Denon is name that many audio savvy people will associate with high-grade amplifiers and cutting edge audio/video technology for the living room and television. They have, however, recently moved into producing headphones and earphones, targeting different lifestyle groups to try and put their stamp on audio consumers. We’re lucky enough to be looking at the Denon Exercise Freak Wireless Fitness Earphones today which, you guessed it, are targeted at fitness junkies and others who might need a wireless pair of headphones. Let’s see if Denon’s pedigree comes through in their first foray into the fitness audio scene.
The earphones
Right out of the box, the Exercise Freak (EF) in-ear headphones come with a whole host of extras that will help you get set up and running. Naturally, you get the earphones and you also get a carry bag in the colour of your earphones. Inside this zip-sealed bag is a micro-USB cable for charging your EFs as well as three sets of different sized earbuds. You also get a carabiner, also matched in colour to your earphones, which can be hooked onto the rear of the carry bag for an easy way to attach your extras to yourself or your bag. Of course, the carry bag itself is large enough to carry all of this including the earphones if you’re just looking to pack them away.
You can purchase Denon Exercise Freak earphones in either blue, black, pink or the yellow which we’ve got here. They’re definitely a very distinctive pair of earphones, not only for the bright colours, but the design as well. To call them ugly would be doing them a disservice, but they are definitely not the most aesthetically pleasing earphones on the market; I’ve even heard the EFs described as ‘hearing-aid’-like referring to the general bulkiness of the earphones which do appear to carry a lot of size in the earpiece.
As you would have guessed from the name of the earphones, the EFs are a wireless Bluetooth set of earphones. Pairing is a simple matter of holding the play/pause button for a few seconds to enter Bluetooth pairing mode after which you can pair away with your device. The battery of the EFs lasts roughly 7 hours, which does seem a little short, but given the size of the earphones and the fact that you’ll never be exercising for longer than 7 hours at a time (hopefully), that should be more than enough battery life to suit your needs.
To fit better to your ear, the EFs employ the use of a moulded body that wraps around your ear with a rotatable earpiece at the end of it to try and get that perfect fit; more on the comfort later. The two earpieces are connected by quite a thick cable, thicker than the standard audio cable at least, which also has a reflective strip mounted to it; this is a nice touch, particularly for all those runners and riders who are fond of activities that either start very early or very late.
As you might expect, given that the Exercise Freak earphones are a full wireless set of headphones, there are quite a few controls mounted on the earpieces themselves. On right side, you will have the play/pause and volume up/down buttons, as well as housing the mic, micro-USB port for charging, and the indicator light. By comparison, the left earpiece appears to be lacking in notable features with only the answer call button situated on it. I can’t fault the placement of the buttons on the EFs as they all sit in logical positions that are easily accessible while wearing them.
Denon also makes a point to advertise the fact that the Freaks are sweat resistant, which is always a nice feature considering they are targeted at the fitness crowd. While I didn’t test them to what might be the maximum of sweat saturation, they lasted through several workouts with sweat just needing to be wiped off at the end of it.
The comfort
As I mentioned earlier, the Denon Exercise Freak earphones are quite a large set of earphones. They appear almost unwieldly, and to be frank, they are actually a bit unwieldy to manipulate. I’ve always been slightly opposed to headphones that have earpieces shaped to the ear for this reason: to actually place the EFs on your ears, you have to generally have to fiddle with your ears as you try and fit them into the right gap, and once they are correctly situated, then you’ll have to adjust the actual earbud part of the EFs to be correctly seated in your ear.
That would be all well and good if the EFs fit perfectly and stayed where they were; unfortunately, this isn’t the case. To make the EFs sweat proof, Denon has opted to use a slightly harder, slightly less grippy plastic for use for the earbud tips which results in them slipping out a lot, which as a fitness accessory can be quite a hinderance. Denon has said though that this is by design, seeing as runners and cyclists need to be aware of their surroundings when going about their exercise. While this is a partially valid consideration, I would have though that people in these situations would have already turned down their music to be more aware of their surroundings, or would choose not to use them at all.
In the periods of time that the EFs do stay on, however, they are decently comfortable. While you won’t ever forget that they are there, they are light enough to be relatively unnoticeable. Even with glasses and taking them on and off, I didn’t feel them impeding that freedom at all, though I would say if you were to wear a cap or other hat, you might have a bit of fiddling to do.
The sound
Given Denon’s history with premium audio equipment, it’s no surprise to discover that the Exercise Freak earphones sound fantastic. As far as in-ear headphones go, the EFs are right up there with the best of the best for sound. The sound is full, with the treble and bass well represented, though I would say that they are slightly bass heavy, as I believe fitness folk are ought to prefer. As you would expect with in-ear headphones, they do lack the depth of their on-ear or over-ear headphone brethren, however the EFs sound fantastic regardless. That is, if you can keep them in long enough…
As the existence of a microphone on the right earpiece also suggests, the Exercise Freak earphones are also usable to receive calls during your workout. Call quality is good, provided you have the earphones situated correctly, and mic audio performance is good also despite being located around your ear. I’m not sure how sensitive the mic actually is and whether you would end up getting a lot of background noise if you received a call while outside on a run, but I think it does the job well.
The practicality
I think the Denon Exercise Freak earphones are equipped will all the right ingredients to be a really good, functional pair of fitness earphones; they’re light, they have all the necessary buttons located in accessible positions, they’re sweat-proof and they have a reflective strip on the back for low-visibility conditions. To top it off, it also comes with a neat little bag for all its extras as well as storage of the earphones themselves during travel.
I’ve already given you my opinions of how I think the EFs would perform out in the field, but if there’s a one little thing I would improve about them to make them a bit more functional, I would definitely add skip forward/backward track buttons seeing as that’s really the only missing playback function.
One other thing that Denon offers which I didn’t mention earlier is fitness app, simply named Denon Sport. Like most other fitness tracking apps, it uses the GPS of your device to log your exercise progress and map your calorie consumption and route. You can also manually log indoor exercises as well as keep track of your nutrition habits within the app. The app is also able to give you feedback about your current exercise session. While it’s nice that Denon has provided this app, I found it a little too unpolished, and while it does provide you all the bells and whistles of most GPS tracking apps, I found it slightly ironic that Denon didn’t include any audio features into the app at all, not even a simple EQ settings app.
The verdict
Rating: 3/5
There’s a lot to like about the Denon Exercise Freak Wireless Fitness Earphones and I have to give kudos to Denon for their attempt at entering the highly lucrative and competitive fitness market with this set of earphones. Unfortunately, there’s also a lot to not like about the Exercise Freak earphones, and many of those issues undo the brilliance that it occasionally exhibits. Chief among this is the design of the earphones affecting the sound; the EFs sound fantastic, and if it weren’t a pair of fitness earphones, this would be great. But they are, and it isn’t great; the fact they keep slipping out during physical activity really does undo any advantages that were made by having Denon’s expertise in premium audio put into a pair of fitness earphones. Of course, they do the job as a pair of fitness earphones, however, ultimately when you’re paying a RRP of $179 AUD, or a MSRP of $179.99 USD, you really want them to sound worth your money.
Luckily for you though, Amazon.com is currently having a sale on the Exercise Freak earphones
If you want to find out more about the Denon Exercise Freak Wireless Fitness Earphones, you can visit the product page here, or if you would like to take a look at any of Denon’s other products, you can visit their website here.
