Sony Pulse Explore Review

About the Sony Pulse Explore

Sony Pulse Explore specs

• Price: $200
• Style: In-ear
• Colors: Black and white
• Drivers: Planar magnetic drivers
• Connections: 2.4 GHz via USB-A PlayStation Link dongle, Bluetooth 5.3
• Battery life: Up to 5 hours (earbuds), up to 15 hours with charging case
• Device compatibility: PlayStation 5, PC, Mac, iOS, Android
• Microphone: AI noise rejecting mics, 2x
• Virtual surround sound: Tempest 3D
• Noise canceling: No
• Weight: 6 grams (per earbud), 72-gram charging case
• Extra features: Multi-device connection, six extra ear tips

What we like

The drivers offer impressive sound

The Sony Pulse Explore start strong with its key feature: planar magnetic drivers. There are so many good earbuds out there that they’re practically a commodity, but earbuds with planar magnetic drivers are far rarer.

This driver technology uses a very thin and flat membrane vibrated evenly by magnetism to deliver a wide frequency response range with exceptional precision, and I’ve seen it work wonders in other headsets like the Maxwell from Audeze—a company Sony recently acquired. The technology continues to be quite impressive here.

The buds have incredible depth. Checking the range with a 20-20,000Hz audio sweep, I could hear the bass come in right away at 20Hz for real low-end coverage. When listening to music and games, that low end offers a lot, whether it’s thumping bass lines or the booming explosion of a well-placed tank shot in Battlefield 2042, it comes through with delicious delivery.

The precision also helps provide clear spatial audio cues. The Pulse Explore buds could benefit from more noise isolation and a wider soundstage, though that latter aspect is not very common in earbuds. Still, the clarity they provide helped me track down sound sample sources in Spider-Man: Miles Morales and keep my wits about me while I hunkered down on control points in Battlefield 2042.

Two connections are better than one

The Sony Pulse Explore earbuds support both a low-latency, high-fidelity wireless connection with the included dongle (Sony’s new PlayStation Link) and a Bluetooth connection. This provides some flexibility that’s always good to see. You can keep the dongle connected to your gaming system at home or PlayStation Portal, and use Bluetooth when you’re on the move, letting you get more mileage out of the earbuds than you might if they just had the dongle-based connection.

The buds can also play back audio from both sources at once—a trick common on other gaming headsets like the SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7 for years but am never disappointed to see. This is helpful if you want to listen to music or a podcast while doing something mindless in a game, like riding a horse across the entirety of the Red Dead Redemption 2 map, or if you want to have Discord going on your phone while playing PS5.

That gives the Pulse Explore buds a leg up on the Anker Soundcore VR P10, which can’t stream audio from two devices simultaneously.

What we don’t like

They get uncomfortably warm

Warmth isn’t an uncommon issue for headphones, but it’s far less common for earbuds. So when the Sony Pulse Explore buds heated up in my ears on first use and during several occasions afterward, I noticed quickly. With an infrared thermometer, I measured a hotspot of 96.1 degrees Fahrenheit.

This isn’t burning hot, but it gets uncomfortable, especially for a device plugged into your ear canals. By contrast, when headphones get warm, it’s usually because they’re sealing around your ears and trapping heat. These buds seem to be generating their own heat.

While this wasn’t a constant issue, it’s not a good sign for a product that doesn’t appear to have any clear way to address it with firmware updates through an app (as there is no app). Heat also has deleterious effects on batteries, and since the Pulse Explore already has limited battery life to begin with, even a small amount of degradation is bad news.

The connection isn’t rock solid

The wireless connectivity offered through the PlayStation Link dongle is an essential selling point, but it’s unfortunately not wonderfully reliable. At a very short range (e.g., plugged into a laptop within arm’s reach) the connection is stable. Across a living room, I found the connection a little spotty, occasionally blipping out or dropping one side for the briefest moment, the result of which is an awkward re-syncing of audio between the two sides.

That connection can even struggle in shorter ranges, as I noticed similar blips while the dongle was plugged into my PC under my desk. This environment has a lot of radio interference from other wireless devices and a nearby Wi-Fi router, but plenty of other devices perform admirably in the same conditions. The Pulse Explore simply aren’t among them. Sometimes the buds make inexplicable, high-pitched noises as well.

All of the blips and artifacts mar the listening experience. So even if the Pulse Explore earbuds are capable of providing brilliant audio, it’s interspersed with issues that take you out of the listening experience. We tested two pairs of Pulse Explore earbuds to make sure the issues above weren’t with our review unit, and they persisted across both devices.

The design is obnoxious and confusing

Sony’s modus operandi this console generation appears to be “go big.” The PS5 is huge. Sony’s Inzone H9 headset is gargantuan. And the Pulse Explore earbuds take what would normally be a compact product category and dial up the size.

The case for the Pulse Explore is a bit of a monster. I have large hands and still can’t wrap my fingers around it. It fits in my hands like the ergonomic handlebar of a bike. It’s not easy to slide into a pants pocket. It’s not that big for no reason, though. It has to accommodate the buds themselves, and they’re chunky.

On top of being large, the buds have a confounding design. While manufacturers have trained us to situate earbuds with the stem coming down out of our ears at an angle, the Pulse Explore earbuds want the stem—if you can even call the flag-like extension a stem—to point up toward the wearer's forehead. This fit keeps the PlayStation logo on the buds oriented properly, making the on-ear buttons easier to press. Angling the stems down instead results in awkward-to-press buttons and a less comfortable fit. The buds are fairly uncomfortable even when worn correctly, relying largely on pressure in the ear canal to hold them in place.

Even with the size of the case, Sony didn’t include a place to store the PlayStation Link dongle. While it’s likely going to be left permanently plugged into a console at home, the option to take it on the go would have been a nice one to have.

Battery life is low and hard to gauge

Further adding to the nuisance that is the size of the Pulse Explore buds is their paltry battery life. For gaming earbuds, a 5-hour runtime is pitiful. It’s not great as far as Bluetooth earbuds go either, especially $200 ones. (Sony’s own similarly priced Inzone Buds boast up to 12 hours of battery life.)

The large charging case also only packs in an extra 10 hours. Fortunately, Sony hasn’t overestimated, as I was able to get some lengthy gaming sessions in before needing to charge the buds, and managed more of those before the case battery dried up.

Sony didn’t seem to include a great way of indicating low battery. On a connected phone, you can check the battery percentage, but if you’re gaming, it might be less obvious. The case’s indicator light isn’t the most prominent and is effectively hidden when placed on a table or desk.

I never noticed any indication from the buds themselves that their batteries were low, either. Instead, after a long day of gaming, I put the buds back into their charging case and thought nothing of it. Only when I pulled out the buds the next day and discovered they weren’t connecting did I discover that the batteries were dead.

The microphones are typical of earbuds

Sony put all of its eggs in the planar magnetic basket. The Pulse Explore may be good at putting audio out, but they’re lackluster at taking it in. The mics on the earbuds are typical of earbuds, which is to say they leave a lot to be desired.

Voice input sounds far away, compressed, and lacking fullness. That might be acceptable on a cheap pair of earbuds, but it shouldn’t be on a $200 gaming headset. Even though Sony’s AI Noise Rejection technology is effective at eliminating droning background noise, it doesn’t mean much if the mic still sounds awful to your teammates.

Should you buy the Sony Pulse Explore?

No, they’re just not worth it

Sony’s Pulse Explore earbuds had a strong premise: use planar magnetic drivers in earbuds for excellent gaming audio you can take anywhere. They get the audio quality right and provide two wireless connection methods (one of them lossless and with low latency) to offer more flexibility, but the positive qualities are marred by a disappointing execution that makes for a poorly rounded product.

The earbuds and case are bulky, have limited battery life, and unreliable connectivity. All of these stand firmly in the way of getting the most out of the Pulse Explore buds. At $200, they’re not cheap either. You could easily snag a decent pair of Bluetooth earbuds like the Anker Soundcore Space A40 for $54 on sale that would outshine the Pulse Explore buds in on-the-go convenience and have enough left over for a decent wireless gaming headset like the HyperX Cloud Alpha Wireless.

There are so many better options, there’s really little argument to be made in favor of the Pulse Explore earbuds. Even if their sound quality is exceptional, it's disrupted enough that the audiophiles who might appreciate it will certainly turn against the buds.