Oladance Wearable Stereo Open Ear Earbuds Review – Parklife

Oladance Wearable Stereo: there’s a big swath of listeners (myself included) that for reasons of health, hearing or comfort need to avoid sticking tips in their ears, and consequently a ton of alternative non-intrusive designs—bone conduction, “open-ear,” etc.—are flooding the market.

Unfortunately, largely due to the laws of physics, most of these struggle to play loud, to reproduce bass or to image accurately, although I have grown fond of Samsung’s Galaxy Buds Live.

The ($149) Oldadance Wearable Stereo arrive with a flourish of marketing hype which to its credit avoids the usual semi-literate technobabble and clearly touts the advantages of this open design—secure fit, 16hr. battery life, no sound leakage—much of which is actually borne out in fact. Oversize nickel-and-plastic wraparound frames look cumbersome, and fit is tricky—the drivers sit on top of your concha, as opposed to covering the ear canal.

Once you get used to the Oladance Wearable, though, they but are surprisingly lightweight and pretty comfortable for extended listening, although they don’t mesh well with eyeglasses. I would have preferred physical buttons, but the  touch controls are reasonably intuitive, if overly sensitive. Packaging is nice and buds themselves have a premium feel; the charging case feels fragile but is nicely pocketable and promises a ridiculous 96 hours of battery life.

There’s no ANC (which makes sense in context of open-ears); however the absence of EQ, accompanying app or higher-rez codecs suggests that these are optimized more for function than for music. Nonetheless, they sound very good, especially given the limitations of the open design.

Oladance advertises its “360 Superior Sound” and giant 16.5mm drivers, and the buds do present a wide, enveloping stage (almost like open back over-ears) with a warm, analog tonality. They also play refreshingly loud. Stereo separation is really excellent and imaging accurate—you can tell the precise position of the performers even on dense arrangements.

Low end is visceral and throbbing, although it is a little boomy, with slow decay and, esp. considering the size of the drivers, doesn’t extend super-deep. The prominent bass also (very) slightly veils the higher frequencies but overall coherence is good and the transition between frequencies is smooth. Mids are forward and full; female vocals in particular have a lot of presence and body.

The Oladance Wearable also have considerable drive and energy, unlike the bone induction models I’ve heard, which seem tuned for laid-back background listening. Curiously, the Oladance sound quite a bit like the (wired) Koss PortaPro/KSC models, which have a similar fat/warm note texture, somewhat billowy bass and natural tonality.

Where the Oladance Werable trail traditional TWS designs is in high end extension and detail retrieval—treble is rolled off and lacking in sizzle, such that drumheads and handclaps lack some snap and little nuances like high piano keys or classical guitar strings sound slightly muted.

Correspondingly, the Oladance Wearable are wholly free from shrillness and glare. Well-tuned in-ears like the AXS Audio or Klipsch T5 have tighter bass and significantly better overall resolution, but actually sound “smaller”, less expansive and more analytical—the in-ears would be my choice for critical listening while I’d opt for the Oladance for communing with nature or meandering through Costco. 

Unlike a lot of the upstart, why-bother products that find their way onto our ears, the Oladance Wearable actually achieve their stated goals of providing immersive, comfortable, non-intrusive buds for whom music is more than an afterthought. 

 I don’t want to overpraise these Oladance Wearable—they are first and foremost a lifestyle product, and traditional in-ear designs will yield you more extension at both ends and more precise reproduction. However, the Oladance sound a lot better than they need to, and unexpectedly nail that elusive quality of PRAT.

As a value proposition, I’m not as certain—comparable Bose and Sony cost the same ($149) or more and have more tech but have shorter battery life and don’t look as well-built, while bone induction models are decidedly inferior sonically.

There are, however, innumerable cheaper similar open-ear models out there, including established names like Cleer and JVC; I can easily see myself falling into the rabbit hole of buying a few to compare. That said, the Oladance don’t seem overpriced, and I’ve spent a lot more on phones which don’t yield nearly as much pleasure.

 I might rethink this when the new toy syndrome starts to fade, but as of now these have the feel of a daily driver and are in any event a keeper.

Disclaimer: the Oladance Wearable Stereo were sent unsolicited and gratis by Oladance (https://www.oladanceshop.com/), ostensibly for a review. They did not impose any conditions or request their return and I’m not giving them back. 

Specifications Oladance Wearable Stereo

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