Baseus Bowie 30 Max Headphone Review

Baseus is not a brand of earbuds I am very familiar with, so I wasn’t sure what to anticipate from the Baseus Bowie 30 Max Headphones right out of the package. Immediate impressions were positive, though. Simple, easy-to-remove packaging helps. Manufacturers frequently over-pack their products with flaps, tabs, and secret compartments for wires and dongles, but the Bowie 30 Max was designed with minimalism in mind.

If you’re wondering why this is important, it’s because I was immediately drawn to the blocky but sleek design of the cups and the great build quality of the headband. Despite being drastically discounted by most stores (from north of $100 to roughly $65 at the time of writing), this is not a budget headset, and it shows. The black finish is stunning, and the design, while chunkier than others, is balanced by a subtle logo print and smooth, comfy cushions. You can also adjust them so that they fit comfortably around your neck when not in use, and they fold at the cups for easy storage in a bag.

Aside from the amazing visual design, the Bowie 30 Max offers a few standout features that make a significant difference for the price, even if one or two of them don’t entirely stick the landing. One that undoubtedly does is battery life. The package offers 65 hours of Bluetooth playback in plain mode, which drops to roughly 30 when you engage the additional bells and whistles. This is quite astounding, since it may provide days and days of use when you’re out and about without having to charge them.

And what about the bells and whistles? The first is active noise cancellation (ANC). This is nothing new, and it is to be anticipated in a headset that costs more than a ton. You might even claim that it’s necessary for gaming or working. However, the ANC on the Baseus Bowie 30 Max is available in a variety of tastes. The Spatial Audio technology has two settings: fixed and head-tracking. This essentially means that a built-in accelerometer and gyroscope track your movements to provide either a fixed audio experience (great for listening to music) or one that feels more immersive and effective by tracking your head movements, resulting in louder audio for what’s directly in front of you – an excellent option for gaming.

However, the key limitation here is that sound quality suffers significantly. The effect is present and functional, however as you move your head, the audio quality suffers greatly. Strangely, this doesn’t improve much with Fixed Spatial Audio either. It made certain songs sound tinny, distant even. It wasn’t consistent either, which made the entire experience a little unsettling.

Going back to normal ANC was a better alternative. The vendor offers 96% sound reduction up to -45dB, but I can’t validate the statistics. To summarize, it worked well, decreasing the noise in my busy house and allowing me to focus on my work without too much sound bleed. Of course, there is a companion app, and I recommend getting it. Being able to adjust the EQ settings is critical when the out-of-the-box audio quality is as uneven as this.

Simply turning on the ANC was the greatest long-term solution. With 50mm drivers as standard and a frequency range of 20-40000Hz, the sound quality is excellent even if you’re only listening to music and receiving calls. All of the controls are on the right-hand cup, so it’s easy to find your way around and get to know them. They also support multipoint Bluetooth connections, however you must deactivate one connection before activating the other.

Overall, the Baseus Bowie 30 Max Headphones are a good choice if all you do is listen to music, but the fancy additions that raise the price aren’t actually useful, making the discounted price even more appealing. However, for around £60, you may consider alternative solutions such as the JLab Lux ANC headphones, which do precisely what they promise for the same price.