Shure is a name long recognized by audiophiles, and the $199 Aonic Free earphones can be seen as a slightly more traditional alternative to the $229 Aonic 215 (Gen 2). Unlike the Aonic 215, the Aonic Free earpieces don’t wrap around your ear, but instead sit inside of it, like most true wireless models. The earpieces and their case are rather large, however, and don’t provide any benefits for that added bulk. Luckily they sound great, and the excellent ShurePlus Play companion app offers intuitive and granular audio controls. Ultimately, we prefer the Aonic 215 thanks to a more versatile design that can also work with a wired connection. But the Aonic Free earphones sound just as good, making them a compelling alternative if you like their more conventional form factor.
Bulky, But Secure
Available in black, the Aonic Free earphones are chunky, but neither particularly hideous nor stylish. The earpieces themselves are oval, and stick out from your ear noticeably. The fit is exceptionally secure—the large build of the earpieces and Comply foam ear tips (three pairs in all) ensure in-canal stability. Internally, dynamic micro-drivers deliver a frequency range of 21Hz to 17.5kHz and a 20-ohm impedance.
Each earpiece has a single, small push-button control on the top. By default, the buttons mirror each other’s functionality—a single press controls playback and call management; a double press switches in and out of ambient listening mode; and a triple press summons your device’s voice assistant. In the companion app, you can independently customize the controls quite a bit. For instance, you can add in track navigation on both ears, or opt to keep the voice assistant command on the left and assign a triple-tap to move a track forward on the right. The possibilities aren’t endless—you can’t control the volume from the earpieces directly, and adding a capability means sacrificing something you already have control over. In any case, the buttons are easy to use and configure.
The IPX4 rating here isn’t impressive. This is the same water resistance rating we see nearly across the board for models with active noise cancellation circuitry (ANC). However, because these earphones lack ANC, they presumably should be better able to resist the elements. They can withstand light splashes from any direction (meaning light rain and sweat exposure shouldn’t be an issue), but you can’t rinse them off under a faucet or submerge them. You must also fully dry the earpieces before docking them in the charging case, as the case isn’t water resistant.
As mentioned, the earphones don’t offer ANC, but they do passively block out a significant portion of surrounding noise. Most in-canal earphones block out noise to a similar degree—it’s more about the type of eartip and a secure fit than anything else. You shouldn’t confuse this passive effect with true noise cancellation, as the latter is a process that requires microphones and circuitry to actively cancel out surrounding noise (on top of the passive cancellation you get from the in-ear fit).
The case is huge—it’s easily two or even three times the size of many cases we see. The size would be easier to overlook if it offered advantages over other models (like superb battery life or a waterproof build, for example), but it doesn’t. The case is large simply because the earpieces are large. A flip-top lid reveals the interior charging docks, while the front sports a tiny status LED. The bottom panel houses a recessed USB-C port for the included USB-C-to-USB-A charging cable. Shure estimates that the earpieces will last roughly seven hours on battery, with an additional 21 hours in the charging case, but your results will vary with your volume levels.
The earphones are compatible with Bluetooth 5.0 and support the AAC, AptX HD, and SBC codecs.
Excellent Mobile App Controls
The ShurePlus Play app for Android and iOS is a step above most other headphones apps and offers an excellent user-adjustable EQ with multiple presets. You can toggle between whatever you select—a preset or your own EQ curve—with a button in the app, thus allowing you to quickly A-B the actual sound signature and your EQ curve.
You can also toggle and adjust (via a fader) an ambient listening feature called Environment Mode. At top levels, the audio is bright and has substantial hiss. But at mid levels, the mics convey your surroundings well and the hiss isn’t as distracting. One particularly cool extra feature for this mode is called Pause Plus. If you enable this setting, the earphones will immediately switch to Environment Mode so that you can hear your surroundings without taking them out, whenever you pause playback. All ambient mode-enabled earphones should have this feature.
As mentioned, you can also adjust what buttons control which functions in the app. If you want, you can configure the earpieces to even show a red busy light on their outer panels when you’re on a call. Beyond all these features, the app lets you update firmware, access a user guide, and reset the earphones.
Accurate Leanings, Average Mics
We tested the Aonic Free with the EQ turned off. On tracks with intense sub-bass content, like The Knife’s “Silent Shout,” the earphones deliver powerful low-frequency thump, but without the boosting that much of the competition tends to add with deep bass. At top, unwise listening levels, the bass doesn’t distort, and at more moderate volume levels, the lows still sound full and robust. The drivers lean more toward accuracy than intensity, and present the mids and highs on this track well.
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Bill Callahan’s “Drover,” a track with far less deep bass in the mix, gives us a better sense of the Aonic Free’s sound signature. The drums on this track can sound thunderous on bass-forward in-ears, but here, they actually sound a bit less round and full than we prefer. Boosting the lows just slightly via the EQ helps the drivers produce a little more low-end emphasis. Callahan’s baritone vocals get plenty of low-mid richness, but could benefit from more treble edge; adding a little extra higher-frequency focus is easy and effective. Although Shure tries to deliver a relatively accurate mix here, the sound signature is a little more rich than bright and crisp. The acoustic strums and higher-register percussive hits still have good definition.
On Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “No Church in the Wild,” the kick drum loop receives enough high-mid presence for its attack to retain its punch, but the vinyl hiss and crackle in the background take more of a step forward in the mix. There is clearly some sculpting in the high-mids and highs, though it’s not across-the-board boosting. The sub-bass synth hits that punctuate the beat have a laudable sense of body and depth, but don’t sound like they’re coming from a subwoofer, as they can on bass-forward in-ears. Boosting the lows in the EQ also seems to beef up the drum loop more so than these super-deep synth hits. The earphones present the vocals on this track with excellent clarity—they don’t sound overly sibilant or contend with the lows for space in the mix, which isn’t always the case on this track.
Orchestral tracks, such as the opening scene from John Adams’ The Gospel According to the Other Mary, sound wonderful through the Shure Aonic Free. They grace the lower-register instrumentation with an ideal amount of low-mid richness. The higher-register brass, strings, and vocals sound bright, crisp, and detailed.
The mic offers average intelligibility. In testing its performance using the Voice Memos app on an iPhone, we could understand every word we recorded. However, typical Bluetooth artifacts were present and made the recordings sound slightly less clear. The mic signal is strong, however, so callers should have no trouble understanding you.
Capable and Customizable
The Aonic Free earphones are an excellent addition to Shure’s Aonic lineup. They sound great, and the ShurePlus Play app offers lots of useful customization options. Although their chunky build won’t appeal to everyone, you might prefer it to the Editors’ Choice-winning Aonic 215 (Gen 2), especially if you don’t need to listen in wired mode. Both pairs are among the top audiophile-focused true wireless options available, though neither will appeal to those seeking truly bonkers bass depth. In this price range, the $180 Sennheiser CX Plus True Wireless earphones are also worth considering if you’re looking for a sound signature that focuses on accuracy. We also like the $200 Jabra Elite 7 Pro and the $180 Jabra Elite 7 Active, both of which offer solid ANC in addition to good sound quality.
