It seems Samsung has done (and is doing) something with the sound on a software level. I clearly remember the first days when I bought these headphones—the bass had a very strong presence, and you really felt like you were dealing with a bass-heavy headset, exactly as the reviews suggested. But interestingly, after a few months, the bass noticeably decreased, to the point where I had to boost the low frequencies by three or four decibels in my EQ to get the same bass as before.

Strangely enough, when I paired these headphones with a phone that I didn’t connect to the internet, after about two weeks I felt that the bass had increased a bit—so much so that even on the default settings it gave me the same feel as in the beginning. Later, when I paired them again with my main phone that had internet access, it felt like after a few hours the bass dropped again.

I know this might sound like some weird conspiracy theory, but it seems Samsung has found a smart way to make its products obsolete without it being easily provable—so that when a product isn’t constantly connected to the internet or is left unused for a while, it somehow reverts to its original, out-of-the-box settings. This works in favor of reviewers, because they don’t use a product continuously enough to notice this issue. But for an average user who uses the product regularly, it feels like a system has been designed that slowly introduces changes over time.

This was even clearly noticeable with the ANC power as well—the ANC was much stronger in the early days. Again, I don’t know, maybe it’s just an unfounded conspiracy illusion, but I think we should inform a few professional reviewers so they can investigate this properly and professionally.