Sudio, a Swedish earphones manufacturer, has in recent years gained attention with their beautifully designed and durable earphones. They’ve recently launched the latest addition to their earphones collection the Tre. This is a Bluetooth 4.1 wireless earbud-style headphones designed for active lifestyles, and thus is sweat and water resistant.
The Sudio Tre design is simple and minimalistic. I have the black colour one for this review. The Tre is an earbud-style headphones, commonly referred to as earphones. There is some polished metal accents on the earpieces to add a bit of bling. A tangle-resistant flat cable connects both the left and right side earpieces.
Even though going to Bluetooth is all about doing away with wires, I’ve always felt a little insecure with the new generation of truly wire-free earphones. It’s too easy for an earpiece to fall out and disappear into an abyss as might happen, for example, when jostling with crowds during peak evening commute. I’ll gladly have the wire between the earpieces.
The inline remote and microphone are down from the right side earpiece, and to keep things a little balanced, there’s something similarly designed and weighted down by the left side earpiece. That latter item, presumably, contains the battery. In this way, the Sudio Tre feels perfectly balanced when you wear them.
The Sudio Tre’s earpieces themselves are rather unique. It’s like a cross between earbuds and in-ear headphones. You see, while the Tre’s earbud sits in the pinna (the outer ear), it as a tip that directs sound into the ear canal. But it doesn’t use ear tips. The Tre’s earpieces are stabilised with wing tips that hook into the concha.
This design offers the best of both worlds. Music that is directed into the ear canal, but without needing any tips that fill up the ear canal. This is great for people who don’t like the feeling of tips stuffed into their ears. More importantly, this design is great for sound quality too, which I’ll elaborate further below.
As a earphones designed for active lifestyles, the Sudio Tre has a few key features. First and foremost, of course, it’s sweat and water resistant, so no worries if you get the earphones a little wet. Also equally important, the Sudio Tre’s design allows it to pass through ambient sounds, so you can remain aware of your surroundings. This is important because, for example, if you’re running or jogging, you probably do want to hear people and other traffic around you.
The ear wings are also essential to keep the earpieces securely in your ears. Whether you jog, jump, kick-box, dance, or engage in any other activity that involves some aggressive body or head movements, you don’t have to worry about the Sudio Tre falling out.
The Sudio Tre’s inline remote controls are pretty standard, featuring just three basic buttons. The top and bottom one serves to control volume and skip tracks, as you’d expect. The middle button serves many functions, such as play, pause, answer call, reject call, Siri voice activation, and power. Yes, just Siri only, unfortunately, there is no Google Assistant support.
The body of the inline remote controls is covered in soft silicon material. A rubber flap on the side conceals a Micro-USB port used for charging the Sudio Tre.
The Sudio Tre claims 9 hours of play time and 10 days of standby. Full charge takes 120 minutes.
The sound quality of the Sudio Tre is reasonably good, particularly for an earphone. The challenge with typical earbud-style headphones is that some of the sound is lost before entering your ear canals. The Sudio Tre’s tips ensures that all of the music it produces is properly directed into your ear canals, pretty much like how it would work with in-ear headphones.
As is always the case, the correct position and fit is very important. If you get that right, the Sudio Tre sounds wonderful. You get bass, solid energetic bass, quite unexpected in earphones. Music throughout the frequency range is clear and full. I did find the mids elevated, good for those who love to hear strong vocals. Overall, the Sudio Tre’s sound quality not only fits well for gym or running, but also enjoyable on other occasions.
The Sudio Tre uses a dynamic driver with the following specifications:
- 15.2 mm dynamic speaker
- 103 +/- 3dB SPL @ 1 kHz 178 mvm
- Impedance: 32 Ohm +/- 15% @ 1 kHz
- Frequency Response: 20 Hz – 20 kHz
Included with every Sudio Tre:
- 3 pairs of ear wing tips
- Manual and warranty card
- Leather carry case
- Metal clip
- USB charging cable
I can’t help but to mention Sudio’s packaging. It makes a very good first impression.
This isn’t the actual Tre product box itself, but the box that will contain the Tre product box. It’s very sturdy, and includes a pretty red bow and ribbon decoratively affixed on it.
The Sudio Tre can be ordered online from Sudio Sweden. It’s priced at S$179, but there’s a 20% tax rebate, and another 15% off with promo code zitseng, for a final price of just S$121.72. This includes free shipping via DHL to Singapore, with delivery taking two to three business days.
Conclusion
The Sudio Tre is an excellent pair of Bluetooth 4.1 active lifestyle earphones with a unique earbud design that directs sound into ear canals for superior music qualty.
Pros:
- Simple minimalist style
- Sweat and water resistant
- Secure fit
- Unique earbud design directs sound into ear canals
- Excellent sound quality
Cons:
- Doesn’t support Google Assistant on Android