Pure joy

Lypertek makes a move away from its more affordable offerings with the higher spec Z5, but Ed Selley thinks it's still a bit of a bargain

- Ed Selley

As the true-wireless sector grows, a lot of attention has been lavished on the more expensive end of the market. Lypertek by contrast has focused on being affordable by producing a selection of seriously capable sub-£100 designs. The PurePlay Z5 sees it move upmarket, but only to a pretty reasonable £120.

Each bud is fitted with a single 10mm dynamic driver that is placed in a reasonably compact body that uses a relatively small 'barrel' for the driver housing with a protuberance for the mic and charging contacts. Bluetooth transmission is handled by a Qualcomm QCC3046 chipset offering Bluetooth 5.2 with aptX, aptX Adaptive and AAC on top of the default SBC codec. The quoted battery life is up to seven hours with 28 hours available from the case.

The Active Noise Cancellation is the big addition for the Z5. Largely in keeping with the standard facilities available at the price, there are some little tweaks that are well thought out. A full noise-cancelling mode is partnered with a series of presets to adjust the processing and you can also tweak EQ output too. Ambient Mode' detects when the headphones aren't running and switches the noise cancelling off. In use, I find this to be very useful indeed.