It looks like NeckBand earbuds are making a comeback once again. Welcome to the CMF NeckBand Pro, the latest product in this category. You know what? The CMF NeckBand Pro does all the things that the OnePlus Bullets Wireless Z2 ANC can do, but it has one special party trick up its sleeve. Well, what is that special party trick? Watch on to learn more about that in our detailed review of the CMF NeckBand Pro and comparison against the Bullets Wireless Z2 ANC. Your destination for details and incessant gadget reviews. Now, what’s the USB? It is a smart dial. I’ve never seen anything like this on a neckband product.
The tactile feedback of a physical dial cannot be overstated. And the clicks that you feel when changing the volume are every nerd’s tech orgasm. Sorry, sorry. But if you ask me, the build quality of the button itself is slightly circumspect, so you will have to baby it when using these buds. By the way, this smart dial is not just a rotating dial. It can also click to play or pause music or to even change the track. And like most neck bands, you also get magnetic controls, which means that you can actually pause music when you attach the buds using these magnets, but detaching them doesn’t play music on its own, which is a thing that is not present on the bullets wireless Z2 ANC either. By the way, I’m still not a fan of this neck band form factor because I don’t like anything dangling from my neck, and something is always irritating my skin. Having said that, the rubber used for the band itself is very soft, and you can wear it for very long sessions without any discomfort, just like the bullet wireless Z2 ANC. Also, if you’re not a fan of the flashy orange color, there are two other color options: light gray and dark gray, so nothing has you sorted there.
Now for connection, you get support for Google Fast Pair and Microsoft Swift Pair as well. There’s also the dual connection option, so you can stay connected to a phone and a laptop at the same time, and just double-pressing the function button will switch between devices. On the Bullets Wireless Z2 ANC, you can stay connected to only one device at a time. And if you want to switch to the other one, then the other device gets disconnected. To round up the design, both also offer an IP55 rating, which is fantastic. Now, if not for this smart dial, the CMF NexBand Pro would be equal to the OnePlus Bullets Wireless Z2 ANC, at least in terms of design. Now, if you’re comparing the companion apps, the Nothing X app definitely looks better than Hey Melody on OnePlus. But with respect to features and controls, both of these apps offer you control over equalizer, game mode, and all of those things. Now talking about low lag mode for gaming on the CMF Nexband Pro, you get a latency of 120 ms in gaming mode, nothing that’s not low latency, that’s very high latency even by default, and the low latency mode works only with nothing phones, which is also true for the game mode on the OnePlus Bullets wireless Z2 ANC, because it works only with OnePlus phones, but at least latency is a respectable 94 milliseconds. It’s not still very low, but it’s better than 120 milliseconds or nothing. By the way, I keep saying nothing because CMF is a sub-brand of nothing. We should not forget that. Now, while the game mode is better on the bullets, the CMF NeckBand Pro does ANC better. And the numbers don’t really matter here. 50 dB environmental noise cancellation on the CMF NeckBand Pro is definitely higher than 45 dB on the bullets.
But in real life, when I tested it, especially when I was sitting in a room with the fan whirring in the background, the CMF NeckBand Pro could cut out that fan sound much better than the Bullets Wireless Z2 ANC. What’s also better on the CMF NexBand Pro is the mic quality, but only slightly better. And that’s also probably because CMF has five mics compared to three mics on the OnePlus. Take a listen to the mic sound quality comparison and let me know which one you like. So this is with the ANC on, and you can hear the noise getting cancelled. Let us know. Let us know which one you like. So this is with the ANC on, and now we can hear the noise getting cancelled. Let us know which one you like. Now let’s talk about the sound. The NeckBand Pro’s 13.2mm drivers are tuned for bass, even in the balanced equalizer setting. It’s extremely bass-heavy. In fact, it is so bass-heavy that I had to double check if I hadn’t switched on some ultra-bass option. It’s that bad. And the V-shaped or U-shaped sound signature generally gets a bad rep because of tuning like this. Because most budget neckband-style earphones or truly wireless earbuds overdo the So, if you listen to The Chain by Fleetwood Mac, which is an iconic rock masterpiece, you will notice that the bass overpowers the vocals to the extent that it goes into some sort of vacuum and your ears are constantly craving for the singer’s voice. The treble is also absolutely badly tuned; there is no extension, the shimmer is not there, and there is just no feel or impact. The imaging, on the other hand, is alright; you can hear the instruments separately, but the sounding is absolutely nonexistent, if you ask me. Now, if you’re wondering here, did you play around with the app’s EQ settings? Well, I did. And it made matters worse because when I reduced the bass, I could still hear that low rumbling grunt, which sounded really bad. As you can tell, I’m not a fan of the sound signature. And yes, there is that spatial audio mode, which makes it even worse because even if you go slightly higher than 80 percent volume, you will hear distortion as well. The spatial mode is not good on the CMF NeckBand Pro.
So the question remains: is the Bullets Wireless Z2 ANC so much better sounding? Well, it’s just that the CMF Nexband Pro sounds so bad that the bullets, while the Z2 ANC starts sounding like a dream now. Because even OnePlus has tuned the bullets for bass, but it’s not so bass heavy that, you know, it cuts into the mids and it makes it sound really, really bad. That aside, the imaging is slightly better. There’s a little bit of semblance in the soundstaging. So if it’s for sound quality that you’re picking between the two, then I would suggest going for the bullets. So if you ask me, I am fed up with the massive tuning overall. I’m sure that there is some internal research happening at these companies that says that people just want this much bass. Because within the company itself, if you look at it, the more expensive Nothing Ear 2 is tuned so well, whereas the budget CMF NeckBand Pro is tuned so badly. There is no signature or a signature, nothing sounds that I can, you know, come to a conclusion for. And the more I listen to these neckband earphones, I am craving the days of the RHA MA750, the MA650, or even the Oppo Enco M31. Please bring back good sound with neckband earphones. I feel that the audience that is buying the NeckBand earphones shouldn’t be treated so badly.
Now, between these two, if you ask me about the CMF NeckBand Pro, yes, it has a smart dial, yes, it does ANC better, but for sound quality, the bullets wireless Z2 ANC would be slightly better. But if you can still find an RHE NeckBand or an Oppo Enco M31 somewhere, just buy that instead. And that’s the thing with audio products: old has always been gold. What do you guys think of the CMF NeckBand Pro? Do you like it? Do you not like it? Let me know in the comment section below.
