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Posted: 2018-07-14 13:16:05

I tend not to review many inexpensive over-ear headphones because they usually don't sound all that good. But the Tribit XFree Tune is one of the few exceptions. It sells for $44 online and actually sounds great, is comfortable to wear and seems well built. It also doesn't look cheap. It's AU$129 in Australia, but not available in the UK at time of publication.

Tribit is one of those no-name audio companies that sell a range of stuff on Amazon. But Tribit's $35 mini Bluetooth speaker is one of our go-to choices in the world of ultrabudget wireless speakers, so I thought I'd give these headphones a try. I was pleasantly surprised by how they sounded, and fellow CNET editor Ty Pendlebury and Steve Guttenberg, aka The Audiophiliac, concurred with my assessment. 

The Tribit XFree Tune doesn't look so different from a Beats headphone but costs way less.

Sarah Tew/CNET

They have good clarity, relatively well-defined bass and sound pretty natural for Bluetooth headphones. There's a touch of treble push, but it's not grating and I was able to listen to the headphones for good chunks of time without experiencing listening fatigue. The bottom line is they sound as good as many Bluetooth headphones that cost three or even four times as much.

They also fold up into a decent enough carrying case and come with a cable if you want to use them in wired mode. And that's the only real annoyance with this product: The bundle with the carrying case costs $5 more, or $49. (The Tribit rep didn't tell me the case wasn't included for $44 until after I shot the video.)

My only design gripe is that the Tribit logo could be downplayed a bit. "Tribit" is one of those names that's hard to take seriously (wave hello, Oontz), so having it plastered in white on the ear cup in a decent sized font doesn't help the headphones' street appeal. But maybe it's cool to be anticool.

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