Closer Examination, Build Quality and Comfort

There are many similarities between the RHA MA650 Wireless and the more expensive MA750 Wireless (reviewed here), so I'll rehash some of the stuff I wrote about in the MA750 Wireless review and point out the differences in a couple of key areas. Of course, all the following photos are of the RHA MA650 Wireless.


The RHA MA650 Wireless sports a neckband design, meaning the wire that connects the ear pieces loops through a thick, silicone-covered band that will rest behind your neck. Putting on headphones like these is essentially like putting on a necklace, more so because the aluminium ear pieces of the MA650 Wireless are equipped with strong magnets, so as soon as they come close to each other, they firmly snap together and stay that way until you separate them and push them into your ears. The band itself is extremely comfortable and doesn't feel heavy around the neck. If you're a jogger or a runner, do keep in mind that the neckband will inevitably jump up and down while you're performing your favorite activity (unless you put it under your shirt), which you could potentially find annoying. However, it does have a massive advantage over the True Wireless Stereo (TWS) headphones, as even if you do something that causes an earpiece to fall out, it will simply drop to your chest and stay there. There's absolutely no risk of losing the earpieces regardless of the activity. Mind you, I'm only being hypothetical here—over the course of several months, I was actively using the RHA MA650 Wireless, and the earpices didn't fall out of my ears once.


The aluminium speaker driver housings look and feel robust. The nozzles (sound tubes) are perfectly round and make replacing ear tips a breeze. As long as you find a suitable pair of ear tips, the nozzles themselves won't cause any discomfort to your ear canals; the RHA MA650 Wireless will feel perfectly comfortable.


If you want to use the RHA MA650 Wireless for running, you definitely can—not only because of the IPX4 rating for sweat and splash resistance, but also because RHA provides a grand total of nine pairs of replacement ear tips for you to experiment and play around with. The replacement ear tips are neatly organized on a metal credit card-style plate. There are three styles to choose from—the silicone tips come as single bore (small, medium, and large) and dual flange (small and large), and there's a pair of Comply foam ear tips. As always, you should go for a pair of ear tips that fill your ear canals completely, passively isolating you from external noise while staying very comfortable. If you start to feel any kind of discomfort, switch to a smaller pair of ear tips.


The thickened left side of the neckband has an NFC logo on it. You know what to do—if your smartphone supports NFC, you can tap it here to establish a wireless (Bluetooth) connection with the headphones.


The thickened right side of the neckband contains a USB-C charging port and the power button. The power button is also used to switch the headphones into Bluetooth pairing mode, for when you want to connect them to your devices for the first time.


Down the line, on the right side of the neckband, is a small remote control with a metal case, a built-in microphone, and three rubberized buttons. The buttons are somewhat hard to click, most likely to prevent accidental presses. The outer two buttons control the volume, while the middle one has several functions. A single click will play or pause the song and answer a phone call. A double click will drop the phone call or switch to the next song, while a triple click returns us to the previous song. Finally, holding the button down activates your smartphone's voice assistant (Google Assistant in my case). While some may find it odd that the controls listed above aren't simply placed on the neckband, there's a good reason for that as the remote control brings the microphone closer to the mouth. Having said that, I prefer having the controls on the neckband, both in terms of aesthetics and the overall practicality of not having anything dangling from the wire.

Battery Life

Depending on your preferred listening volumes, the RHA MA650 Wireless will offer more than 10 hours of wireless playback, regularly going well over the specified 12-hour autonomy. For a pair of wireless neckband in-ear headphones, that's above average. You can check on the remaining percentage of the battery in the Bluetooth settings of your smartphone at any time. You can also press the power button at any time to have a female voice give you a rough estimate of the current battery level (it's rounded up to 20, 40, 60, 80, or 100 %). After 20 minutes of inactivity, the headphones shut down automatically.

Microphone Performance

The microphone is built into the remote control, and the remote positions itself just below your right cheek when using the headphones. I found it completely usable for taking phone calls and talking with Google Assistant. As you can hear in the following sample, my voice sounds tinny, telephonic, and very unrefined, but I never had any issues getting the message across, so there's nothing to complain about.