Those ill-fated enough to be hit by the curse of oddly-shaped ears and, well, pretty much any sporty audiophile can find something to love in Beyerdynamic's Amiron Zero Sport buds. Whether it's due to the weightless feel of the clip-on design, the six-hours of juice, or the half-decent pricetag. The sound? Well, that's something we can all agree on.
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Design
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Audio
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Features
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Battery
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Value
When Beyerdynamic’s Amiron Zero Sport first plopped onto our desks, we were sceptical. Not of Beyerdynamic’s audio chops, which have proven superb no matter the medium, but of the open-ear clip design. The company eschewed the traditional look and feel of decent buds and asked us to clip ’em to our ears instead. So we did.
Now we can’t see ourselves going back to the traditional in-ear design when it comes to sports. These clung to our ears regardless of lifting weights at the gym, sprinting the last 100m of Parkrun, or simply strolling around the neighbourhood. Even more impressive, it didn’t encroach on its audio expertise. These buds aren’t without issue, but Beyerdynamic’s thrown together a reputable pair of buds we’d recommend to any sporty audiophile.
Strike a pose
Even if it wasn’t the first to experiment with such a novel design philosophy, this was still Beyerdynamic’s first crack at disguising its high-end audio in such a lightweight form factor, and it knocked it out of the park. As if there was ever any doubt. Each bud weighs in at roughly 6g — a change that took some getting used to — but one that eventually became the star of the Amiron Zero Sport show, with us often forgetting they were even attached.
It’s the odd C-shape that took us, and likely other clip-on newbies, the longest to get properly acquainted with. It felt counterintuitive to the end goal of rocking out to tunes. Sticking the speaker grille farther away from the ear canal? But if you trust the process, make all the necessary adjustments, and put a little faith in the magnets holding it all together, that’s when the Amiron Zero Sport can really show you what it’s made of.
Speaking of which, the buds’ sturdy but premium plastic build really lends itself to making the buds adequately breathable and stretchy for our big ears. It’s worth noting that these can take a fair bit of strain before they start to squeal, and only lessened our fears that a single drop would mean the end of our tunes. You won’t, however, want to drop these in water with only an IP54 rating to guard against general dust and a fair bit of sweat.
If you’re the type to disconnect from the world (leave your phone behind) on a run or similar, no matter. Beyerdynamic kitted out both buds with touch controls that can be customised to your liking in the app. For the most part, these worked well — only occasionally failing to pick up on our instructions. The bigger issue was lag, particularly when overloading the poor buds with too many requests at once.
Our review model turned up in the orange/black colourway typical for Beyerdynamic, which accentuated the accompanying charging case. We weren’t overly keen on the all-matte finish here, which attracted fingerprints and scratches faster than we liked. The case, too, felt overly large for such scrawny buds — which, coupled with the matte finish, didn’t fare all that well in a too-full pocket that’s housing keys and the like.
No stagefright here
The biggest advantage the Amiron Zero Sport has over a more traditional pair of buds is the open-ear design, allowing us to keep track of the world around us while still getting lost in Beyerdynamic’s superior soundstage. While it’s the definitive move for walking around the neighbourhood, it did tend to let in a little too much of the gym soundtrack, forcing us to bump these to max volume to better tune it out, though not always successfully.
Going all in on the clip-shaped look is always going to lead to some sacrifices somewhere down the line, and Beyerdynamic’s efforts are no different. Our biggest fault came with volume, often leaving something to be desired — especially when connected to a smartphone or smartwatch. It wasn’t an issue when hooked up to a PC with VLC’s 200% volume to work with, even if it didn’t leave us much room for manoeuvrability at full blast.
For the most part, however, the volume was suitable for our needs and helped us focus on the music rather than the monotonous litany of whatever exercise we’re doing. It utilises 18 x 11 x 4.85mm dynamic drivers, with a frequency response of 20Hz to 20kHz. Bluetooth 5.4 is present, which makes for a fairly efficient pairing process regardless of the device.
When the Amiron Sport Zero finally got its mouth around our steady stream of Radiohead, LCD Soundsystem, and Arcade Fire, the result was surprisingly clear and full — not just for a pair of open-ear buds. Vocals, too, stood out clearly against their instrumental siblings before we’d even bothered to mess around with custom EQs. It even delivered on Geese’s fabulous thin bass peaks across Getting Killed, as well as the rest of the album’s stunning, if irregular, beats, to the point where Cameron Winter’s strange vocal choices almost became too strange.
It offers a natural sound that’s difficult to reproduce on even the tightest traditional buds, and the experience was only elevated once we’d dug around the Beyerdynamic app and had a play. We typically found ourselves pushing for a vocal-heavy profile when surrounded by a noisy park or the gym, but favoured a slightly warmer, bass-heavy profile elsewhere. We had no issue with Beyerdynamic’s handling of the treble frequencies anywhere.
Long-life where it matters most
We were impressed by Beyerdynamic’s claims of roughly six hours of playback from the Amiron Sport Zero, and even more so by the buds’ ability to follow through (and throw in a little extra). Six hours is more than enough time for the average athlete to conquer their chosen activity. It did for us, anyway. Less impressive was the oversized charging case, which plied our buds with a little over twenty hours’ worth of tunes before conking out.
Sure, that’s three-and-a-bit full charges right there — a more than manageable feat, especially coupled with the only ten-minute charge times that netted us two hours of playback — but it falls short of other claims in this price range by a fair few hours. It was nevertheless serviceable for our needs, and will perform just as well for you.
Beyerdynamic Amiron Zero Sport verdict
Even accounting for the ironically too-big charge case and hiccup with the volume falling a tad below where we’d like it to be, we can’t deny that Beyerdynamic has thrown together something wonderful here. The company may be targeting the sportier folk, and rightly so, seeing as these weightless buds effortlessly cling to your ear. But casual listeners can find solace in a pair of open ears as they wander around the house doing chores. It even presents a somewhat affordable but still premium audio solution at R3,000.
