports Edifier’s Connect app, which offers levels of customization from a Game mode that reduces audio latency to swapping between noise-cancelling modes and ‘sound effects’ (Classic, Dynamic, Customised).

Hit ‘Customized’ and that opens a complex looking 4-band EQ where you can alter the Gain, frequency bandwidth and Q Factor. The Q Factor “refers to the size of the centre frequency relative to the bandwidth”. The larger the value, the narrower the bandwidth. I must admit that despite this concept being around for ages I struggle to wrap my head around it – it’s a bit like what Final has done with its app for the ZE3000. The best advice is to play around to see what effect it has.

Battery life is claimed by Edifier to be about seven hours, but performing a battery drain from a Spotify playlist for about two hours resulted in about a 25% drop. I’d say that at 50% volume you could wring about eight hours from the W240TN, which is better than a number of more expensive true wireless.

There’s no wireless charging but a 10-minute fast charge can reap two more hours of playback. In total, and with noise-cancelling on, it’s 21 hours. With noise cancelling off Edifier claims 8.5 hours per charge and 25.5 hours in total.

Sound Quality

• Audio infused with warmth
• Not the most dynamic of presentations
• Textured bass performance

Armed with a 10mm woofer and 6mm tweeter, the Edifier W240TN could be classified as a warm sonic bath. Part of that is also down to its support for the SBC codec, which isn’t the highest quality, but the way the Edifier is tuned appears to be more towards bass, giving them a rich quality to their sound.

But they’re not what I’d label as bass heavy in the sense that the low frequencies impinge on the mids and highs – the rest of the frequency range is, I’d say, handled skillfully enough. Cymbal crashes in Takuya Kuroda’s cover of Everybody Loves The Sunshine aren’t the crispest in terms of definition, with a smoothness that, well, smooths over some of the detail and brightness of the hi-hat cymbals; but there’s enough there to sense of those highs.

Meanwhile, the bass from the drum hits is forceful, giving those low frequencies a nice feeling of solidness and impact. And there’s José James’ soulful vocals which the Edifier affords a smooth character to them.

I wouldn’t call the W240TN’s description of vocals to be the most defined or sharpest; there’s a warmth running throughout the frequency range that gives the Edifier’s audio a slight richness to it. Whether it’s male or female vocals (like Isabella Manfredi’s in The Preatures’ Is This How You Feel), there’s a nice comforting smoothness to the sound that I enjoy.

There’s not much to speak of in terms of dynamism, the difference between highs and lows is a narrow one rather than a wide and expansive one. I’d also describe them as a slightly laid-back pair of earphones – there’s not that rising sense of energy in The Chemical Brothers’ Hey Boy Hey Girl that I’d want from a dance track.

But the soundstage is explicitly wide and while its sense of definition of instruments (natural or synthesized) is not its greatest trait, you get a sense of the instruments, what they are and where they are placed. Some more definition and clarity would give them a stronger stereo image. Nevertheless, the Edifier W240TN are enjoyable, especially if you like your music delivered with warmth and smoothness.

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Sustainability

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As part of this mission, whenever we review a product we send the company a series of questions to help us gauge and make transparent the impact the device has on the environment.

We currently haven’t received answers to the questions on this product, but will update this page the moment we do. You can see a detailed breakdown of the questions we ask and why in our sustainability info page.