Review | boAt Rockerz 510

Choosing a pair of headphones these days has become a really difficult task. There are tons of headphones on the market and all of them promise superior sound, but only a few manage to deliver. That's where the new company called boAt comes in. boAt has been consistent with its delivery of good sound quality, and it delivers yet again with the promise of the Boat Rockerz 510. Priced at a range starting from Rs.1800 to Rs.2600 depending upon where you procure a pair from, these headphones are quite good for their price range.

The boAt Rockerz 510

First Impressions

When the boAt Rockerz 510 first arrived, it looked pretty good. The build quality looked a little bad, but you can't really ask for much at this price range.These headphones looked pretty stylish, and boAt has a reputation for giving comparatively good headphones for its price range. All of these factors combined got us quite excited, in trying and testing out these earphones.

boAt and its new journey

boAt is a new Indian Brand which, as they state, is a lifestyle brand that deals in fashionable consumer electronics like- earphones, headphones, speakers, travel charger & premium rugged cables. It is a fairly new brand in India, but it has nonetheless taken the market by a storm with its line of good products. While they aren't exactly the cheapest options available on the market, they certainly do sound pretty good especially for the price range which they offer. With boAt, you pay what you get for. There are no excess markups, and certainly no false promises. It is quite a trustworthy brand in the marketplace of India. You can read more about them by visiting their official site.

The boAt branding across the headband on the Rockerz 510

Technical Specification

Just to give you a better idea of what these might possibly sound like, here is a list of technical specifications for the same.

Wireless Headphones: Powered by Bluetooth, these Headphones can be used with an AUX cable, or a Bluetooth connection which is accurate to up to 10 metres.

Li-ion Battery Powered: Being wireless also means that these headphones have to be charged and require a Li-ion battery for playback. On the bright side, these Headphones boast a battery backup of up to 10 hours and are the Li-ion battery only adds to the battery life. Charging through Micro USB.

Impedance: A low impedance of 32 Ohms pretty much warrants playback on most devices and does not require an amplifier.

Frequency Range: These headphones can produce a Frequency Range from 20 Hz to 20 KHz. While this may be missing out on some of the extremities, it shouldn't really matter all that much.

Driver Unit: The Driver Unit on these headphones are huge 50mm units. That signals  a good production of Bass. Apart from that, the sound of these headphones suggests a combination of Balanced Armature Drivers and a Dynamic Driver for the Bass.

Physical Specifications

The boAt Rockerz 510 may be quite pleasing to look at, but they do have a few things worth complaining about. The following paragraphs aim to encompass all the physical specs. For the way these headphones are priced, boAt sure did trade in a few things for the quality of music which they are providing. Read on to figure out what they are.

Looks

The boAt Rockerz 510 look quite stylish for a couple of cans. boAt has left no effort in making them look as stylish as possible without compromising on the build quality and the price. These headphones look quite similar to many gaming headphones even though they pretty much are made for music. They have comfortable padding all over the headphones, and an angular design to give it a certain sharpness. Each side is ornamented quite well with the letter corresponding to the side in huge letters which complement the overall angular look of these headphones. There are two colour combinations available for this model, One red on black, and the other blue on black. Personally, I'd prefer the red on black as the blue on black looks a little less appealing, but both are stylishly made nonetheless. One of the most visually striking features of these headphones is the mesh on the inside of the cups. They feature a colourful interwoven mesh inside the cups composed of both the base and the primary colour. They leave a good impression when looking at the headphones. Sadly, they can't be seen when you're wearing them. The headphones also have a glossy plastic finish to them for the base colour, which is accompanied by a matte finish for the primary colour. These headphones certainly do look stylish, and the sharpness is perhaps one of the best features which they offer.

The interwoven mesh on the inner side of the boAt Rockerz 510

Looks: 4.5/5

Pretty stylish and sharp

Comfort

The boAt Rockerz 510 are pretty comfortable to wear around all day long. They are pretty lightweight and don't put a lot of pressure on your ears even though they are Supra-aural headphones. However, the lack of pressure comes at the price of firmness. These headphones rest on the skull very lightly and a sudden shake can easily send them flying off into a different place. There is also a sliding cup adjustor to make sure that the cups are properly covering your ear. While they might be really comfortable to wear, a little bit of firmness might also be desired from these headphones.

Comfort: 4/5

Comfortable, but not firm

Durability

Now, this is where the boAt Rockerz 510 tends to be weak. While these headphones are pretty light, the boAt Rockerz 510 are pretty easily breakable. There are practically no joints in these headphones which can be turned, and that removes from the durability of these headphones. Furthermore, the construction made using lighter materials just makes it prone to breaking under pressure. The headband might break off, or one of the cups might come off, and there is no other way to join them back again without simply, super-gluing them back together and hence, losing a part of the functionality. They may be light, but they are also very brittle, with the parts being really rigid, and inflexible. However, the lack of wires certainly does mean less hassle and increased durability as you won't have to bother with loss of hearing in case one of them gets stuck somewhere. Finally, the glossy texture proves to be a bit messy at it tends to get scratched pretty easily, ruining the gorgeous looks of these headphones.

Durability: 2/5

Portability

While the boAt Rockerz 510 is certainly lightweight, that doesn't make it any more portable than a large Bluetooth speaker. Despite what it weighs, it cannot be folded and hence, takes up a lot of space in your baggage. The lack of joint which is also the reason for its fragility also adds up to its lack of portability in addition to its poor build materials. These headphones can easily be crushed under heavy weights and hence, the only option left to carry it anywhere is to hang it around your neck, or your shoulder.

Portability: 1.5/5

Meant for indoor use

Functional Specifications

Being a pair of Bluetooth headphones loaded with features, the boAt Rockerz 510 is quite the functional pair of headphones with a lot of features to complement its looks. Let's see how they perform below.

Dual Playback Mode

Starting off the primary feature of these headphones, the boAt Rockerz 510 comprises of a dual mode wherein you can play music through either Bluetooth or the AUX cable. This gives these headphones lots of flexibility when it comes to listening to your favourite tunes. You can either use the AUX for playback when the battery is dead, or when your playback device does not have Bluetooth, or just for the sheer sake of it. Alternatively, you could also use the Bluetooth mode to listen to your music from a range without any loss in clarity or quality. The Bluetooth mode extends up to a range of ten meters which is quite a significant distance for wireless music playback.

The calling buttons on the boAt Rockerz 510

Battery Backup

boAt promises a playback time of 10 hours for these headphones. I have no idea how they tested these headphones to get that figure, but the boAt Rockerz 510 boasts a playback time of nearly 15 hours. If that isn't impressive in itself, these headphones completely charge up within one and a half to two hours time. The ratio of charging time to battery backup is insane with this pair of cans. Furthermore, these headphones switch off the instant you step outside of their Bluetooth permissible zone. While connecting and reconnecting might be a bit of a problem, it certainly does save up on a lot of battery life in the process. There was a point while using these headphones when I grew tired of waiting and actually wanted them to shut the hell off. My wish came true three tiring later.  These cans can be charged using your standard Micro USB Port.

The Micro USB Port of the boAt Rockerz 510

Battery Backup: 5/5

"What's charging?" asks the Rockerz 510

Inline Controls

The boAt Rockerz 510 comes with quite a few inline controls to help ease the burden of playback from a distance. These include the volume up and volume down button along with Previous and Next buttons. While these are pretty self-explanatory, these cans also come with an option to play and pause music and pick up calls. All these controls are placed on the right cup of the headphones and are pretty simple to use, and find using touch. The call button also doubles up as the on/off button wherein long pressing it switches these headphones on and off.

This right cup also features an angularly shaped LED indicator light. This light keeps blinking blue while connected to a device and turns red when charging. This indicator light turns off while these headphones are off, or they have been completely charged. They also feature a mic which is quite adept at capturing voice and focuses on voice clarity for calling and gaming purposes. At this point, boAt seems to have made a pair of headphones with the sound quality of music headphone, and the features of gaming headphones.

Inline Controls on the boAt Rockerz 510

Sound Quality

For the modest price range of approximately Rs.2000, they the boAt Rockerz 510 gives you quite a good bang for the buck with its sound quality. While there are certainly, a few complaints, the music is pretty good overall, and especially so considering its price range.

Highs

The highs in the boAt Rockerz 510 are pretty much unclear and have quite a lot of room for improvement. At times, these headphones tend to be really shrill sounding for a few of the extreme notes and can result in a really uncomfortable listening experience. Other times, the highs are all faded together without much of a distinguishable difference between the individual notes. Treble is the most underpowered features of these headphones with the extreme high being clear but shrill, and the lower highs fading together into a singularity. The Treble also has quite a funny ring to it at times, leaving an undesirable sustain. All in all, these headphones cannot handle treble properly. It makes listening to Rock or Jazz a real mess of things.

Treble: 2/5

Mids

The mids are the best and most pronounced features of the boAt Rockerz 510. It is not only the loudest frequency which these headphones can produce, but it is also the most distinguishable one. The mids are crisp, clean and clear with all of the different notes easily detectable and distinguishable from one another. It is so well enhanced in fact, that I wonder why the engineers couldn't optimise the other areas as effectively as well. It is great for listening to Latin or other similar genres where the mids are really pronounced and there is a wide variety of sounds being produced using the mids. The vocals are also super clear and quite well amplified, making these headphones great for games, or calls, or more vocal genres.

Mids: 5/5

Lows

The bass in the boAt Rockerz 510 is also quite pronounced, but nowhere nearly as pronounced as the Mids. These headphones can pull off a clear thump perfectly. But, they struggle with creating a well-sustained bass as they tend to keep vibrating endlessly and mixing the rest of the bass lines all together as was the case with the treble. The lows are, however, more distinguishable than the treble, provided they are played individually, one at a time. Mixing multiple bass frequencies results in the loss of the middle frequencies as the headphones tend to lean more towards the extremities. The bass, oddly enough also has a natural sustain to it, which is quite surprising given how it can't handle a sustained bass that well.

Bass: 3/5

Sound Stage

The boAt Rockerz 510 offers quite a broad soundstage with different sounds coming in from different directions. The overall feel does feel closed due to the enhanced mids on these headphones, but there still is a well-defined soundstage to them. This soundstage, however, isn't dynamic with the Treble appearing the farthest, the Mids coming in the middle, and the Bass extremely close to your ears, vibrating throughout the entire headphones. But at least, they do have a soundstage. That is more than what one can ask for a pair of headphones at this price range.

Soundstage: 2.5/5

General Frequency Response

The boAt Rockerz 510 can easily produce diverse sounds, the impressive being the mids as long as they're individual in nature. But once the music starts adding layers, the different frequency ranges start bleeding together into one another and only the mids and vocals remain. These headphones fail to handle heavy saturation of music as they result in the lows and highs getting distorted and at times, even choppy and incomplete. Most of the times, the sound of the music itself changes and it feels like one or two beats or notes have been missed.

Frequency Response: 2.5/5

Overall Sound Quality

The boAt Rockerz 510 can produce really amazing mids with a powerful and punchy bass. However, expecting anything other than that can be really disappointing as the rest of the notes fade together and create new and unwelcome nuances of music. At times, the treble can be so sharp that it hurts, and at other times, the bass can display a gross underlying distortion. While that may be upsetting, we must keep the price range of the product in mind while passing judgement, and the fact that the mids are really beyond what we are paying for.

Overall Sound Quality: 3/5

Quite average

Conclusion

While boAt is a new company on the market, the boAt Rockerz 510, priced at around Rs.2000, is a good example of the quality of their headphones and their general price range. While these headphones may be fragile, and really difficult to carry around, they make up for it given their looks, their comfort and the ever impressive battery backup which they have to offer. As for the music, even though the mids are clearly beyond the range of what you are paying for, the lows leave something to be desired, and the highs are a real mess. Furthermore, the music doesn't tie together all that well. However, considering the price range, this product does deliver quite a good quality of sound, even though it does miss the certain punch to music and something feels lacking. The boAt Rockerz 510 do need a little bit of improvement, but how much can you truly expect inside of this humble price range from a newly established brand?

The Overall Score: 3.2/5

 Pretty much the average pair of cans with nothing exceptional except for the mids

In case you're interested in buying the Koss Porta Pro, you could use the following link to get the headphones at a discounted price and help us out at the same time:

THE FLIPKART LINK:
boAt Rockerz 510 Blue Bluetooth Headset with Mic
THE AMAZON LINK:
Boat Rockerz 510 Wireless Bluetooth Headphones (Black)