Altec Lansing True Evo  Headphones Review

The Altec Lansing True Evo are truly wireless in-ears with an oval design and low-profile look in their all-black color scheme. The buds have stability fins, giving them a sporty look, but they don’t stand out with flashy colors. The buds are bulky and thick and will protrude out of your ears.

The Altec Lansing True Evo wireless earbuds are lightweight, fairly comfortable, and come with multiple tip sizes and stability fins to help you find the best fit. They also come with two foam tips that some people prefer. They don’t enter your ear canal as deeply as typical in-ears, meaning that they might be more comfortable for some users. However, the fit might not be ideal for everyone, and some may feel ear fatigue after a while.

Similar to the SoundPeats TrueFree, the Altec Lansing True Evo have a single button on each earbud, meaning their control scheme is limited. You can manage calls and music and trigger your device's voice assistant, but that’s about it. They don’t have any volume control, and you can't skip tracks, which is disappointing. The buttons are fairly easy to use but aren’t versatile, and they give you decent feedback. However, you have to push the earbuds a bit deeper into your ear if you want to register a command.

Like most in-ears, the Altec Lansing True Evo wireless earbuds are very breathable and don’t create much temperature difference when inside the ear for a while. You shouldn’t sweat more if you use them for sports since they don’t trap any heat under an ear cup like over-ears do.

Like most truly wireless in-ears, the Altec Lansing True Evo are very portable since you can easily fit the buds inside pockets or a bag. They also come with a small hard case, but it's bulkier than some other truly wireless headphones cases. It'll still fit in most pockets, so it won’t be too hard to keep on you at all times.

The Altec Lansing True Evo wireless earbuds have a good hard case to protect the headphones against scratches, minor water exposure, and small impacts. The case also supports Qi wireless charging, which is a nice addition. Unfortunately, the buds don’t fit well inside the case, and you might have to play around with them until you see the LED light up, confirming they are charging. Also, for some reason, the right earbud is stored on the left, and vice versa. The overall build of the case feels a bit cheap, but it has a locking mechanism to keep the buds inside. On the upside, the case's lid is also see-through, so you can always see the LED status. You also receive a small pouch to travel with the case, accessories, and charging cable.

The overall build quality seems solid enough to survive a few accidental drops. The buds are small and made of dense plastic that feels solid and shouldn’t break easily. However, the case feels lightweight and not as sturdy as the headphones. On the upside, these headphones are rated IPX6 for sweat and water resistance, but we haven't tested this.

The Altec Lansing True Evo are stable headphones for running and working out. You might need to take some time to find the perfect fit with all the tip and fin options, but once you get it right, they barely move in your ears. Unfortunately, the bud design is bulky, and you might feel like they aren’t very stable. On the upside, they are truly wireless, and you won’t have to worry about a cable getting stuck on something and pulling them out of your ears.

• Altec Lansing True Evo headphones
• Charging case
• 7x tips
• 2x foam tips
• 3x stability fins
• Carrying pouch
• Charging cable
• Manuals

The Altec Lansing True Evo's frequency response consistency is great. Assuming the user can achieve a proper fit and an air-tight seal using the assortment of tips that come with the headphones, they should get consistent bass and treble delivery every time they use the headphones. However, since the buds are big, some people may have difficulty getting a good seal.

The Altec Lansing True Evo have passable bass accuracy. LFE (low-frequency extension) is down to 23Hz, which is great. However, the sub-bass range, responsible for low-end thump and rumble, is slightly lacking. However, this shouldn’t be too noticeable on headphones. On the other hand, mid-bass, responsible for the body of bass guitars and the punch of kick drums, and high-bass, responsible for warmth, are over our target by about 6dB and 8dB, respectively, resulting in an overpowering and boomy sounding bass.

The Altec Lansing True Evo wireless earbuds have decent mid-range accuracy. Low-mid is slightly overemphasized, which adds to the muddiness and boominess caused by the excess high-bass. Mid-mid and high-mid are consistently underemphasized by about 3dB and 4dB, weakening vocals and lead instruments and pushing them to the back of the mix.

The Altec Lansing True Evo's treble accuracy is great. The response is fairly flat and even throughout the range. The small peaks around 6-7KHz and 10KHz might make these frequencies a bit sibilant, but not everyone will hear it as intensely.

The stereo imaging is excellent. Their weighted group delay is at 0.29, which is very low. The group delay graph also shows that the entire response is below the audibility threshold. This ensures a tight bass and a transparent treble reproduction. Also, the L/R drivers of our test unit were well-matched in frequency, amplitude, and phase response. This is important for the accurate placement and localization of objects (voices, instruments, video games effects) in the stereo image. Note that these results are only valid for our unit, and yours may perform differently.

Their passive soundstage performance is bad. This is because creating an out-of-head and speaker-like soundstage is largely dependent on activating the resonances of the pinna (outer ear). The design of in-ears and earbuds fully bypasses the pinna and doesn't interact with it. Also, because these headphones have a closed-back enclosure, their soundstage won't be perceived to be as open as that of open-back earbuds like the Apple AirPods (1st generation) Truly Wireless, Google Pixel Buds 2017 Wireless, or the Bose SoundSport Free Truly Wireless.

The Altec Lansing True Evo's noise isolation performance is okay. These in-ear headphones don't have active noise cancelling and passively achieve about 6dB of isolation in the bass range, which is mediocre. It won't be quite adequate for reducing the rumble of airplane and bus engines that occupy that frequency range. In the mid-range, important for blocking out speech, they isolate more than 18dB, which is good. In the treble range, occupied by sharp sounds like S and Ts and fan noises like A/C systems, they achieved about 30dB of isolation, which is also good.

The Altec Lansing True Evo's leakage performance is excellent. These in-ears leak very little audio, so you don't need to worry about disturbing people around you unless you are blasting your music in a very quiet room. With the music at 100dB SPL, the leakage at 1 foot away averages 28dB SPL and peaks at 37dB SPL, which is quieter than the noise floor of an average office.

The Altec Lansing True Evo's microphone is mediocre, like most Bluetooth microphones. In quiet environments, speech recorded or transmitted with this mic will sound relatively thin, noticeably muffled, and lacking detail. It'll struggle to separate speech from ambient noise in noisy situations, even in moderately loud environments like a busy street.

The Altec Lansing True Evo's integrated microphone has an adequate recording quality. The LFE of 265Hz results in recorded or transmitted speech that is relatively thin. The HFE of 3.4KHz suggests speech that lacks detail and presence, but this is expected on Bluetooth microphones. However, the understandability of speech on this microphone will be decent in quiet environments.

The Altec Lansing True Evo's integrated microphone has poor noise handling. In our SpNR test, the mic achieved a speech-to-noise ratio of about 9dB, indicating it is best suited for quiet environments. However, it'll struggle to separate speech from ambient noise even in moderately loud situations.

The Altec Lansing True Evo wireless earbuds have short 3.3-hour battery life on one charge, but thankfully the charging case gives you four additional charges for an estimated total of about 15 hours. Unfortunately, they take about the same time to charge, which is disappointing. They also can’t extend their battery life thanks to its power-saving feature, so be sure to turn them off when you’re not using them. Also, you might have to fiddle with the buds a bit to ensure they are charging in the case.

Unfortunately, the Altec Lansing True Evo don’t have a companion app with customization options.

These Bluetooth-only headphones are very simple and don’t offer NFC pairing. They also can’t connect to more than one device at a time, which would have been convenient if you often switch between a PC and your phone. The Altec Lansing True Evo wireless earbuds have very high latency and may not be suitable for watching videos and gaming. You might notice a delay between what you see and what you hear. However, some devices and apps seem to compensate differently for latency, so your experience may vary.

Note: We couldn't confirm the Bluetooth version.

These Bluetooth-only headphones don’t have a wired connection.

The Altec Lansing True Evo wireless earbuds come with a charging case that gives you four additional charges, but it doesn’t have any inputs. On the upside, you can use a Qi wireless charger to charge the case.