With so many sporty true wireless earphones on the market, Master & Dynamic's MW07 Go are a breath of fresh air. At $199, they're still gym-friendly thanks to a water-resistant design, but they also look a heck of a lot more stylish than your average cable-free in-ears. Sonically, the drivers deliver rich bass depth and relatively solid balance throughout the frequency range, but the audio could be a little more crisp. Overall, there's plenty to like here, but you're paying a premium for style.

Design

Available in glossy black, blue, gray, or red models, the MW07 Go earpieces are a little boxy, but lightweight and secure. You get four pairs of silicone eartips in various sizes, as well as optional earfins (in small, medium, and large) with interesting-looking ridges that rest against the ear. Internally, 10mm Beryllium drivers deliver the audio.

The on-ear controls consists of two push buttons that rest on the top side panels of each earpiece—this placement makes them easier to control than buttons placed on the outer panel. Rather than having to press a button toward your ear, you can use your thumb to stabilize the earpiece while pressing the buttons. This is only notable because so few true wireless options with buttons have figured out a layout like this, and because so few have two different button types—here, the left earpiece houses a volume rocker button, while the right earpiece houses a multifunction button.

The multifunction button controls playback and track navigation, depending on how many times you tap it, or it answers incoming calls or ends them. Holding it will activate your mobile device's voice assistant. The volume button serves no extra function.

An IPX6 rating means the earpieces can handle light splashing and even reasonable water pressure levels, so they can be rinsed off when they get covered in sweat. That said, the case isn't rated for water protection, only the earphones, so make sure never to place wet earphones in the charging case.

The battery case is compact and classy, with a canvas covering and a USB-C port on the back panel. The included charging cable is USB-C on both ends, but you also get a USB 2.0 adapter in the box. Three status LEDs on the outside tell you how much juice is left for each earpiece and the case itself.

Master & Dynamic estimates battery life to be roughly 10 hours, which is solid for true wireless in-ears, but with only an additional 12 hours in the case. Of course, your results will vary with your volume levels.

The earphones use Bluetooth 5.0, and support AptX and SBC Bluetooth codecs. There's no support for AAC, so iOS devices will default to SBC.

Performance

Devices that support AptX will get a higher-quality audio performance out of the MW07 Go, but even when defaulting to SBC mode, the audio performance is impressive thanks to well-tuned drivers. On tracks with intense sub-bass content, like The Knife's "Silent Shout," the earphones deliver powerful bass depth without going overboard—and at top, unwise listening levels, the lows aren't distorted.

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Bill Callahan's "Drover," a track with far less deep bass in the mix, gives us a better sense of the MW07 Go's general sound signature. The drums on this track are full and round, natural, and not overly boosted and thunderous as they can be on bass-forward in-ears. Callahan's vocals are delivered with added low-mid richness that gets just enough high-mid presence, though it could benefit from a bit more overall high-frequency presence.

On Jay-Z and Kanye West's "No Church in the Wild," the kick drum loop receives just enough high-mid presence to retain its punchy attack, though we notice more the added thump it receives in the lows. The sub-bass synth hits are delivered with solid bass push, but not what you'll hear from seriously boosted in-ears. The vocals on this track receive enough high-mid presence to retain their clarity, but overall, the high-mids and highs could be dialed up a bit more. A companion app with EQ would help here.

Orchestral tracks, like the opening scene from John Adams' The Gospel According to the Other Mary, sound a little richer and less crisp than we prefer, but it's nothing too far off from a solid balance. The lower-register instrumentation takes a step forward in the mix, and the higher-register brass, strings, and vocals are a bit less bright than we often hear.

The mic offers decent intelligibility. Using the Voice Memos app on an iPhone 8, we could understand every word we recorded, though there was some fuzzy Bluetooth distortion, and the signal was a bit faint—both common issues with true wireless in-ear mics.

Conclusions

Master & Dynamic's MW07 Go earphones are stylish, have a solid IP rating, and deliver respectable audio performance, but for $50 more, the Apple AirPods Pro deliver an arguably better audio experience and include some impressive ANC, as well. And for less money, the $180 Jabra Elite 75t earbuds deliver powerful bass-forward audio with an app that allows for EQ adjustments. This is all to say, the MW07 Go are solid earphones, but the design constitutes a significant part of the price.

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