TOZO Golden X1 Review

Sound

TOZO Golden X1 have a distinct U-shaped sound signature, a relatively natural midrange, and a sound-stage with good width. With some EQ corrections, their sound becomes close to what we consider “ideal”.

TOZO Golden X1 A/B sound comparison

Learn how to understand sound comparisons.

Who would have thought TOZO could deliver such a good sound on their first try. Sure, it requires minor corrections to start shining, but we’ve seen much worse from other brands at this price range.

You get a tight, deep bass, buttery midrange, and nicely textured treble. Let’s take a closer look at each frequency range.

TOZO Golden X1 Frequency Response

Bass: Boosted but not bloated

Golden X1 use dual drivers (dynamic and balanced armature), which is usually a recipe for harsh and bassy sound, especially when you see a “Hi-Res” logo next to it.

TOZO didn’t spare on the bass quantity. And you also get bass quality. Because the bass boost stops at 200Hz, it doesn’t bleed into the midrange and make it muddy.

That said, lowering the bass inside the app helps to open the sound while providing a tight punch when needed.

Due to excellent sub-bass extension, songs like “Better Now” by Post Malone or “Your Latest Trick” by Dire Straits output a lovely low-end rumble.

Even metal lovers will start headbanging thanks to a well-controlled and tactile bass kick.

Midrange: Natural-sounding and buttery smooth

If you’re the kind of person that enjoys more laidback music, like “New Light” by John Mayer, you’ll love the smoothness of the TOZO Golden X1.

Vocals sound ever so slightly thin compared to the fuller-sounding Sony WF-1000XM4, but you need a trained ear to notice that.

Moreover, acoustic and electric instruments have a natural tone and sound smooth in a tasteful manner, which means that the X1 are better suited for Pink Floyd rather than Metallica’s guitar solos.

Here are the TOZO Golden X1 EQ presets:

Treble: Nicely textured but slightly too shimmery

TOZO aimed for audiophile high-frequency tuning, reducing the 8kHz area before increasing the upper range.

However, the boost is a bit too strong at 12kHz, and you can hear the presence of the 9kHz in the form of a shimmer.

Reducing the treble in the app helps make the sound more pleasant, giving some texture to cymbals and string instruments.

In general, treble plays well with most you throw at it. Only occasionally, like in “Ordinary Story” by In Flames, cymbal crashes become a bit bright.

Moving to the soundstage, it is decent in size, so the music doesn’t feel congested. Accompanied by accurate imaging, you should feel immersed in whatever you decide to listen to.

Overall, TOZO Golden X1 squeezed out a lot from their drivers and delivered a coherent, pleasant listening experience.

They don’t sound as full or natural as high-end true wireless earbuds, but for $150, their sound quality doesn’t disappoint.

Check out similar headphones:

• Best headphones under $200
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Comfort & Fit

TOZO Golden X1 offer an ergonomic and comfortable design, despite their unusual shape. However, they have some weight, so they aren’t your best option for rock-steady fit.

The new Golden X1 have a unique shape. They’re bean-shaped at the nozzle, with a slim “waist” in the middle and a slightly thicker exterior.

Despite the odd design, they’re smooth and don’t poke or press against your ears. I wore them for at least an hour and haven’t experienced any pain.

Moreover, their comfort isn’t affected by the fact they pack 2 drivers, which adds weight. 

Stability is a slightly different experience. The little “wing” isn’t meant to secure the earbuds in place but to face down and act as a kind of short stem to bring the microphone closer to your mouth.

Since there are no hooks or ear fins, earbuds hold to your ears solely by ear tip friction and that slim “waist” that rests on your earlobes.

To ensure optimal fit, TOZO provided 6 pairs of silicone ear tips. They have an oval shape to better adapt to the ear canal. Still, if you seek ultimate stability, look elsewhere.

Golden X1 remain steady during casual use and even outdoor walking. However, anything more intense, like running or jumping, can break the seal, which affects audio performance. They are not suitable for working out.

Here are the top earbuds that stay in your ears during exercise:

• Best workout headphones
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Durability

TOZO Golden X1 are tiny but well-made earbuds that you can take under a shower thanks to nano-coating protection and an IPX6 rating. The only thing that feels cheap is the case’s plastic lid.

When taking the charging case out of the box, you can already feel the weight, which indicates good build quality.

While TOZO Golden X1 are entirely made of plastic (only the nozzle looks like it could be metal), they feel reassuring in hand. Earbuds have two drivers, so they can’t be small, but they avoid being ridiculously big as Sony WF-1000XM4 or protruding as Edifier W240TN.

Looking at the buds, we can’t find any potential weak points. You have to be genuinely unlucky to crack them open after an accidental drop.

That said, the charging case looks less fantastic. It feels solid and weighty, with a minimalistic matte black design. A standout feature is an internal display showing the case’s and earbuds’ battery levels.

However, the lid is wobbly, with a tiny plasticky hinge. We’ve seen worse, even in more expensive earbuds, but they don’t match the quality of 1MORE Evo‘s case.

We believe the lid could be the first thing to break if you drop the case, so try and be extra careful during handling.

Battery

• Battery test: 4h 41min (ANC on)
• Expected battery life: Up to 8 h (around 6 with ANC on)

TOZO Golden X1 battery life only lasted 4 hours and 41 minutes with ANC enabled, which is much less than expected. Fortunately, they charge up pretty fast when placed inside the charging case.

TOZO Golden X1 Battery Comparison

Looking at the official website, TOZO mentions the Golden X1 can play your music for up to 8 hours on a single charge without noise cancelling.

Typically, that would mean around 2 hours less with noise cancelling activated, but our results are even lower.

Leaving TOZO Golden X1 to play at 50% volume with ANC enabled got us:

• 4 hours and 41 minutes.

It seems TOZO’s ANC algorithms aren’t that well optimized, so they use up a lot of juice. That said, less than 5 hours of playtime is still enough to get you through the day.

The charging case holds 24 hours of additional power and uses USB-C or Qi wireless charging to fill it up. It takes 2 hours to charge it entirely.

Strangely, there’s no official mention of the fast charging support, but from our experience, earbuds charge up pretty quickly.

Features

TOZO Golden X1 pack all the necessary features for commuting and customization without any gimmicks. Sadly, the call quality could use some improvement.

When supplying extra features, TOZO smartly kept the most useful ones and ditched anything that sounded like a gimmick. Meaning you don’t get an auto play/pause sensor or Spatial Audio capabilities.

Instead, inside the TOZO app, you get things that matter and you actually want to use, like custom equalizer, custom touch controls, and different ANC modes.

You also get a hearing test “Earprint” feature where you select what frequency tones you hear or not. But it isn’t very precise, and it hardly does any difference to the sound.

Custom Sound Effects

TOZO companion app offers a 10-band custom equalizer with +/-5dB values. Furthermore, you can choose from 16 EQ presets (including the Standard “flat” preset).

The presets are okay, but we recommend using the custom EQ settings. It offers adequate control for tuning your earbuds and improving the sound.

Most importantly, it doesn’t hurt the sound quality or dynamics, as some EQs can.

Custom Touch Control

TOZO Golden X1 let you use 4 different gestures (one tap, double tap, triple tap, and long press), and you can allocate specific commands and not choose from predetermined “gesture presets” (like in JBL headphones).

However, on the left side, single press and triple-tap are locked to ANC modes, and the triple-tap on the right is assigned to the voice assistant. Also, long presses can only adjust volume controls.

While it’s good that you have all commands accessible from the earbuds, it doesn’t make sense to lock some controls to a specific gesture. Users should be able to decide that for themselves.

As a result, the control scheme needs to be clearer and more intuitive.

ANC modes (or Effects)

TOZO app provides 4 ANC modes, an OFF mode and an ambient sound mode. Active noise cancellation modes go as follows:

• Noise cancellation (the strongest)
• Reduce wind noise (the mode that better combats wind but isn’t as strong)
• Leisure mode (less effective ANC)
• Custom pattern (customizable ANC intensity from 1 to 10)

We go into more details later.

TOZO Golden X1 Microphone Quality

TOZO Golden X1 call quality is decent, but it could’ve been better. This is how you sound during a call:

TOZO Golden X1 Microphone Test

Earbuds use a total of 8 microphones for ANC and reducing background noise from calls. And while noise reduction works well, the clarity of your voice leaves much to be desired.

In a quiet room, your voice remains fully understandable but a bit thin, lacking fullness. At least the volume is much higher compared to the budget TOZO T10.

However, moving to someplace louder, the voice quality starts to fall apart. You start sounding even thinner and occasionally hard to understand.

In conclusion, avoid noisy places when taking phone calls with these earbuds.

Noise Isolation

TOZO Golden X1 have mediocre passive noise isolation, leaving bass frequencies intact and only reducing higher ones a little.

Most headphones struggle when trying to reduce bass and lower midrange frequencies. That’s normal since lower frequencies are harder to absorb. However, higher frequencies are easier to tackle.

Unfortunately, not all do such a great job here, TOZO Golden X1 included. They’re pretty much ineffective up to 1kHz, where they finally start reducing surrounding noise.

Compared to 1MORE Aero (green line from the graph), Golden X1 perform equally or worse in almost all aspects, especially in high frequencies.

Therefore, to truly get rid of the noise, you must use them together with active noise cancelling.

Noise Cancelling

TOZO Golden X1 have a decent active noise cancelling performance that works better against lower than higher frequencies. Also, while ambient sound mode naturally amplifies the surroundings, it randomly stops working.

TOZO Golden X1 active noise cancelling test:

Any premium earbuds also need to have ANC. However, these are TOZO’s first ANC earbuds with certification by TUV Rheinland. Is it any good?

Well, noise cancelling performance is good enough for commuting or travel where the only distracting noise is a low-end hum from engines. Although still far from what cheaper earbuds like EarFun Air Pro 3 can do.

On the other hand, earbuds are a bit better at blocking high frequencies like traffic or human speech than competitors.

How about ambient sound mode?

TOZO Golden X1 can boost ambient noise quite naturally in tonality and loudness. The only slightly distracting thing is the audible background hiss.

However, when using the feature for a short period of time, background hiss isn’t a dealbreaker. What could be is that the feature randomly stops working seconds after it’s turned on.

Bluetooth

TOZO Golden X1 have an average Bluetooth range of 40 feet and an overall stable close-range connection, even with LDAC. Multitaskers will find multipoint support quite practical.

The new TOZO Golden X1 use the latest Bluetooth 5.3, which provides a stable and robust connection, even with multiple Bluetooth devices in the same room.

While that’s true, the indoor range is only average. In our test, we got:

• Around 40 feet (or 12.2 meters) of range before the earbuds’ audio started cutting off. That’s right after passing the second brick wall.

Average indoor range aside, earbuds also support Bluetooth multipoint. There’s no setting you need to activate; the feature works out of the box.

You simply pair the earbuds with 2 different devices, and after enabling Bluetooth on both, the earbuds will connect to both. They will play audio from the device you’re using.

How to pair TOZO Golden X1?

To perform the first pairing, place the new earbuds inside the case, close and reopen the lid, and they should appear in your Bluetooth menu.

For any additional pairings, place the buds in the case and close and then reopen the lid. Press and hold the button between the buds without taking the earbuds out until you see flashing LEDs. Earbuds should appear in the Bluetooth menu.

What Bluetooth codecs do they use?

TOZO Golden X1 use SBC, AAC, and LDAC. With that, they cover all the needs of Android and Apple devices. To use the LDAC Bluetooth codec, you must first enable it in your phone’s Bluetooth settings.

Is there any audio lag?

Earbuds work lag-free for watching YouTube and other social media videos. On the flip side, there’s a slight delay in mobile games. But it’s only distracting in competitive shooters rather than casual games.

Should You Get TOZO Golden X1?

TOZO Golden X1 are first and foremost music-listening true wireless earbuds. There’s a reason why they have dual driver, LDAC codec, and Hi-Res certification.

If you seek wireless earbuds with excellent sound quality for under $200, you just found them.

On the other hand, feature-wise, they’re half-baked. You get everything you find helpful, but the performance doesn’t stand out. Hopefully, TOZO can improve some of the things over firmware updates.

Nonetheless, most casual listeners will undoubtedly find their performance more than satisfying. Also, they’re often discounted, which makes them a fantastic deal.

How do TOZO Golden X1 compare to the competition?

TOZO Golden X1 alternatives

EarFun Air Pro 3

Edifier NeoBuds Pro

What’s in the Box?

• TOZO Golden X1 true wireless earbuds
• Charging case
• USB-C charging cable
• 6 pairs of silicone ear tips (XS, S, M, L, XL, XXL)
• User manual

Specifications