Cowin Apex Elite Truly Wireless  Headphones Review

The Cowin Apex Elite are truly wireless in-ears with a unicolor design. Unlike the Cowin Apex, they have long stems that protrude from the buds, which have the Cowin logo on them.

Update 02/22/2022: The headphones' weight was originally reported as '0.2 lbs'. However, their correct weight is '0.02 lbs'. The results have been corrected.

The Cowin Apex Elite are comfortable. They're lightweight, and they don't go deep in your ear. You can use their touch-sensitive controls without putting extra pressure on your ear, which is nice. They should be comfortable for long listening sessions.

The controls are okay. You can double-tap either bud to answer/end a call or play/pause your audio. You can also tap and hold either bud for two seconds to reject a call, or to cycle between ANC On, Ambient Mode, and ANC Off. You can also triple press the right bud to turn Game Mode on and off, or triple press the left bud to activate the voice assistant. There's a chime that registers the number of taps you make, as well as voice prompts for turning Game Mode on/off and cycling through the ANC features. Unfortunately, you can't control the volume or skip tracks using these controls, and the touch panel can be a bit difficult to locate at first.

Like most in-ear headphones, the Cowin Apex Elite don't trap a lot of heat inside your ear. You can wear them during your workouts, and they shouldn't make your ears sweat more than usual.

These headphones are incredibly portable. They're very small and lightweight, so you can easily put them in your pocket, even when they're inside their carrying case.

The case is decent. It's made of plastic, which feels a bit flimsy and cheap. The lid also doesn't feel very sturdy, and it moves a bit when closed. However, there are four LED indicator lights to help you keep track of the battery level, which is handy.

The Cowin Apex Elite have a decent build quality. They're mostly made of plastic, which feels cheap and not very durable. Their charging case also has a plasticky build. On the upside, they have an IPX7 rating for water resistance, though we don't currently test for this.

The Cowin Apex Elite have good stability. They should stay in your ears during casual listening sessions and workouts at the gym.

• Cowin Apex Elite truly wireless
• 3x tip sizes
• User Guide
• Charging case
• USB-A to USB-C charging cable

The Cowin Apex Elite have a boomy sound profile that adds a lot of extra punch to your audio, which is ideal for fans of bass-heavy music genres like EDM but may be overwhelming for fans of a more neutral sound. They're also lacking some low-bass, so you don't really feel the deep thump and rumble in your audio. Sibilants like S and T sounds are a bit bright, too, which may be too piercing for some listeners.

These headphones have superb frequency response consistency. Once you achieve a proper fit and seal with the included ear tips, you should get consistent bass and treble delivery each time you use them.

The Cowin Apex Elite have mediocre bass accuracy. They're lacking in low-bass, so you don't really feel the deep thump and rumble in your audio. The rest of the range is overemphasized, however, resulting in a boomy sound that can be overwhelming for some listeners.

The mid accuracy is okay. There's an overemphasis in the low-mids that extends from the bass range, which can muddy vocals and lead instruments. The underemphasized high-mid can make those same instruments weak and distant in the mix.

The Cowin Apex Elite have disappointing treble accuracy. The underemphasized low-treble can hurt the comprehensibility of vocals and lead instruments, while the overemphasized mid-treble can make sibilants like S and T sounds sharp and piercing.

These headphones have middling peaks and dips performance. The underemphasized low-bass means that you don't feel the deep thump and rumble in bass-heavy audio, while the peak in the high-bass and low-mids adds a boomy quality to your mix. The dip in the high-mids and low-treble makes vocals and lead instruments weak, veiled, and distant, while the peak in the mid-treble makes sibilants like cymbals piercing and harsh.

The Cowin Apex Elite have an outstanding imaging performance. Their weighted group delay falls below the audibility threshold for the entire range, ensuring a tight bass and transparent treble. Also, the L/R drivers are well-matched in amplitude, frequency, and phase response, so objects in the stereo image like voices or footsteps are accurately placed and localized. However, these results are only valid for our test unit, and your real-world experience may vary.

These headphones have a terrible passive soundstage performance. Due to their in-ear design, they bypass any interaction with the outer ear, which is one of the key components in creating an out-of-body, speaker-like soundstage. As a result, audio seems like it's coming from inside your head, rather than from speakers placed all around you.

The Cowin Apex Elite have a good weighted harmonic distortion performance. Aside from a small peak in the low-treble, which shouldn't be audible for most people, all frequencies fall within good limits. As a result, audio reproduction is clear and pure.

These are the settings we used to test these headphones. Our results are only valid when using these settings.

The Cowin Apex Elite have mediocre noise isolation. Even with their ANC feature turned on, they struggle to block out bass-heavy background noises like bus and plane engines. They perform a bit better with mid-range background noises, like voices, but they also struggle with treble-range ambient noise like the hum of a nearby AC unit.

These headphones have a good leakage performance. They don't leak a lot of noise, and escaping audio sounds quite thin. It shouldn't be too noticeable for those working around you in an office unless you're listening to audio at really high volumes.

The integrated mic has a mediocre recording quality. Your voice should be understandable to whoever's on the other end of the line, but it also sounds thin and a bit muffled.

The mic's noise handling performance is middling. It struggles to separate your voice from background noise, even if you're calling from a moderately noisy setting.

The Cowin Apex Elite have a decent battery performance. They last for a little over seven hours off of a single charge, which is okay. That said, battery life can vary depending on usage, so your experience may vary. Fortunately, their portable charging case offers around three extra charges to help you power up while on-the-go. There's even an auto-off timer that turns the buds off after five minutes without audio, which can help conserve battery life.

Update 02/24/2022: These headphones were updated to Test Bench 1.5 and their latency values have changed. Our previous Test Bench 1.4 measurements reported that the Game Mode's latency was 243 ms on PC (SBC), 74 ms on iOS, and 117 ms on Android devices. However, our new test bench uses an average of three measurements instead of one, resulting in different values. As a result, we have updated our text to better reflect test bench 1.5 measurements.

The Cowin Apex Elite have satisfactory Bluetooth connectivity. They have high latency on PCs, which isn't great if you like to stream video, although it's slightly better on iOS and Android devices. However, you may still notice slight syncing issues. These headphones also have a Game Mode, which aims to lower latency. With this feature turned on, they have 224 ms of latency on PC (SBC), 168 ms on iOS, and 203 ms on Android devices. These values fall outside of good levels, and you may notice your audio and visuals fall out of sync.

These headphones can't be used with a wired connection. They come with a USB-C to USB-A cable, but it's just for charging their case.

The Cowin Apex Elite come with a portable charging case that offers around three extra charges. It can be charged using the included USB-C to USB-A cable.