Today we’re looking at the new $199 USD $89 USD PurePlay Z7 True Wireless Stereo In-Ears from Lypertek. It is also available on both the UK & US Amazon.
Disclaimer: Lypertek sent us the IEM for this review via HifiHeadphones in the UK, free of charge. All thoughts and experiences with the product are naturally my own. You can find out more about Lypertek here.
EDIT: PurePlay Z7 is now £89/$89/€89 (from £199).
Lypertek
Sound Innovation Co. Limited was founded in 2013. Their first products came under the brand Oriveti in 2015 and quickly became popular among audiophiles. Lypertek was established in 2017, focusing on portable audio with high-performance true wireless products.
Their first major release was the TEVI (now the Z3) that we reviewed a couple of months ago. It won our recommendation award fair and square, it was one of the few TWS out there that offered a balanced, detailed sound signature with a killer price to performance ratio. We reviewed the SoundFree S20 after the TEVI and it was quite clear to us that Lypertek knows how to tune and design high-performance wireless earphones. After the TEVI, we also reviewed the S20. With that, Lypertek proved to us that TEVI was not created by chance. Together with the S7 that we are reviewing today, I can say that their whole line-up consists of carefully thought products with great sound quality. Let’s get to the details without further ado.
The Line-up
If you’ve been following the company’s media accounts, you know that they recently made a minor name change to their product line. For those of you who don’t know, I’ll go over it briefly. At the time of this writing, you should know about three of Lypertek’s products. The Z3, Z7 & S20. The SoundFree S20 is their budget TWS, priced at $69 USD. We covered it here. The Z3 is the upgraded TEVI, it has Qualcomm’s new QCC3040 chipset which supports Bluetooth 5.2 & True Wireless Mirroring technology. Additionally, it now has a HearThrough mode. We will be reviewing it soon so stay tuned. Moving on to the star of the show, the Lypertek Z7 is their new flagship TWS.
Lypertek PurePlay Z7
The Lypertek PurePlay Z7 features Bluetooth 5.2 and aptX Adaptive codec thanks to Qualcomm’s QC3040 chipset. As for the driver configuration, Lypertek opted in for a hybrid design. They used 2 balanced armature drivers and 1 dynamic driver. They state that they carefully selected the parts and conducted R&D to maximize the performance. The shell is so packed that they had to remove the nozzle of the BAs to save space. As for the dynamic driver, they state that they used the traditional Mylar film but coated it with high purity PPF titanium. These are all nice but how does it sound? Let me give you a spoiler now. It sounds excellent. Let’s cover some of the essentials before the sound section.
Packaging & Accessories
The Lypertek PurePlay Z7 comes in a square, black cardboard box. The specifications and highlights of the product can be found on the back of the box and the box contents are listed on the side. The IEMs and the gorgeous charging box welcome you as soon as you open the box. The package contents are nice, you get 6 pairs of silicone tips, 3 pairs of foam tips, a USB-A to USB-C cable for charging the case, and 3 pairs of replacement filters. I really like it when companies include replacement tips with their IEMs. It’s always nice to have some, in case of need. The unboxing experience feels good, you get all the essentials. Additionally, first buyers of the Z7 will get Lypertek’s wireless charging pad for free. It has the same texture and color as the Z7 and it is well made so if you want to charge your case wirelessly, you may want to look at that.
Design, Fit & Build Quality
Let’s start with the design of the earbuds themselves. First of all, the Z7 is not a small earphone, it has a rather long housing but due to its excellent shape, it sits inside my ear’s concha without any discomfort even after extended listening sessions. It has a smooth, matte black finish and has a button on the faceplate that can be pressed with light pressure. I love the fact that it does not feature touch controls because those can be a pain in the back for me as I tend to misclick a lot. The ring accent around the button looks chic and complements the matte black color very well. There is also a single status LED on each faceplate of the earphones.
The Z7 feels very durable. I like the overall build quality of the earphones. Let’s talk about the gorgeous case for a bit. The case is covered with some kind of fabric material which makes it durable to scratches compared to plain plastic. It looks really nice and it feels great to touch. The hinges feel durable and robust as well. Lypertek placed a status LED that can be seen both with the lid on and off and that’s good. Tevi had the LEDs inside and it was impractical. Now it is much better. The magnets inside are strong and hold IEMs very well. The inner side feels like high-quality plastic and is finished in matte black like the earbuds. The case has a USB-C charging port on the rear.
I really like the design and I think Lypertek did a great job with it. As I mentioned earlier, I had absolutely no issues with the fit and it passively isolates outside noise very well. On another note, the Z7 has IPX5 water-sweat-dust certification so you can run or go to the gym without worrying about your IEMs!
Stability
Lypertek used Qualcomm’s new Bluetooth chipset, the QCC3040. It supports Bluetooth 5.2 and TrueWireless Mirroring Technology as well as AptX Adaptive codec. AptX Adaptive codec controls the bitrate and it is automatically adjusted between 279kbps and 420kbps according to the communication environment to ensure connection stability. In addition, by adopting a variable bit rate method using a new compression algorithm, it is possible to transmit 24bit / 48kHz. In my opinion, this is a positive change from the SBC / AAC codec. I would have wanted to see the LDAC codec with this flagship but it seems that we are not there yet.
Moving on to the True Wireless Mirroring Technology, it is the successor of the Qualcomm TrueWireless Stereo Plus technology and with it, only one earbud maintains the Bluetooth connection with the smartphone, while the secondary bud mirrors the connected bud. It makes switching between left and right earbuds an effortless process. Just like the QC’s TWS+, it also swaps the connection between the earbuds and equalizes the battery usage between sides. Qualcomm TrueWireless Mirroring is also engineered to manage a single Bluetooth address so only one device appears when the user is pairing their earbuds to a smartphone. Now that you’re up to date with the new chipset, let me tell you that I’ve never had a drop-out or signal instability during my time with the Z7. It works perfectly well and I can leave my phone in my room and do chores in another room while listening to music through 4 concrete walls.
I don’t know if this is Lypertek’s design or simply the new chipset, I am quite happy with the result. Let’s talk about signal latency. I have tried Netflix, VLC, Amazon, and YouTube with my Android 11 phone and I experienced a tiny delay with these apps. It was barely noticeable and didn’t impact my experience. However, I experienced a much bigger delay when it comes to games and I don’t recommend playing games with it.
Controls
The Z7 has no touch controls and it is wonderful in my opinion. Touch controls can be exhausting for some and I am one of those people. I keep misclicking and it impacts my listening sessions. I also don’t find them as accurate as buttons, especially when triple clicking and such. The Z7’s buttons are soft to push and easy to use. You do not experience any seal issues while pushing them. Via the physical buttons, you can accept or refuse calls, skip to the previous or next song, activate Android or iOS assistant, toggle the HearThrough mode and of course, play or pause tracks.
The review continues on Page Two, after the click HERE or by using the jump below.
Page 2: Controls, Battery Life, PureControl App, Mic & Call Quality, Sound, Low, Mid, High, Technical Performance, Comparisons, Last Words
Chris
No reviews posted before I purchased the Z7s.
How long did you spend using them before you put up your review?
Good sound but . . .
1. Difficult to get out of case.
2. Easy to fumble and drop.
3. Difficult to fit Flexifit foam tips.
4. Difficult to identify left from right without glasses.
5. Difficult to pair and reconnect before updating firmware.
6. App unusable unless audio source is the phone — too bad if you’re connected to TV.
7. Some functions like aptX require app to enable.
8. Can’t tell Amient from non-Ambient mode.
9. Quick start guide supplied but where’s the proper manual with the detail?
10. Spelling errors on otherwise polished Lypertek website.
Yagiz
I used them around 3 weeks.
1. I haven’t had this problem, since the back of the device is larger than other earphones, I did not have a problem with removing it from the case.
2. TWS earphones are small, so I do not perceive this as a product-based criticism.
3. That’s right, the core stem should definitely be wider.
4. I never look at the L-R indicators, the shape is enough for me to identify the left & right, you too should be able to identify them easily after a week of use.
5. I have seen many negative comments on the Google’s Playstore comments, however, my update and pairing process went totally breezy, I suppose it depends on the Android phone, version and other variables.
6. I think that is related to the on-board memory feature, it applies to all TWS that has no on-board memory (right now I can’t remember any tws that features on-board memory, they are rare)
7. My phone automatically detected the AptX Adaptive codec and set it as the default with the Z7. This is also a software-based issue.
8. The Ambient Mode in many of the TWSs only good for hearing the cars, trucks etc. around you. At the same time, you can use this mode when you are in a quiet environment and do not want to take off your headphones when someone tries to talk to you. I say quiet environment because many of the TWS on the market, especially those without the ”rod-design” lack proper mic-performance. No matter how good microphones you use, it’s a physical and acoustic problem and very difficult to get right without affecting the design. I hope technology finds a way to overcome this problem soon. This is the case with 20+ rodless TWS I tried.
9 & 10 – I’ll be sure to notify them.
TWS earphones have a long way to go but due to their popularity, they are being developed fast which makes me excited for the future. Thanks for the comment Chris, I hope you’re happy with the Z7. Stay safe out there!
Brandon
This is my first day with the z7 after I sent back my TEVIs which had connectivity problems and these aren’t faring much better. I’m left wondering if this review isn’t a paid one from the company given how perfectly everything works for them, meanwhile, I’m on my second product (sent directly from the company) and it still isn’t working properly.
I’m disappointed because I was so excited to get these earbuds back and assumed this would be better.
Yagiz
That’s interesting. We don’t do paid reviews and therefore everything I wrote reflects my own honest experience with the product. I use the Z7 regularly with Xiaomi F2 Pro and Xiaomi Mi9SE. It works seamlessly with both of these phones. Your phone (the RFI, board isolation etc) may be the culprit here, I honestly have no idea. If you’re not happy with the product, return it, there are alternatives.The bluetooth sphere is expanding every passing day and there will be a lot of new products this winter.
Chris
The provided tips aren’t very good. I’m using Final tips, which work way better. I also want to order some Azra Crystal tips, a lot of people rave about them. You have to set up the EQ to a subtle “V” formation for these things to come to life, but when you do they sound great!
Victor
Just received my Z7 today. Initial impression is pretty good. However, my pair turns out to be defective since one of the nozzles came loose.
I have a pair of Noble Audio Falcon. I found the Z7s to be on similar performance level to the Falcon. The Z7s have slightly better fit for my ears. Very similar sound signature. But the Falcon has superior imaging to the Z7s. I find the imaging of Z7s to be not quite coherent, especially when listening to symphonic music. The issue is not as noticeable with most of the pop music I listen to. So, I don’t think I will be need a replacement but a full refund instead. Overall, I think they sound very pleasing for the money. But for me, the imaging of the Z7s is a big deal breaker.
Tom
Will have to agree with Brandon; haven’t even been using them for a day before sending them back. Connection dropped about every 30 seconds (haven’t had this issue since the BT4 days and even back then it wasn’t this bad). Also, a background hissing so loud that I took them out thinking there is something going on in front of the building. Other than good (please note that I didn’t write great) battery life there are really no positives. To sum up: terrible connectivity, hissing and average sound (when it’s working) and the lack of features when looking at this price point makes this a hard miss. Very disappointing, I used to love the TEVI…