Intro
Contents
TOZO has launched a completely new version of True Wireless personal audio: earbuds, or the Open EarRing. In this review, you can read about our experience with them (spoiler: we’ve already bought three pairs at the newsroom!).
There are actually only advantages to headphones. The driver is close to the ear, there are no issues with room acoustics, you are not disturbing anyone so you can listen to your latest drill rap track at full volume, and you can take them with you wherever you go. Look around you, on the street, on the train, at the gym. It’s everwhere. Everyone has a headset: in-ear, on-ear, over-ear.
But.
Headphones are just not comfy. There you have it. Even the most comfortable and lightweight headphones will eventually feel uncomfortable. Warm ears, a feeling of being constricted or confined, pain in the neck due to the weight of the headphones. And with in-ear headphones, there are additional issues simply because there is something in the ear that shouldn’t be there. Sometimes there is also a risk of ear infection with prolonged use (because the ear canal is blocked). Your truly seriously suffered from nausea when inserting an ill-fitting “tip” of an in-ear. This is starting to sound like a package insert (never swallow more than 4 earplugs per day).
Golden EarRings
The design department at TOZO must have thought, “OK, we can fix this”. Coincidence or not, around the time of the passing of Golden Earring founder George Kooymans (July 2025), we received the Open EarRing. In the same series as the Open Buds, which we tested earlier and found to be very good, these are real earrings. The EarRings look like tiny kettle bells with a two-part bottom: a round part that houses the driver and an elliptical part for the electronics. The round part goes in your ear and the other part folds over the outside of your ear. After that, only a small thread is visible at the bottom of your ear. This will immediately make a deep impression in the piercing world, because people will wonder where you had this piercing done.
EarRing
The ball contains a 12 mm dynamic driver. The “kettle bell” weighs only 5 grams per side and once in the ears, we don’t really feel it. As we have come to expect from TOZO, there is a neat cradle for charging, with an indication of the battery charge and battery status of the left and right earrings. The cradle is charged with a USB-C cable (included). There are three colour options: black, khaki and pink. Pairing via Bluetooth is quick and easy.
There are no touch controls or other control options, which we actually like. It’s very annoying when a light touch on the in-ears suddenly makes the sound louder, switches sources or simply puts everything on standby. The simpler, the better.