Sony LinkBuds S — great sound and active noise cancelling wireless earbuds
Sony LinkBuds S. Picture: Noel Campion.
Sony has some of the best wireless earbuds on the market and their flagship WF-1000XM4 are exceptional as long as you don’t mind the price and how big they are in your ears. While there are tons of alternatives Sony’s LinkBuds S has a lot of the same features while being smaller, lighter and cheaper.
The LinkBuds S, like the LinkBuds, arrive in paper packaging with no plastics included. This makes for a wholesome unboxing experience that Sony should be applauded for.
They’re available in either black, Cream or white and the case and buds have a slightly rough matte finish that feels simple and organic.
There’s no brash logo printed on the outside of the case or buds, instead, you’ll find an elegant Sony logo embossed on the top of the case lid and sides of each bud.
Around the back of the case, there’s a USB-C charging port and a Bluetooth pairing button. Just under the lid opening on the front is a horizontal LED indicator that lights blue in pairing mode, or green when the battery level is high. The earbuds' excellent grip makes it easy to remove them from the case, and Sony includes four pairs of silicone ear tips in different sizes.
The LinkBuds S are compatible with Bluetooth 5.2 and support the AAC, SBC and LDAC codecs. The latter is a proprietary audio coding technology developed by Sony, which allows streaming high-resolution audio over Bluetooth connections at up to 990 kbps at 24 bit/96 kHz.
The LinkBuds S have capacitive touch controls on the outer part of each bud and I found them responsive and consistent. I also didn’t have any problems with accidental touches when taking them in and out of my ears.
Each earbud has a set of touch controls you can pick from but you can’t customise the sets. I set the left bud for volume controls and the right for playback and call control but there was no way of integrating controls for ANC. By default, the left is set to toggle through the ANC modes but then you have to use your device to control the volume which isn’t ideal.
The right bud can also summon your voice assistant by holding down on the right earpiece.
The LinkBuds S are IPX4 water-resistance — a feature that’s always good to have and I found they fitted nice and snug in my ears, so they’re good for general workouts where sweat or light rain won’t cause them any damage. The case doesn’t come with any rating so it’s best to keep it in a safe and dry place.
Google's handy new Fast Pair feature is supported by LinkBuds S. With Windows 11 or Windows 10, Swift Pair makes it quick and simple to pair your headphones with your laptop, desktop, or tablet. When pairing mode is chosen, pop-up pairing instructions are displayed on adjacent Windows 11 or Windows 10 devices.
According to Sony, the LinkBuds S has a six-hour battery life and an additional 14 hours of charge life in the case. These figures are pretty average, but your mileage may vary depending on your usual listening volume and ANC usage. However, the slight compromise in battery life won’t be a dealbreaker for most and it may be worth it for those who want a light case and buds that don’t protrude as much as the WF-1000XM4s do.
While it’s great to get up to sixty minutes from a five-minute charge and that you get a notification when the charging case drops below 30%, it’s a little disappointing that the LinkBuds S doesn’t support wireless charging.
The Sony Headphones app (available for Android and iOS) is feature rich with excellent options and customisability. In particular, I love the adjustable EQ with its five-band faders and the additional clean bass fader.
The Ambient Sound controls can be finely tuned to allow the sounds around you in and there’s an extra option that can be ticked to focus on voices while suppressing noise. Various on-ear control tweaks and third-party service integrations, including Spotify Tap and Microsoft Soundscape 3D immersive audio, are also unlocked by the app.
The Speak to Chat option will automatically pause your audio when you start talking to have a conversation with someone — I found this brilliant in an office environment.
I tested the LinkBuds S on a plane recently and I while I generally prefer over-ear headphones for travel, I was impressed with their ANC performance. Sony continues to perfect the technology and these earbuds do an incredible job of silencing the sounds around you. Start playing some audio and you can get lost in the music. This isn’t to say they’re class-leading but they’re up there with the best of them in this price range.
I was a fan of the audio quality from the WF-1000XM4s and in my view, the LinkBuds S are not far behind them.
They take to being EQ’d well — I increased the bass and highs a little to brighten them to my liking. By default, they’re a little dark but produce a clear sound with good imaging and resolution when using a hi-res audio source. If you’re streaming from lossy services like Spotify, the edge-AI DSEE Extreme upscaling helps to improve the audio quality, so I turn it on for those sources.
Call quality is excellent too. It does a good job of picking up vocals and still suppresses background noise.
The Sony LinkBuds S are a good all-rounder with excellent app support and features. The sound quality is top-notch as is the ANC performance. The battery life is good enough for the majority of users but wireless charging would have been nice.
LinkBuds S €159 (RRP €199) — Harvey Norman
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