If you're a regular on LinkedIn and only semi-regular at your office desk, the Epos Adapt E1 buds may be the most suitable in-ears for you. Broad support for virtual meeting apps, including Teams and Zoom, and extensive battery life make these brilliant for the average work week. They'll also handle music duties well, though not quite up to the standards of in-ear buds that don't insist that work comes first.
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Features
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Audio
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Battery
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Comfort
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Value
Stuff reviews a ton of headphones and earbuds every year. Okay, not a literal ton, because they tend to be lightweight. Few take the stance the Epos Adapt E1 buds do, that they’re optimised for the average office environment. Okay, what office? The noisy one? The quiet one? The one with customers constantly wanting your attention? Turns out it’s the one that habitually holds online meetings, which is why these are rated for a variety of conferencing apps.
Elsewhere, they do okay. The Adapt E1 buds feature a comfortable enough fit and sufficient battery life, but fall behind when it comes to audio quality (they’re just okay at this) and design. You’ll see from the images that Epos has embraced the office appliance paradigm by making them… well, boring. Probably just as well. Nobody wants to see a CEO on a Zoom call wearing the Razer Kraken Kitty V3 Pro overs. Do they? Okay, it would be amusing at least once.
Serious business
The Adapt E1 arrives in a compact brown box. The unassuming package mostly comprises the substantial pill-shaped case with the E1 buds and their accompanying USB-C adaptor. On the case is a USB-C input for charging the case, with the front face hosting a status light and a pairing button. The whole unit is lightweight but sturdy, with none of the uncertainty in the hinge area you might find elsewhere.
The buds are similarly substantial. It would take a good stomp to crunch one underfoot, though the small stems might take some damage in the event of a podiatary accident. These are mostly to make placing and removing them, in the case or in your ears, a simpler affair so it wouldn’t be the end of the Adapt E1s. Not the first time, anyway.
Control is via physical buttons tucked under the buds’ skin, and these require a fair bit of force. The pressure will jam the tips into your ear canal, but not deep enough to cause serious discomfort right away. We’d still suggest some readjustment if you happen to poke one into your skull while changing tracks or answering a Zoom call.
The box also includes several pairs of differently-sized silicone ear-tips for creating the best seal between you and the outside world. A charging cable, should you somehow lack one, is also included.
Drop the bass
Audio performance isn’t the main point here, though the Epos Adapt E1 buds still put in a decent effort. There’s plenty of clarity and clean separation of audio elements on offer, but the E1s (mostly) lack the bass punch we’d expect from other brands. They’re just not tuned to wallop your eardrums the way they should — the reason why will become obvious in a short while.
We ran them through our usual gauntlet of extreme music, a test that only reinforced this impression. Amon Amarth’s Across the Rainbow Bridge lost much of its melancholy as the supporting bass dissolved to mush in the background. Blind Guardian’s cover of Uriah Heep’s The Wizard fared well through the first half of the track, the acoustic guitars complementing Hansi Kürsch’s vocals exceedingly well. The driving crunch that was supposed to kick the door down, sadly, never arrived. Gloryhammer’s Universe on Fire fared better, the joyful synth-pop combination of madcap melody and drums being better handled across the board. The snares and toms were, nonetheless, still more muted than they should have been.
Oddly enough, the Adapt E1s couldn’t get enough of Swedish band Hammerfall. Bass muting was less prevalent here, with just enough of an edge sanded off to enhance rather than detract from the overall presentation. Check out Bloodbound for an idea of what we mean (and also for the most heavy metal video you’ll see for some time).
Making your meeting
But, like we mentioned earlier, music seems to be of secondary concern. The main event here is the Adapt E1’s business credentials. Like everyone on your LinkedIn contacts list, these are very comfortable in online meetings. So much so that they’re certified for Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Google Meet, and Webex. Odds are the office-bound use one or more of these, and Epos’ gone all-in on the microphones to ensure that you always get your point across.
The six digital MEMS microphones do an excellent job of ironing out background noise when you’re on a call, whether that’s a virtual meeting or just a chat over a cellular network. The focus is on vocal transmission and Epos succeeds here more than it does when it comes to noise cancellation.
Which isn’t terrible, as such, but it’s not up to the standards of the usual audio specialists. Passive cancelling is enough, if you’re listening at a moderate volume, to block out much of an office but turning on active noise cancelling won’t cause a proper cone of silence to descend on your little haven of office flow. Some outside noise will intrude, particularly if you spend time around trucks or a raucous bunch of co-workers.
Connection request
Still, at least you’ll (mostly) block them all out for at least a full work day in between charges. Epos reckons the Adapt E1s will do ten hours in a session with noise cancelling on, or six hours on a video call. We never got to those totals but it was more because a) most meetings don’t take that long and b) well… work was finished. A total of fifty hours, when you include the case, means most folks will clear a week at work before charging the case.
Connection to your device is possible via Bluetooth. The pairing button makes that a simple chore, but if you’ve got a USB-C port in your laptop, it’s possible to have a more stable connection via the included dongle. That would, in theory, be speedier, but we never saw much need for it. Hopping onto a colleague’s computer at no notice would seem like a sensible usage. The only drawback? There’s no USB-C to USB-A adapter. If you’re using old hardware, you’re stuck with Bluetooth.
Epos Adapt E1 verdict
The Epos Adapt E1 earbuds are designed for the office, and their minor flaws reflect that, as do their advantages. If you’re pitching for that big contract and are doing tons of online meetings, you’ll appreciate the microphones and attendant voice quality. They’re also handy for doing things in between meeting clients’ needs, like listening to music.
If you’re not super pedantic about bass, you’ll find that these in-ears handle the remaining sonic elements of your favourite tunes well enough. They’re bright and clear where it counts, with vocals being given particular preference. Some bands and genres will perform better than others, meaning that the Adapt E1s aren’t the all-rounders we’d like. They’re all about going to work, blocking out work, and ensuring that folks who work far away from you can hear you clearly.
The Epos Adapt E1 in-ears are set to go on sale in South Africa from next week, priced at R5,000. That’s reasonable for multi-role headphones like these, but if you’re looking for music specialists, expect to pay a few thousand more for a similarly premium build.
