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2025 has been a weird year for earbuds.

For starters, I haven't actually reviewed that many. Usually, I'm up to my eyeballs, overwhelmed with screeds of tiny cases containing even tinier buds, desperately trying to find a way to differentiate one set from the next.

Not this year though. As far as I can tell I've only been sent five pairs to stuff in, on or over my ears. Which brings me to the other weird trend... Some of these buds have themselves been weird.

What's more, I've gone from being adamantly a sealed fit, all ANC, wireless charging zealot, to being quite open-minded about new form-factors and innovative design.

So when I was sent some fairly traditional-style buds to review, I suddenly had to change gear again. It was almost refreshing.

When I call the OPPO Enco X3s earbuds traditional, I don't mean they're not new, just that we've seen this kind of hybrid sealed-fit-with-a-stem form factor plenty of times now. The reason it's so popular is it provides good stability along with plenty of points of contact which helps with a comfortable fit.

The process of selecting the correct sized eartips had me a bit confused at first. Lately I've opted to go a size smaller in my left ear because that seems to result in a properly snug seal on both sides. However, the Enco X3s only comes with a choice of three different sizes (other brands have started providing at least five) and it turned out the Small was a bit TOO small.

This was backed up by the evidence of OPPO's own size test in the Hey Melody app you use to set these earbuds up with. Once I went Medium in both ears, the test confirmed I now had a good seal left and right and everything certainly felt more secure too.

The Enco X3s has an IP55 rating for water and dust resistance. Combine that with the snug fit and you've got a decent option for exercise.

During setup, you can also opt for the Hey Melody Golden Sound test. This is a two-step process that firstly scans your ear canal then guides you though an actual hearing test to figure out which frequency ranges need boosting to achieve your optimal personal listening experience. This only takes a couple of minutes and depending on your own circumstances, it can produce some pretty stark results.

With the Hey Melody app you can also tweak the EQ manually or select a preset one. Even more pleasingly, you can customise the controls to your preference; single, double and triple taps, along with log presses and stem swipes on either earbud can be used to play/pause, skip tracks, summon your voice assistant, adjust volume and toggle ANC settings. That's a lot of choice, which is how I like it.

You can even activate Game Mode using the onboard controls - opting for a low-lag connection - without having to select it in the app.

There's an option called Alive Audio which is OPPO's take on spatial audio or 360 audio or whatever anybody else calls it. Essentially, it's an effect that widens out the soundscape to give the impression the music is coming from all around you, rather than from the earbuds themselves. I've found this works better with some tracks than others.

On Buster Moe's "Im so Sick," the tight, pizzicato strings in the verses contrast brilliantly with the giant bass boost in the choruses. Alive Audio definitely adds a sense of space to this clever dynamic contrast.

But on the jangly guitar pop groove, "Entwined" by Sydney band Pocketwatch, the 360 effect just made everything sound muddy and blurry. Changing back to non-Alive Audio (Undead Audio? Zombie Audio?) fixed this up straight away. Listening to podcasts and other talk-based content is definitely more suited to the less-alive option too, otherwise the hosts all sound they recorded in an empty water tank.

I mentioned the bass just now and I'm going to mention it again because what OPPO has achieved here is frankly award-worthy. The richness and sheer power of the lower frequencies produced by the Enco X3s is something I've only ever heard from much larger woofers in over-ear headphones. The combination of a dedicated 11mm diaphragm woofer with a separate 6mm high-frequency unit means a fairly monotonous song like "Birds of a Feather" by Billie Eilish really comes alive, from the highest highs to the lowest basement-dwelling lows.

You getting the impression I like the way these earbuds sound? Oh, daddy.

And that's before we cover off the four-step Active Noise Cancellation. It's very good - perhaps not quite the top of the noise-cancellation table but certainly at the party. And unusually you don't only get adaptive and transparency options, but also the choice to simply turn ANC off completely and leave it to the passive cancellation provided by the seal of the eartips. Choice is good.

Battery life is confusing. OPPO claims you can get up to 45 hours (including the charge in the case of course) but that's if you don't use ANC or listen to Hi-Res audio via the LHDC 5.0 codec. In my real-world testing, I got up over 5 playback hours on a single charge and I can confirm, the case itself takes a long time to go flat. Which is just as well, because it only charges via USB-C - not wirelessly.

That's usually a red line for me. I want all my gadgets to be as wireless as possible. What's the point of your earbuds being wireless if the case isn't? However, these ones sound so good, I'm prepared to make an exception.

Which has kind of been the story of my year; I keep thinking I won't like a gadget then it does something so crazy, or innovative or... or just really good - that it wins me over.

And that's what happened with the Enco X3s. The excellent sound quality - especially the best earbud bass I've ever heard - more than makes up for any frustration I have re: no wireless charging. ANC is excellent, battery life is good - the Bluetooth 5.4 connection is strong and reliable. They even made my ears feel symmetrical again.