Denon PerL Pro True Wireless  Headphones Review

The Denon PerL Pro have a flat, round outside surface and small in-ear tips. The matte flat surfaces have the brand name printed on them.

They have a very comfortable fit for most. It's helpful that they come with a variety of tip options: there are four sets of differently-sized silicone tips, a pair of foam tips (medium size), and two sets of stability fins to help you get a more secure fit. However, while they have a sleek design, the circular outer surface has a pretty big diameter, so if you have smaller ears, you might find it presses against your outer ear. It can be tough to get a good fit, especially with the foam tips, but they don't cause much fatigue or pain once you do. While they're chunky, they feel more comfortable than the Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4, which also use stabilizers and are rather large.

Their controls are easy to use and very customizable. The touch-sensitive surfaces on the buds are big and sensitive enough that you only need a light tap to register commands. You can also grab the rim of the circular buds to readjust the fit without accidentally pausing your audio or turning up the volume. There are different audio queues for single, double, and triple taps, and you can activate voice prompts in the companion app.

On the left earbud:

• Single tap: Enable or disable 'Social Mode' (a transparency mode that lets you hear your surroundings) without pausing audio.
• Double tap: Activate voice assistant
• Triple tap: None by default
• Double tap and hold: Lowers the volume

On the right earbud:

• Single tap: Play/pause audio.
• Double tap: Skip to the next track.
• Triple tap: Skip to the previous track.
• Double tap and hold: Raises the volume.

The companion app can remap any of the commands. You can choose to add these functions that aren't included in the default control scheme:

• Enable/disable 'Social Mode' and pause audio
• Play/pause music and answer/hang up calls
• Enable/disable 'Immersion' (bass adjustment)
• Increase the 'Immersion'
• Decrease the 'Immersion'
• Enable/disable spatial audio.

The Denon PerL Pro are small, light, and portable, like most truly wireless earbuds. The circular buds are a little bigger than some, but they can still fit easily in purses and pockets.

They come with a portable charging case. Its matte finish attracts fingerprints a bit, and the lid feels somewhat flimsy, but the case itself is sturdy and portable. The buds' large outer surfaces can make getting them out of the case a bit annoying.

The Denon PerL Pro feel quite sturdy, without any cheap-feeling parts. The silicone ear tips don't feel flimsy but may tear or rip with extended use. The foam tips are less durable and will likely degrade faster and need replacing every six months or so, but that's normal for the material. The case's hinge doesn't feel very solid either, and it might loosen or break with a lot of use or if you drop the case. The buds are rated IPX4 for resistance against minor water exposure, so they have protection against light rain and being splashed with water.

They have great stability. Once you get a good fit with the ear tips and stability fins, they won't move or fall out during workouts, even if you move your head around a lot. However, you might have to try different combinations of tips and fins before you get the right fit.

• Denon PerL Pro True Wireless
• Charging case
• USB-A to USB-C charging cable
• 4x silicone tips
• 1x foam tips
• 2x stability fins

The Denon PerL Pro have a well-balanced default sound profile. They don't produce a rumbly, punchy bass response, and instruments and vocals sound veiled. However, their more neutral mid-range response helps instruments to sound present and clear in the mix. They're staunchly in the audiophile camp as tuning goes, like the Sennheiser MOMENTUM True Wireless 4, which have a broadly similar default sound and a bit more presence.

Turning the ANC feature off changes their sound profile. It's most noticeable in the low and mid-bass ranges, where they reproduce less rumble and punch with ANC off. You can see a graph of the frequency response with ANC off here.

You can manually tweak the sound with a 5-band EQ in the app or with the 'Immersion' setting, which allows you to turn the bass amount up or down with a slider or the onboard touch controls.

Using their companion app, you can create a personalized EQ with their Masimo Adaptive Acoustic Technology feature, which is meant to customize their sound to your ears. Unlike the Sony WF-1000XM5 Truly Wireless' 'Find Your Equalizer' feature, which has you choose between different tones to evaluate your preferences, it creates a customized EQ without any user input, although the test still involves a series of tones played through the buds. In subjective tests, this feature boosted the bass and treble, resulting in a more excited sound with more thump and warmth in the bass range and brighter instruments. With the bass adjustment feature ('Immersion Mode') turned up, they create a fairly bass-heavy sound that's well-suited for genres like EDM and rap, but voices and instruments sound nudged to the back of the mix. However, since these results are subjective and the sound profile is adjusted based on your ear shape, you may have a different experience.

The Denon PerL Pro have very good frequency response consistency. Their sound varies somewhat depending on the fit, positioning, and seal of the buds. Certain positions result in more thump and rumble in the low-bass and sharper sibilant sounds. However, if you adjust the buds each time you wear them, you can get a consistent sound.

They have excellent bass accuracy. The range is slightly underemphasized, so the bass doesn't overwhelm instruments and voices in the mid-range, but it's also consistent, so your audio still has rumble and punch. They reproduce less high-bass, which slightly hurts the warmth and fullness of instruments.

They have great mid accuracy. The low-mid response is very neutral, so the low harmonics of instruments are present and clear. The rest of the range is slightly underemphasized, so instruments and vocals are nudged towards the back of the mix and somewhat weak.

They have sub-par treble accuracy. The low-treble response is very underemphasized, so the upper harmonics of vocals and instruments sound veiled and lack detail. Sibilants like cymbals also sound dull instead of bright.

The Denon PerL Pro have good peaks and dips performance. The earbuds control their sound profile fairly well, but there are some major deviations. A big dip in the low treble range hurts the detail of instruments and vocals. The high treble is uneven, so sibilants are alternately dull or piercing. There are smaller peaks in the mid-range: a peak in the low mid clutters instruments and a smaller peak in the high mid adds harshness.

They have excellent imaging, which is an indication of the brand's quality control and ergonomics. However, we have yet to test many other Denon products, and imaging varies from unit to unit and product to product, so you may have a different experience. The group delay falls below the audibility threshold for the entire range, resulting in tight bass and transparent treble reproduction. The left and right drivers are well-matched in frequency and amplitude response, but a mismatch in phase response shifts the soundstage to the right side. This mismatch in the mid-range gives voices more presence in the right driver and makes them sound slightly hushed on the left. This can be perceived with real-life content but isn't very noticeable unless you're listening for it.

They have a bad passive soundstage, which is normal for in-ear headphones. Because their sound doesn't interact with your outer ear, audio seems to come from inside your head instead of speakers in the room around you.

They support Spatial Audio, a virtual surround sound feature meant to create a more immersive, 3D soundstage.

They have a good weighted harmonic distortion performance. There's some slight distortion in the low and mid-treble ranges; even then, it's not very noticeable with real-life content. The rest of the frequency response falls within good limits, producing clean audio.

These are the settings used to test the Denon PerL Pro True Wireless. Our results are only valid in this configuration.

They have good noise isolation. Their adaptive ANC system is meant to adjust the feature's performance depending on your environment, but you can't set it to different levels or modes. The ANC does a very good job of blocking out mid-range ambient sound, like voices, so they work well if you want to reduce distractions when you're working at the office or at home. While it does a decent job of reducing bass-range noise like rumbling engines, it doesn't perform as well as other premium buds like the Sony WF-1000XM5 Truly Wireless or the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II Truly Wireless. These headphones aren't ideal if you need earbuds that reduce as much noise as possible during your commute or traveling.

They have a fantastic leakage performance. Audio leakage is concentrated in the mid-treble range, so it sounds thin and is low overall. Your music won't disturb people nearby even if you have the volume cranked up.

These earbuds use bone conduction mics to improve call quality, and our dummy head can't measure sound transmitted that way. The inconsistent frequency response also indicates that the mic may be using an automatic compensation algorithm, which can also cause the mic to sound better than the results show. As a result, they have a better recording quality than the score suggests. Your voice is clear but lacks body and doesn't sound completely natural.

The mic has sub-par noise handling. In moderately noisy areas, your voice sounds muffled, and background noise is audible. Louder environments, like a busy street or subway station, can completely drown out your voice.

However, the earbuds' bone conduction mics and any automatic compensation algorithm they're using mean their noise handling performance is better than what the score reflects.

They have a decent battery performance. The manufacturer advertises an eight-hour continuous battery life, and we measured a bit less, at just under seven hours. However, they recharge quickly, and the case holds about three additional charges. You can use one earbud while the other charges in the case. They're also equipped with an auto-off timer and standby mode to help conserve power when they're not in use.

The Denon Headphones app offers a good variety of features and customization options. You can access the Masimo Adaptive Acoustic Technology feature, which customizes the sound profile to your ears with a fit test and by playing a series of tones to check your ear shape. This creates a custom EQ and 'profile' for your ears. You can store up to three profiles in the app.

The app also includes a 5-band graphic EQ called 'ProEQ' and an 'Immersion' slider, which lets you adjust the bass amount. You can use these features to adjust a personalized Masimo EQ or the default sound profile.

You can also activate or deactivate several features: spatial audio, 'Social mode' (a transparency mode that lets in ambient sound so you can hear your surroundings), battery saver mode, and high gain mode, which the manufacturer says increases the earbuds' volume by 6db. The app also allows you to remap all of the controls on either earbud. You can see a video of the app in action here.

The Denon PerL Pro have great Bluetooth connectivity. They support multi-device pairing so you can stay connected with your phone and computer simultaneously. You can also select the 'Audio Takeover' option in the app so that when you press play on a paired device, that audio automatically plays through the earbuds.

They have low latency with iOS and Android devices, so your audio stays in sync when you're watching a video on your phone. They have much higher latency with PCs, which will cause syncing issues if you're watching a movie on your computer. Still, they also support the aptX-LL codec, which significantly lowers their latency with PCs.

They support the aptX Lossless codec for streaming higher resolution, lossless audio. However, we don't have a Bluetooth transmitter to test their latency using that codec, so we don't know how much latency they have using aptX Lossless. The aptX and aptX HD codecs also let you stream higher-quality audio than the default SBC codec, and they have high latency with those codecs. That's not an issue for music, but your audio and video will be out of sync if you want to watch a movie.

You can't use the Denon PerL Pro earbuds wired. They come with a USB-A to USB-C cable for charging the case.

The Denon PerL Pro have a portable charging case that stores about three additional charges. It has one USB-C input for the charging cable and supports wireless charging.