DUNU DTW 300
Where to buy:
DUNU DTW 300 at HiFiGo: https://hifigo.com/products/dunu-dtw-300
DUNU DTW 300 at Shenzhen Audio: https://shenzhenaudio.com/products/dunu-dtw-300-true-wireless-headphone-tws?
I recently reviewed the KZ Carol Pro, another pair of true wireless Bluetooth earphones from an established brand that has been making good audio products for many years. KZ is known for being a budget brand and offering many in-ear monitors for as low as $30. DUNU presented itself as a more upscale brand with offerings that often tipped over the $200 mark, but it also had its share of competitively priced products. The DTW 300 fit into that category and would seem therefore to be a good comparison point for the Carol Pro. I made a video comparing them to each other, check the link at the bottom of this post.
Hardware Overview
The review for the DTW 300 won't be all that different from the review for the KZ Carol Pro. The cases are the biggest difference, with the DUNU case being a light greige on the outside and either gray or yellow on the inside with the bodies of the earphones being the same color as the outside of the case. On the yellow model, the stems are a dark transparent plastic that allows you to see the components inside very similar to the KZ Carol Pro. They look very sharp and quite reminiscent of higher tier earphones from Nothing.
The driver type is listed as being a"12mm high-performance dynamic driver". There are two microphones for voice pickup and an additional 4 microphones for noise-canceling duties. The box indicates that the earphones are IP54 dust and water resistant, but the DUNU website lists them as IPX4. I'd suggest assuming that one should be careful with them around dust, just in case. The DUNU has a low-latency gaming mode that DUNU says has latency as low as 35ms.
Software Overview
DUNU does provide an app for the DTW 300. The app doesn't have a ton of features like you might see on more expensive earphones, but the basics are all covered. You can change noise canceling modes, noise canceling intensity, gesture control settings, EQ modes, volume, gaming mode, shutdown timing, in-ear detection, change device name, update firmware, clear pairing records, restore factory settings, and disable touch controls. The one thing I did not find a way to change was the language of the audio prompts. They seem to be stuck in Chinese. This is annoying if you don't speak Chinese, but I did find that the prompts are different enough that I could relatively quickly figure out which prompts reflected the various states. The app also has a section for the user manual and product details, but these sections were not available for me. If you need the manual, keep the paper one that came in the box. Fortunately, it does have an English version as well as Chinese.
The biggest annoyance for me with the DTW 300 is in-ear detection. I appreciate that earphones in the sub $50 price range even offer this feature, but I found it did not perform well for me. Sometimes it would pause the music when I removed the earphones and other times it would keep playing. Sometimes it would resume the music when I put them back in my ears and other times it wouldn't. Most often it would respond with the appropriate play or pause response, but only after many seconds of delay. I finally turned the feature off in the app.
Bluetooth Connection
The DTW 300 sports Bluetooth 5.4 instead of the newer 6.0, but this may not matter much since the advanced Bluetooth features like Auracast aren't advertised as being supported anyway. I didn't experience any dropouts or disconnection issues while testing them. I was able to use them throughout my house and on the short trip to my mailbox with no issues.
Battery Life
Battery life on the DTW 300 is rated for 5 hours of calling time and 6 hours of music time. I always assume these quoted times are with noise canceling off and there's no LDAC code here to further diminish battery life. I found I could use them for several hours before getting a low battery warning with ANC on. I do want to note that the right earphone drained much faster than the left and often I'd put them both back in the charging case because I didn't want to use just one earphone. It would seem that there is a primary-secondary relationship here that is causing the right bud to require more power. This is probably also exacerbated by the fact that I almost always used them with noise canceling on.
Noise Canceling/Transparency
I don’t think that the ANC technology here is much different than the ANC in other similarly priced Bluetooth earphones. Anything new and special would dictate new and special pricing. Much like with the KZ Carol Pro, the ANC here is below average. It will reduce the sounds of low rumblings like air conditioners or white noise like air purifiers a bit, but it won’t eliminate voices or higher-pitched noises. You will still be able to hear the clicking of your keyboard just fine. So again, I wouldn’t buy these for their ANC performance. The transparency mode lets in more noise as you’d expect, but with a bit more white noise than what you hear with the earphones removed. It’s not a natural sound, but if the goal is just to hear your surroundings better, it achieves that goal. It also has the effect of making the ANC setting seem more effective as you cycle through the modes.
Microphone Performance
The microphone on the DTW 300 is quite good for indoor calls in a quiet situation. It struggles a bit with wind noise, so they might not be optimal for use outside. Voice comes across reasonably clear and loud and with a tolerable amount of digital noise. They're very comparable to the microphones on the KZ Carol Pro.
Sound
Compared to the KZ Carol Pro, the DUNU offer more bass and a bit less treble out of the box. This gives it a warmer and fuller sound than the Carol Pro. Although there are EQ settings in the app, you get only Balanced, Classical, and Pop. The frequency graphs that DUNU shows on their website are not terribly different from each other. And despite not having Hi-Res Audio certification or the LDAC codec, I found that the DTW 300 offered just a bit better clarity than the Carol Pro. I like my bass (but not too much), so I prefer the sound of the DTW 300, but if you prefer a more treble-centric sound, you may prefer the Carol Pro. The sound is solid across multiple genres and offers good performance for the price. I also like the out-of-the-box sound here over the same from Moondrop's Space Travel 2.
Summary
The DTW 300 offer a decent package for the price. If you prefer your sound with a bit of a bass boost without having overpowering bass or too much muddiness mucking up the midrange, you may like the sound of these earphones. The ANC isn't amazing, but it can take the edge off low rumbles and machine noise. The microphones are solid and if the in-ear detection works for you ears, it offers a feature not common at this price range. If you can deal with the Chinese prompts (or figure out a way to change them that I did not find), they're well worth your consideration as backup pair or even your primary pair if you don't want to spend a lot of money. They look cool and sound good.
