Factory issues

The first pair I got the right earbud was dead. Wouldn't even turn on. Support has been good though and 4 months later I got a new pair.

This time the touch controls only register single taps. Much worse however is that they keep disconnecting every 10 minutes. This is incredibly annoying and I will be sending these back also. Again, support is a tad slow but still good and I'm sure I'll get a working pair eventually.

I do believe they are working at their max capacity so I that's all I'll say about these issues for now.

My over-sensitive ears

I have over-sensitive ears. 4 people speaking will make my ears crackle and deaf after a while. Whether I have hyperacusis or misophonia the doctors have not diagnosed, but the problem is real.

I got the new IQ Buds Max 2 to deal with this. So I can turn down loud sounds and keep conversations.

Audio tests show that my hearing is perfect. Even the app's Ear ID test says so. The rings are complete, thus I hear all sounds great.

What nobody seems to test is how much sound can I handle and what happens then.

IQ Buds usefulness to my overly sensitive ears

Not much. The ANC is much less than the physical sealing. The different modes of letting me hear conversations end up greatly over-powering a fan in the corner and leaving me deaf for the person speaking in front of me. When a dog barks.. well let's say I'd rather keep incoming sound off in most occasions.

Overall quality

Sound is about the same as 7€ JBL wired in-ear buds. ANC is around 20% as strong as the physical sealing, so pretty much pointless. Otherwise they stay in the ear very well and I enjoy using them. I just wonder if the same result would have been achieved with 100€ buds instead of 300€.

Summary

My current experience is that they are overpriced and useless. If you have hearing loss I think these can actually benefit you a lot. But for my hearing problems, a solution does not exist currently.