V-Moda’s Hexamove Pro true wireless earphones are almost sleek enough to justify their $169.99 price on looks alone, so it’s too bad they fall flat in most other aspects. For starters, their bass response is arguably too powerful, and requires help from an in-app EQ that we had serious issues trying to use. And the included charging case is bizarrely designed, to the point that it’s actually difficult to dock the earpieces and know if they’re charging. Ultimately, you can do better in this price range or even much lower.
Accessories Abound
The Hexamove Pro earphones are available in black or white and sport a hexagonal geometric design. Internally, 6mm dynamic drivers deliver a frequency range of 20Hz to 20kHz. The earphones are compatible with Bluetooth 5.0 and support the AAC, AptX, and SBC codecs.
You get a lot of accessories in the box, including replaceable gold or silver shields that snap onto the outer panels; removable over-ear hooks; three pairs of eartips (in small, medium, and large); and two pairs of ear sleeves (one with a slightly raised fin and one without). You only get one set of ear hooks, but we found that the earpieces fit securely enough even without them.
The package also includes a black cloth neck strap that closely resembles an audio cable. Although it looks stylish, the strap defeats the purpose of true wireless earbuds, which is the lack of wires around your neck. We would have preferred an audio cable for wired listening, like the one that comes with the Shure Aonic15 (Gen 2).
Both earpieces have touch-sensitive control panels that work fine. You use single taps to manage media playback and calls, double taps to navigate forward a track, and triple taps to move back a track. On the left earpiece, a triple tap seems to summon your device’s voice assistant, but because the setup guide doesn’t detail the on-ear controls and the app never loaded properly long enough for us to check, we can’t confirm that this is an official feature. We also couldn’t find any way to adjust the controls in the app, but that’s not too much of an issue because the default controls are mostly intuitive.
An IPX5 water-resistance rating means the earpieces can withstand moderate splashes or jets from any direction, but you can’t dunk them or rinse them off under a faucet. This rating doesn’t extend to the charging case, so make sure the earpieces are fully dry before you dock them.
The charging case is massive and angular, but feels oddly lightweight for its size. Our biggest issue is the confusing design of the interior charging docks. For example, if you use the earfins, they overlap in the case and make it difficult to determine whether the earbuds are charging. The interior isn’t symmetrical either, and the process of placing the earpieces into the docks is difficult. The included USB-C-to-USB-A charging cable connects to the case’s back panel, next to a reset and pairing button.
V-Moda estimates that the earpieces can last roughly six hours on battery. The case holds an additional 18 hours of charge. Those ratings are pretty average, but your results will vary based on your volume levels.
App Issues
The earphones paired with our phone without a problem, but we had serious issues trying to connect them to the V-Moda app (available for Android and iOS)—the app simply couldn’t locate the earphones, no matter how many times we disconnected, re-paired, and rebooted them. We almost gave up, but we were finally able to figure out the problem—you need to hold off on connecting the earbuds until you download the app and complete the pairing process there. (Most apps that try to control the pairing process will nevertheless recognize a product you have already paired outside of the app, but not this one.) Even once we successfully connected the earphones, however, they sometimes disconnected from the app on their own. Needless to say, the software needs work.
Once paired with the app, you can access the EQ, which is very important because the drivers here wildly boost the lows and the EQ offers manually adjustable presets and faders. Unfortunately, the app didn’t stay connected long enough for us to be able to test this.
Overwhelming Bass
On tracks with intense sub-bass content, like The Knife’s “Silent Shout,” the earphones deliver serious thunder that should delight bass lovers. At top, unwise listening levels, the lows are powerful and don’t distort. At more moderate levels, the bass still sounds full and lively.
Bill Callahan’s “Drover,” a track with far less deep bass in the mix, gives us a better sense of the Hexamove Pro’s sound signature. The drums on this track get more bass boosting than necessary—they sound almost comically thunderous. Callahan’s baritone vocals receive less low-mid richness than the drums, so the boosting is happening in the very lowest frequencies. That said, we note enough high-frequency boosting and sculpting to provide some semblance of balance, so the guitar strums and higher-register percussive hits are bright and crisp. Still, the bass overwhelms the mix. You can potentially use the EQ in the app to address this problem, but we were unable to successfully test it.
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, while the vinyl crackle and hiss that are usually relegated to the background take a slight step forward. But the real news is the staggering amount of bass. The drum loop gets some extra heft and thump, but the sub-bass synth hits that punctuate the beat are brain-rattling and often overwhelm the mix at both moderate and high volumes. The vocals sound clean and free of sibilance, but they battle with the bass presence in the track for space to breathe. It’s always a treat to hear drivers that are capable of going this low and grabbing those subwoofer-level frequencies, but it’s a shame that there isn’t any semblance of restraint.
Orchestral tracks, like the opening scene from John Adams’ The Gospel According to the Other Mary, sound better than many other genres through the Hexamove Pro, as there’s not much sub-bass here for the drivers to accentuate. As we mentioned earlier, the rest of the low and low-mid frequency range gets far more moderate boosting; this translates to a crisp, rich mix and only the occasional deep bass sounds power through.
We tested the built-in mic using the Voice Memos app on an iPhone 8 and could understand every word we recorded. We didn’t notice much in the way of Bluetooth audio distortion, either. In fact, the mic adds a little bit of low-frequency depth to the signal. Callers on decent cell signals should be able to hear you clearly.
Lots of Bass, But Not Much Else
The V-Moda Hexamove Pro earphones deliver gobs of bass depth, and if their app worked properly, you could conceivably corral their sound signature into something more natural. However, in light of our app connection issues, the odd design of the charging case, and the price, we recommend you look elsewhere. In the $100 to $200 price range, our favorite true wireless options offer sound signatures that needs far less work out of the box, such as the Jabra Elite 7 Pro ($199.99) and the Sennheiser CX Plus True Wireless ($179.95). And for far less money, we also recommend Anker’s Soundcore Life P3 earphones ($79.99). It’s worth noting that all of these models offer noise cancellation, which you don’t get with the Hexamove Pro.
