Moondrop Pill Clip-On TWS Earphones REVIEW (1) – Wake Me When It’s Over?
The Moondrop Pill were graciously provided for review purposes by Cloris at SHENZHENAUDIO and they can be purchased at shenzhenaudio.com.
A new $49.99 ring-style open ear clip on from the ever wild-and-wacky Moondrop, whose designs are inevitably clever and creative, if not always practical.
The Pill comes with an unnecessarily large, eerily-phallic carrying case which (for whatever reason) opens by rotating a large side button. Pairing is instantaneous; Moondrop’s classic, orgasmic voice prompts have gotten even weirder. Touch controls work reliably but have an unintuitive, confusing scheme (i.e. three presses on the R to advance a track). Comfort is excellent and build is a cut above its price peers, with soft, plastics and pliable connecting rings.
The accompanying Link app is odd and almost useless—there are three barely-distinguishable presets but as far as I can tell no custom EQ, although you can download and adopt another user’s community EQ setting. There’s still no way to control volume on the buds nor ability to change the touch control functions. 8 hr. battery and call quality are fine; multipoint pairing is a plus.
The larger-than-typical spherical earshells promise larger drivers and/or more low end. but in fact, bass is very restrained on these—there’s almost no subbass presence and a lean, though agile midbass. Tuning is typical of Moondrop’s recent IEMs like the Golden Ages (our 2 reviews here) and the wunderkind Space Travel (our 2 reviews here)—smooth, slightly bright, with some emphasis on the upper mids and surprising extension at the high end. As with the aforesaid, the Pill excels at two things: (a) it images extremely well and separates each performer very cleanly; and (b) it has a analoguish, uncompressed tonality which is free from harshness and rewards extended listening. The Pill also present an impressively wide, uncluttered stage.
Unfortunately, and somewhat perversely, the Pill retains the same sonic limitations as Moondrop’s prior TWS models—they don’t play very loudly and they don’t have lot of punch or presence. Hard rock like the Stones “Some Girls” sounds over-polite; drum hits lack crispness and mids a bit recessed and laid back, even as the treble frequencies are quite extended and clean-sounding. Something like the $60 Soundpeats PearlClip Pro (review here) trail a bit in in overall detail and resolution but have a lot more bottom end and a beefier tone; they are the better bud for heavier genres, though you might prefer the Pill for ambient stuff.
The Pill ultimately hews close to Moondrop’s house sound—lean but airy, natural-sounding, light on the lowend and somewhat laid-back. It’s a signature that, largely due to the laws of physics, sounds fuller and richer on their IEMs, and if you already own the Space Travel you won’t find the Pill to be a step forward. If, however you like the open ring form factor, and prefer a more “reference” (c.f. bass-limited) tuning, you can do alot worse than the Pill for non-critical listening—they look cool, feel nice and seem fairly priced, especially after the inevitable discounts kick in.
Specifications Moondrop Pill
| Driver | 13 mm circular low-distortion dynamic |
| Frequency Response | ?? – 20,000 Hz |
| Impedance | ?? Ω |
| Speaker Power | ?? mW |
| Bluetooth Version | 6.0 |
| Working Distance | 10m (Barrier Free Environment) |
| Supported Bluetooth Profiles | A2DP / AVRCP / HFP / HSP |
| Supported Bluetooth Codecs | SBC / AAC |
| Mutipoint Connection | 2 devices |
| Battery Capacity | 3.7V / 40mAh (Earbud) | 3.7V / 300mAh (Charging case) |
| Total Music Play Time | 8 h Playtime | 20 h with Charging Case |
| Charge Time | Earbuds: 0.53 h (Supporting Quick Charge) Charging Case: 1.77 h |
| Charging Input | 5V – 1A |
| Output | 5V – 0.25A |
| Total Standby Time | 35+90 80 h |
| Noise Reduction | NA |
| Game Mode | Yes |
| Water Resistance | IPX4 |
| Tested At | $49.99 USD |
| Product Page | moondroplab.com |
| PURCHASE LINK | SHENZHENAUDIO |
