Standard Bluetooth should soon support hi-res and lossless audio without the need for special codecs like Qualcomm's aptX or Sony's LDAC.

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has announced that Bluetooth High Data Throughout (HDT) – which will come as part of Bluetooth 7.0 next year – will "support lossless and high-resolution audio as well as advances in multi-channel surround sound and spatial audio".

That means that as long as your phone and wireless headphones both support Bluetooth 7.0, you should get better sound quality from your digital music.

At present, you need a codec like one of Qualcomm's many aptX variants or Sony's LDAC in order to support hi-res or lossless audio files over Bluetooth. Both your audio source (i.e. a phone or tablet) and your audio device (i.e. headphones or speaker) need to support the same codec in order to play music in that quality.

Unfortunately, many don't. Which is hardly surprising, given there are at least 11 wireless codecs to choose from. iPhones don't support either aptX or LDAC, and according to Sennheiser, less than 16 per cent of current smartphones support aptX Adaptive, while less than 1 per cent play nice with aptX Lossless.

The situation is so complicated that some models of Samsung phone differ in codec support depending on which region they're sold in (in some regions, they use Samsung's own processors instead of Qualcomm's aptX-supporting Snapdragon ones).

But with HDT built into the core version of Bluetooth, higher-quality listening should soon become the norm.

Bluetooth HDT also promises "faster data transfer, increased capacity, better energy efficiency, and enhanced reliability".

Its maximum supported bitrate is 7.5Mbps, which is nearly four times that of Bluetooth LE.

The first devices supporting Bluetooth HDT should arrive early next year – expect to see some at the CES trade show in January. If it works as promised, it should mean an end to codec clash, and higher-quality wireless listening for all.

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When Sony launched the first Walkman (TPS-L2) in 1979, the wired headphones it made to go along with this new portable tape player were the slim and lightweight Sony MDR-3.

And now, nearly five decades later, Sony is bringing them back. Enter the all-new, but very familiar-looking Sony MDR-3R wired headphones with a USB-C connection.

Capitalising on the popular trend for wired headphones and all things retro, particularly among the younger generation, these on-ears aim to "bring the spirit of that iconic model" along with a few modern updates.

The new MDR-3R are practically identical in design to the original headphones from 1979. Sony says that although the MDR-3 was developed over 40 years ago, it was already a pretty "complete product design".

The new cans have the same slender adjustable metal headband, with the characteristic angular fold before it meets the earcup housings, and are super lightweight at just 38g.

Two sets of colourful foam earpads – blue and orange – are included in the box. Sony has even taken pains to make sure the retail box and instruction manual of the new headphones are identical to the original packaging as well.

The MDR-3R has been "re-engineered with the same 23mm driver units" based on the original drawings of the MDR-3. The aim is to stay "true to the original sound signature", while offering a wider frequency range and better bass quality.

Sony says the new cans should deliver "rich, clear vocals" that work well with "modern music".

The earcups also feature "sound holes", as Sony calls them, meaning the new MDR-3R are an open acoustic design just like their originals. That should be good news for sound quality, but less so for those around you, as open designs tend to leak sound.

It's an interesting choice for a modern portable pair. Sony tells us there is "some sound leakage", but not too much. We'll be curious to find out how it performs in real-life use, and if there's enough leakage to be a nuisance on the train or in the office.

How else has Sony modernised this retro design? Instead of a 3.5mm connection, you get a USB-C cable for connecting to more recent smartphones and laptops.

This cable also features a built-in microphone and in-line controls, with a three-button system that lets you control playback, skip tracks, change volume, take hands-free calls, and even summon your phone's voice assistant.

There's no official IP rating, and as these are wired, there's no Bluetooth, battery life or noise-cancelling to worry about.

The new Sony MDR-3R wired headphones are available from November at a surprisingly budget price of £49 / $60 / €59 / AU$89.95.

A limited edition Stranger Things model – with a black headband with an engraved Stranger Things logo, and black and red earpads – will also be released for £59 / $80 / €69 / AU$99.95.

Will Sony be able to replicate its incredible wireless headphones success with this new wired model? We can't wait to find out. Now, if only it could also release an affordable Walkman music player alongside it…

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To (sort of) quote Albert Einstein: it’s all relative.

Dopey is canonically the tallest of the Seven Dwarves, but he’s not going to be playing in the NBA any time soon. Jeff Bezos isn’t currently as wealthy as Elon Musk, yet we doubt he has to go to the local thrift store to save a few quid on second-hand jeans.

Despite their reasonably modest asking price, the Wave Pro X are, in fact, the most expensive over-ear wireless headphones that Earfun has ever made. They’re still a long way from premium, but in breaking the £100 / $100 barrier, the Chinese brand may subtly be signalling its intention to move more upmarket in the future.

For now, Earfun’s costliest cans are still competing in the budget arena, albeit at its upper limits. Earfun has always been good at keeping prices low while packing myriad features into its various headphones, but it needs to up its game if it wants to trouble rivals from Sony or Austrian Audio when it comes to sound quality.

Price

At £120 / $130 / AU$240, the Wave Pro X have moved more upmarket than the more affordable £80 / $80 / AU$120 of the standard Wave Pro, putting them on a direct collision course with the excellent, Award-winning Sony WH-CH730N (£100 / $180 / AU$230) we tested recently.

Elsewhere, the five-star Austrian Audio Hi-X25BT remain a quality pick at £129 / $129 / AU$255, but they don’t offer active noise cancellation (ANC). If you’re willing to spend a bit more, the JBL Live 780NC (£170 / $250 / AU$300) and Philips TAH8000E (£140 / $149 / AU$246) are both solid noise-cancelling alternatives.

Build & comfort

As we found with the more affordable Wave Pro, you could be forgiven for thinking that the Wave Pro X would set you back a good deal more than their reasonably affordable price might suggest.

To look at and live with, they’re headphones which exude a level of quality belied by what is still a budget-friendly price tag, with Earfun once again impressing us with how solid and durable its latest over-ears feel. The rival Sony WH-CH730N are nicely made, but even they don’t have the luxe allure of the shiny Earfuns.

The circular earcups are weighty and solid, made to appear all the more premium courtesy of their shining metallic surface emblazoned with the Earfun logo. The inner edge of the headband feels sturdy and well-appointed with faux leather, complemented by a fabric exterior that actually puts us in mind of the far more premium Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S3.

Comfort-wise, we have few complaints. On a two-hour flight to France, the Earfun over-ears are comfortable enough to prevent our journey from feeling like an ordeal. The only area of slight concern comes from the headphones’ clamping force, with some of our review team complaining that the ear cushions lack stability during movement due to their excessive softness.

The travel-friendly over-ears fold away fully into a ball, and we imagine that no matter how many times we swivel the earcups horizontally or collapse them in on themselves, the Wave Pro X will continue to bend, swivel and flex until the cows come home. There's no official IP rating for these over-ears, so we would just be a little cautious about wearing them out in the rain.

Physical controls are located at the base of the right earcup, comprising a power on/ off toggle alongside an elongated volume control and a noise cancelling button. They’re not particularly luxurious, but once you get used to their positioning, they’re easy to use and tactile in their operation.

Features

We’ve seen some impressive battery life figures in our time, but these are up there with the best of them.

The Wave Pro X offer a sensational 50 hours of battery life when ANC is in play, rising to a seismic 90 hours with noise cancelling switched off, easily surpassing the 75-hour maximum playtime of the Sony WH-CH730N. Better still, a fifteen-minute quick charge will grant around ten hours of playback if you’re rushing to get back in the action.

Their ample battery life and nifty fast-charging capabilities mean that it’s unlikely you’ll ever find yourself stymied by a pair of flatlined headphones. Wired listening is also available via both 3.5mm aux and USB-C cables. When going wired, you can listen to the Wave Pro X powered on to retain functions such as noise cancelling and digital signal processing, or sacrifice the aforementioned by listening passively with your cans switched off.

Despite their reasonable outlay, the budget over-ears grant Bluetooth Multipoint for switching between twin sources on the fly, while a low-latency Game Mode reduces audio latency for a more responsive in-game experience.

Similar to what we’ve seen on the latest Apple AirPods Pro 3 and AirPods 5, Earfun has furnished the Wave Pro X with its own AI translation feature, wherein the tech processes the language being spoken and then translates the audio into your headphones. Over 100 languages and dialects are supported, but be aware that you need to be logged in to an Earfun account to access this particular feature.

Higher-quality codec support is impressive at this level, with access to aptX Adaptive and LDAC from compatible sources. Auracast is also on hand, allowing you to tune into compatible streams from other Auracast-enabled sources.

The feature-packed Pro X are hosted by a similarly in-depth and easily navigable companion app from which you can personalise the headphones’ touch controls, access AI translations, toggle between noise cancelling settings, and access a comprehensive 10-band equaliser.

ANC & call quality

The Wave Pro X use an advanced eight-microphone array paired with real-time processing to analyse your external environment in pursuit of more consistent active noise cancellation and clearer voice calls.

Earfun offers three noise-cancelling settings here: ‘Normal’, ‘Active Noise Cancellation’ and an ambient ‘Transparency’ mode. In truth, only two are worth knowing about, as the ‘Normal’ setting switches off active noise cancelling to provide solely passive isolation provided by the headphones’ substantial ear cushions.

With ‘Active Noise Cancellation’ switched on, the Wave Pro X are impressively effective. The barrier they provide isn’t impermeable, but the wireless over-ears do a fine job of subduing the rumble of engines on a short-haul flight or the chatter of passengers in the airport beforehand, even if nearby voices can pierce through.

Voice calls aren’t quite on the same level. The Wave Pro X are better at blocking out environmental sounds than the Sony WH-CH730N, but their noise reduction interferes with caller speech, negatively affecting its overall clarity and making us sound robotic and artificial if we speak while noise is being processed in the background.

Overall clarity isn’t bad, but even in quieter settings, the Wave Pro X don’t sound as natural or authentic as their Sony rivals.

Sound

This is becoming an all-too-familiar tale for Earfun: a competitive price, an attractive design and a feature set that bulges at the seams, all let down by sound quality that lags some way behind.

Muse’s You Make Me Feel Like It’s Halloween gives us a suitably spooky taste of what Earfun’s latest over-ears can do, infusing the tumultuous tune with plenty of forcefulness, especially at their generous lower end. Instrumental textures are painted with reasonable insight, and there’s undeniable body to the booming drums and screeching guitars.

The midrange reproduction isn’t bad, either. While leading edges of notes aren’t quite as crisp and clearly defined as the Sony CH730N, there’s enough textural detail and overall clarity to make the opening violin plucks on Agnes Obel’s The Curse sound sufficiently nimble and authentic.

The Wave Pro X produce a powerful sound that fills our ears ably, yet they lack the cohesion and dimensionality to make tracks soar. Earfuns’ latest can sound congested and compressed – especially when it comes to complex or densely layered arrangements – leaving Björk’s Bachelorette sounding squashed and lacking in drama.

Like their cheaper Wave Pro counterparts, this ‘X’ edition also lacks dynamic expression. Rather ironically for a pair of headphones with ‘Wave’ in the title, the Earfuns’ dynamic presentation is akin to the still water of a static pool, as opposed to the crashing swells of an undulating seafront.

This one-dimensional, limited presentation becomes most apparent when charged with tackling complex musical arrangements. Hans Zimmer’s The Battle from the Gladiator soundtrack should be a rich tapestry of changing moods, but the Wave Pro X don’t have the elasticity to accommodate the composition’s interlocking rhythmic patterns or dynamic shifts.

Move to the Sony WH-CH730N, and you’ll see how things should be done. Immediately, there’s far more drama and scale to Zimmer’s ten-minute epic, brought about by the Sonys’ more expressive dynamics, better sense of timing, and superior organisational talents.

In desperation, we reach for the physical cables bundled with our sample cans, and while the resultant sound is a little clearer than before, it isn’t enough to rectify the Wave Pro Xs’ deficiencies. No matter how we listen – streaming from Tidal, accessing higher-res codecs, using a physical connection – dynamics remain stunted and uninvolving, while most tracks continue to lack propulsion and a tangible sense of rhythmic drive.

Verdict

Like most of our recent encounters with Earfun’s ever-growing roster of wireless headphones, this feels like a missed opportunity.

The Earfun Wave Pro X have mostly impressive all-around credentials – especially battery life – but their limited sonic abilities mean they fall short in the most important area of all. If you’re seeking budget noise cancellers but sound quality still matters, heed our advice and buy the more musically engaging and more affordable Sony WH-CH730N instead.

Review published: 3rd November 2026

SCORES

• Sound 3
• Build 4
• Features 5

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Best over-ear headphones: wired and wireless pairs tested by our in-house experts

The wireless headphones category at 2025’s What Hi-Fi? Awards was something of a Sony-fest, to the extent that we were growing genuinely weary of extolling the virtues of the brand’s extensive roster of in-ear and over-ear champions.

After picking up five Awards this year, Sony continues that dominance, but there are signs that the crown could just be slipping ever so slightly from its current perch. Many competitors have upped their game in recent times, while the besting of the Sony WH-1000XM6 by Sennheiser's HDB 630 has proven that gods can indeed bleed.

With Bose and Focal also taking home one repeat Award each, not to mention a small army of contenders desperately trying to reach the summit of audio’s most slippery mountain, there is no question that Sony will have to work even harder next year if it wants to showcase the same supremacy in 2027.

For now, however, it remains good value at the top of the wire-free tree.

Sony's wireless earbuds dominance continues

2025 was a very good year for Sony’s stellar range of wireless earbuds, and 2026 has been no different.

The Japanese giant hasn’t had to do a huge amount to retain its dominance at the top of this highly competitive arena, with two returning pairs scooping What Hi-Fi? Awards alongside a set of flagship newbies released earlier in the year.

Those returning champions come in the shape of the Sony WF-C510 – our pick as the best wireless earbuds under £70 – and the Sony WF-C710N, the logical choice for great sound between £70-£150. Nothing has come close to the WF-C510 as the best entry-level pick for pure sound quality, while the WF-C710N add noise cancelling and even better audio if you’re happy to spend more for a serious step up.

Sony’s flagship WF-1000XM5 are no longer Award-winners this time around, but only because they have been replaced by the new WF-1000XM6. Boundary-pushing sound, great call quality and eminently decent ANC make the XM6 the finest premium buds available right now, fully deserving of their new crown as the ‘Best wireless earbuds over £200’.

It isn’t all Sony, Sony, Sony, though. If you seek a savvy option between the WF-C710N and the WF-1000XM6, it’s well worth putting the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds (2024) on your shortlist.

Returning for another Award as the best wireless earbuds between £150-£200, these are easily the best sound-per-pound buds that Bose makes – winning three What Hi-Fi? Awards on the bounce doesn’t happen by accident.

Wireless over-ears have never been so good

To show how crowded the wireless headphone field is in 2026, it’s worth looking at some contenders that didn’t make the cut.

The Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless’s mature sound earned it a five-star review, but it wasn’t enough to win a coveted Award, while many brands failed to scoop the full five-star haul mainly because their major rivals have moved the needle too far ahead to keep up.

From the versatile Bose QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen) to the detail-rich Technics EAH-A1000, it feels harder than ever to stand out in a market brimming with ever-increasing quality.

Those that did rise among the rest, however, truly deserve their flowers. Sony’s domination of the wireless earbuds scene has translated nicely over to the over-ear category, with the Sony WH-CH730N replacing their WH-CH720N predecessors as the best option under £100 for taking everything we liked about the originals and elevating it to compelling new heights.

The over-ear market has been starved of an option that sits within the £100-250 mark, but Sony’s canny revival of its beloved WH-1000XM4 icons has plugged that gap nicely. The WH-1000XM4C are a legend reborn, emulating the richly entertaining presentation of the originals while keeping their feature set well in line with contemporary expectations.

2026 hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows for Sony, with the breathtakingly excellent Sennheiser HDB 630 beating the Sony WH-1000XM6 to the coveted title of ‘Best wireless headphones between £250-£500’. For the money, they sound sensational, and things get only better with their clever aptX Adaptive-enabling dongle in play.

If you want to spend the big bucks, check out the Focal Bathys Mg. Focal knows how to make premium and high-end headphones, with the Bathys Mg encapsulating everything we admire about the French brand when it’s really firing on all cylinders. At £999, they’re not cheap, but their sound is genuinely boundary-pushing, and that’s always worth a What Hi-Fi? Award.

While the amount of actual movement from 2025’s Award-winners to those in 2026 may seem reasonably modest, the number of competitors that have passed through our test room doors has been gargantuan.

Practically every major audio brand is putting serious spending power behind cracking the wireless nut, be it established titans such as JBL, Bose and Technics, or relative newbies to this field, such as Nothing and Sonos.

There’s a lesson here for our current Award-winners: enjoy it while you can. As Liam Neeson so wisely quipped in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace: there’s always a bigger fish.

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These are the best wireless headphones you can buy

If you know anything about Greek mythology, you’ll know that there were two contrasting sides to the goddess Artemis.

On the one side, there’s the graceful beauty and unmatched skill with the bow. This is the patron deity of archery, hunting and childbirth, after all, blending breathtaking beauty with awe-inspiring precision. Little wonder you’d want to name your headphones after someone capable of embodying those kinds of qualities.

Then there’s the other side to Artemis, the side of vengeful wrath and unforgiving cruelty. This is the deity who, having discovered a young hunter spying on her while washing in a sacred grove, turns the poor man into a stag and has him chased down – and subsequently torn to pieces – by his own hounds. Perhaps not the sort of pain and penury you want your high-end headphones to inflict upon you.

How, then, do the Noble Fokus Artemis live up to their namesake? Effortless beauty and precision…or a whole world of pain?

Price

At £799 / $899 / AU$1400 (approx), the Noble Fokus Artemis are placed at the higher reaches of the premium wireless noise-cancelling headphone market. These headphones sit above the likes of the excellent, five-star Focal Bathys (£599 / $799 / AU$1199) and superb-sounding Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2 (£629 / $699 / AU$1150), but below the even more high-end, Award-winning Focal Bathys Mg (£999 / $1499).

Build & comfort

We imagine that the Noble Fokus Artemis’s design will be a divisive one. Reactions in our office have been mixed, ranging from tentative praise for the headphones’ unique aesthetic to concerns over the somewhat cheap feeling of the earcups’ exterior that doesn’t quite match their high price.

The headphones deploy an aluminium alloy frame, supporting a pair of machined aluminium earcups which sport a marbled ‘Damascus Steel’ exterior pattern. The headband is padded with Alcantara on its underside and topped with a woven cloth exterior, the latter of which reminds us of a pair of premium Bowers & Wilkins alternatives.

In fact, the Artemis’s overall shape isn’t dissimilar to that deployed across the Bowers range, albeit with narrower ear cushions that taper slightly at the bottom in contrast with the more traditional rectangle form favoured by B&W. Like many of the wallet-unfriendly options at this kind of level, the Nobles don’t fold away, but a welcome IP52 rating means that modest water drops – for our testing purposes, some light autumnal rain – need not be of much concern.

Comfort-wise, it’s something of a mixed bag. Extended listening sessions are rarely blighted by the twin scourge of on-ear heat and excessive pressure, but things get less rosy when we start to move around.

The headphones feel unstable as they move about on our heads during a leisurely stroll, and though we unsuccessfully attempt to rectify the issue by tightening the sliding gimbals, we suspect the problem lies mostly with the Artemis’s earpad shape.

Noble envisions its premium flagships as being built “for years of use”, and while we imagine most of the various components are designed to go the distance, magnetically attached replaceable ear cushions and a user-replaceable 600mAh battery are on hand to help you eke out your headphones’ lifespan for as long as possible.

If you do start taking your headphones apart, you’ll discover that each earcup combines three distinct driver technologies: a 40mm dynamic driver primarily handling the lower frequencies, a 14.5mm planar driver aiming for a clear, open midrange, and a balanced armature driver covering those all-important high-end details. On paper, then, that's a lot of hardware working in the Artemis’s favour.

Features

Premium and high-end wireless headphones can often, understandably, sacrifice marathon battery life spans for a greater focus on performance, but the Artemis do a decent job in mitigating such a compromise.

The Noble cans offer an impressive 55 hours of playback with noise cancelling switched off, dropping to around 35 hours when ANC is in play, beating the 30 hours (ANC on) of the Focal Bathys and Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2. Better still, Noble’s premium contenders can charge from empty to full in around one and a half hours, something we confirm by draining them entirely and then juicing them via standard USB-C.

The Artemis make use of Qualcomm's QCC3095 platform, granting support for Bluetooth 6.0 as well as higher resolution codecs such as LDAC, aptX Adaptive, and aptX Lossless. Bluetooth Multipoint, meanwhile, lets you connect to two devices simultaneously and switch between them on the fly.

Aside from wireless, the premium over-ears support USB-C audio and 3.5mm wired listening via the provided cables, though be aware that the headphones need to be switched on when using a physical tether to your source device.

Spatial audio comes in two modes: a full-blooded ‘Immersive’ mode and a subtler ‘Studio’ setting. The more effective Studio mode is the one we’d recommend, giving the various atonal clanks and thuds scattered across Ludwig Göransson’s Troy a more appreciable sense of movement and positioning than the somewhat underwhelming ‘Studio’ setting.

You’ll naturally lose much of your music’s solidity and directness through either mode, though, with results varying depending on artist and genre. Ambient soundtracks, for instance, tend to fare far better than walloping thrash metal or beat-driven hip-hop.

ANC & call quality

The Noble Fokus Artemis are equipped with a seven-microphone array and boast active noise cancelling in variable low, medium and strong flavours, as well as an ambient mode for providing greater sonic passthrough.

To test the full limits of the cans’ ANC powers, we immediately select the most powerful experience possible, yet the so-called ‘strong’ setting struggles to live up to its name.

Noise cancelling feels subtle to the point of being downright ineffective, and though there’s some dampening of general exterior sounds, the fact that we can still pick out the rumble of a plane as it soars way overhead or the distant barking of a dog a good way down the street says little for the Artemis’ noise-cancelling credentials. The rival Focal Bathys don’t exactly offer Bose-level sonic isolation, but even they are better at shielding you from the outside world than the Fokus Artemis.

Voice calls are similarly mediocre. Human speech is reasonably clear – if mechanical and synthetic-sounding – but external sounds intrude with far too much ease. From the swooshing of cars as they pass or the simple rustling of nearby trees, the Nobles don’t do enough to isolate the caller from their surroundings.

Sound

We’ll give the Fokus Artemis their due – they’re capable of making your tunes sound as airy and spacious as a modern art gallery. The wireless over-ears’ presentation is admirably wide and uncluttered, helping each instrument sit neatly within its own precious space without interference from any unruly neighbour.

There’s also reasonable textural detail scattered across their midrange, a quality which shines as we stream George Benson’s Give Me The Night via Tidal on an iPhone 15. Connect the headphones to their source via USB-C, and that detail becomes even more sharply drawn, as is the case when streaming a hi-res recording of Radiohead’s Reckoner via LDAC using our Astell & Kern PD5 portable music player.

Sadly, these seem to be the limits of the Artemis’s talents, regardless of the method or medium through which we listen. Midrange detail might be sufficient in isolation, but against the Focal Bathys or Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2, it’s hardly class leading. When you consider that both rivals are just as spacious and easy to follow as the Nobles, this already presents a major problem.

Probing the lower frequencies moves the Artemis out of their comfort zone. Bass reproduction is poor, and despite not being massively powerful, it still manages to sound sloppy, vague and ill-disciplined. That’s a problem for Killswitch Engage’s pounding The Signal Fire, which ends up floundering on a woefully unstable foundation.

What really hurts like an arrow to the knee is how mechanical and stilted the Artemis sound, so much so that they appear to take no pleasure in reproducing anything from grunge to garage. Think of it as the difference between watching a movie on an IMAX screen with your mates at the cinema, versus being told about the plot from the film’s accountant. The information is technically still conveyed to your brain, but one way is clearly superior to the other.

Dynamics are flat when listening via both our iPhone and the A&K PD5, there’s little sense of tempo or urgency when required, and songs lack any sense of drive, intent or musicality. We do all we can to rectify these issues – wired listening, a personalised hearing test, tweaking the equaliser in the app – but to little avail. Those fundamental flaws remain, and they stifle any chance of us engaging with these headphones on an emotional level.

Worse, the Artemis are dynamically and rhythmically outmatched by more affordable offerings, from the Sennheiser HDB 630 (£400 / $500 / AU$1000) to the Sony WH-1000XM4C (£219 / $300 / AU$450). Criminally, even the budget Sony WH-CH730N forge a more tangible emotional connection than Noble’s stilted effort, and that has the alarm bells ringing at their very loudest.

Verdict

We feel let down by the Noble Fokus Artemis. They’re somewhat competitive in a few respects, but sound-wise, they’re well beaten not only by price-comparable competitors, but by far more affordable options.

At this substantial outlay, they should perform far better. This supposed huntress has badly missed the target.

Review published: 30th October 2026

SCORES

• Sound 2
• Build 3
• Features 4

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It’s always interesting in the world of tech when one brand acquires another. The first questions to enter my head are usually “why did they do it”, “what is there to gain” and, perhaps more importantly, “what is there to lose” from any new arrangement?

Well, last week those questions were firmly on my mind following the news that Bose had dipped into the market to buy headphone manufacturer Skullcandy.

It’s an interesting move, but in recent years Bose has proved it isn’t afraid of raising an eyebrow or two. It was only a couple of years ago that it made a statement in hi-fi circles by acquiring the McIntosh Group and its brands (McIntosh, Sonus Faber and Sumiko) in one fell swoop. Bose’s move into luxury audio was huge news, and one nobody really saw coming.

But now the company has been making moves in the opposite direction: more affordable audio. And when I think about it, I can completely understand why Bose would be interested in a brand like Skullcandy.

Head over to the Skullcandy website, and you’ll see some crossover with products and pricing, but its products are aimed at a younger demographic, with more splashes of colour and more variety when it comes to styles. Skullcandy’s range ends near where Bose’s QuietComfort offerings start, which gives a neat spread of products for prospective buyers to look at.

Not only that, but Skullcandy also has gaming headsets and budget wireless speakers in its product line-up, which are products you don’t tend to see from Bose.

What you might not know is that the two brands already had a relationship before this recent deal. It was a multi-year partnership which allowed Skullcandy to license some of its processing and ANC technology and stamp a ‘Sound By Bose’ label on some of its wireless headphones and earbuds.

I’m really intrigued to see where this goes next. The press release sent out at the time of the deal said Skullcandy “will remain a separate brand within Bose’s Premium Consumer Audio business”, and I do hope this is the case.

Bose’s most recent headphones haven’t fared quite as well with our test team as previous generations, and I’ve been wondering out loud if its crown might even be starting to slip.

What I wouldn’t want is for Bose to take its eye off the ball and be distracted by its latest acquisition. We shall see…

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We're sure you don't need any introduction to the AirPods Max line of wireless headphones.

The original AirPods Max set a new standard – and arguably created a new category – of super-premium wireless headphones when they were released in 2020.

And when the long-awaited AirPods Max 2 finally arrived earlier this year, they didn't disappoint, with smooth sound, intuitive iOS features, and the usual Apple luxury build.

They're also now seeing their first discount – the Apple over-ears are now £449 at Amazon, a rare £50 departure from their £499 launch price.

The design of the AirPods Max 2 is very similar to the original, which is not necessarily a bad thing – the Max 2 sport anodised aluminium earcups, a stainless steel headband and memory foam earcups, all of which are beautifully made and finished to precision.

What is new, however, is the H2 chip, which enables features such as Conversation Awareness and Adaptive Audio, as well as live translation if you have an iPhone 16 or later.

The chip also helps improve active noise cancellation (ANC), which our experts found to be effective at silencing the rumbles and screeches of the London Underground, and in a more natural and airy way than most ANC headphones.

The Max 2 emit the same, familiar sonic signature of the original Max headphones, but push things forward in terms of detail, precision, dynamics and weight, if only in small increments.

"The Max 2 headphones have an admirably smooth balance, one that is very easy to listen to. There’s a dash more punch to the sound and the edges of notes are etched out with a little more precision, and they sound a bit more open compared with the first-gen models," our Apple AirPods Max 2 review reads.

"Voices are a strong point, with Laura Marling’s lilting vocals on Hope In The Air sounding immediate and nuanced, and there is a good amount of brooding menace to Ice T’s Addicted To Danger. Voices shine through when listening to podcasts as well, with ample detail to flesh out different personalities."

The AirPods Max 2 are a great pair of cans, but the competition has come a long way – most rivals comprehensively beat the Max 2's 20-hour battery life, and better sound quality can be found elsewhere.

But if you're an iOS user looking for the convenience and intuitiveness of Apple's AirPods in over-ear form, then these are the cans for you. The AirPods Max 2 don't reinvent the formula, but they are a luxuriously designed, smooth-sounding pair of headphones, now available with 10 per cent off at Amazon.

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Read our Sennheiser HDB 630 review

Also consider our Sony WH-1000XM6 review

Best wireless headphones 2026: reviewed and rated by our in-house experts

We’re living in a golden age of headphones. More specifically, we’re very much in the halcyon days of wireless headphones and earbuds. Despite talk of how Gen Z are turning their backs on Bluetooth in favour of traditional wired in-ears, the wire-free train continues to roll on at breakneck speed.

Not only are wire-free headphones more popular than they’ve ever been, but they’re also improving in terms of their sheer quality.

That self-evident truth was thrown into sharp relief following our 2026 What Hi-Fi? Awards testing, during which the bar was once again nudged ever-upwards by a diverse spread of class-leading options from the likes of Sony, Focal and Sennheiser.

Rising standards

Standards continue to climb across the board. The Sony WH-CH720N felt like unbeatable value at their £100 / $100 price tag, yet the follow-up WH-CH730N proved that canny sonic tuning – plus a few new features – could elevate excellence to new heights.

The Sennheiser HDB 630, meanwhile, might be the best pair of wireless headphones we’ve yet heard at the £400 / $500 / AU$1000 mark, while the Focal Bathys MG are stretching the limits of wire-free performance for those lucky enough to be able to afford them. £999 / $1299 / AU$2300 isn't exactly pocket change.

Those are just the 2026 Award-winners. There’s a pair of headphones or wireless earbuds to suit every need and niche, from outstanding all-rounders (the Sony WH-1000XM6) to noise-cancelling heavyweights from Bose and funky, feature-laden offerings courtesy of JBL.

The Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen), for instance, aren’t quite the last word in sound quality, but their excellent fit and well-rounded feature set give them an appeal that could tempt some away from the Award-winning (but fussy fitting) Sony WF-1000XM6.

The list of competing brands really could go on for as long as there’s space on our site to write it. When you consider the fact that, just in the past year or so, we’ve tested samples from Focal, Sennheiser, Sony, Technics, Bose, Noble, Apple, Sonos, Soundcore, Earfun, JBL, Philips, Samsung, Shokz, Nothing, and Huawei, you begin to realise just how much stock companies are placing in the wireless market.

More competition, better performance

That competition is clearly driving innovation and development. It’s not a hard-and-fast rule, but what’s been remarkable over the past few years is just how much better some of the 'also-ran ’ brands have become as they bid to knock the likes of Sony from its perch.

At last year’s Awards, pretty much every set of wireless in-ears and over-ears was made by Sony. This year, things look rather different thanks to winners from Sennheiser, Bose and Focal.

If manufacturers aren’t quite winning Awards, they’re doggedly improving their respective star ratings year on year. The Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro 4 earbuds, for instance, were a serious statement of intent from a brand that, in the past, didn’t have the talent to compete with its cost-comparable rivals.

Those latest flagships, however, are by far the best buds the Korean brand has ever made, and as we concluded in our review: “Samsung is taking sound seriously, and it shows.

"The flagship Galaxy Buds 4 Pro are Samsung's best-sounding wireless earbuds yet, offering a clear, agile performance that’s backed by a whole host of slick features.” Samsung used to scrape three-star reviews. For its next pair of flagships, we’re expecting the full five-star haul.

Then there’s Sennheiser, which has always been there or thereabouts in terms of sonic performance, finally retaking its seat at the top table with the peerless HDB 630. That was no fluke – the slightly less premium Momentum 5 True Wireless earbuds and Momentum 5 Wireless over-ears provided the German brand’s deeply competitive nature with two glowing five-star reviews.

Sennheiser is back, and its rivals should be taking note.

This is before we even start to consider the vast array of features to which we’re all becoming accustomed. A few years ago, not a single pair of headphones had Auracast sharing or Bluetooth Multipoint – now it’s par for the course.

Wired listening via USB-C is becoming de rigueur, as is fast charging for granting hours of extra playtime from mere minutes of juice. Fail to include such features in your spec sheet, and you’ll simply be left behind by the competition.

Where do we go from here?

The logical question, of course, is where do we go from here?

Competition is only going to grow stronger as rivals compete to carve out a slice of territory from Apple and the other major players in this space, with the appetite for wire-free headphones only growing stronger in the face of the rather niche wired revival. Trust us, they’re not going anywhere anytime soon.

Sound quality, naturally, should define who takes the ultimate crown. It’s never quite that simple – Apple’s colossal market share is based as much on style, cultural cachet, marketing and convenience as it is on pure sonic talent – but with so much choice, customers should be in the strongest position yet to get the most outstanding sound their budget allows. Provided they do their research, of course.

Opinions are somewhat split on exactly how and where wireless headphones will improve, with speculation ranging from personalised AI-powered tuning algorithms to more efficient Bluetooth codecs and a greater focus on sustainability.

Wi-fi headphones have been mooted as the future – the Xiaomi Buds 5 Pro Wi-Fi are already on the market – but they’re yet to fully take hold as companies grapple with the practicalities of maintaining a steady connection outside a home network.

Either way, expect this current golden age to be the mere tip of the iceberg. If all goes well, we’ll look back at 2026 as little more than a stepping stone to true wireless audio Nirvana.

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These are the best headphones you can buy

Audio-Technica has announced its new flagship closed-back headphones, the ATH-AWX7000, designed to integrate high-end acoustic technologies with traditional Japanese craftsmanship.

The ATH-AWX7000 are the first headphones to feature Audio-Technica’s new ‘True Closed-back Acoustic’ design, implemented to harness the air pressure generated within the earcups.

The result, says Audio-Technica, grants powerful low-frequency performance and wide dynamic range while “delivering greater transparency across the mid and high frequencies”.

Further, the new over-ears use a newly developed ‘Hybrid Matrix Diaphragm’, which incorporates thin films of different materials bonded together with the aim of improving transient response and dynamics.

That diaphragm is bolstered by the brand’s ‘High-Concentricity X Dynamic Transducer’ technology, a manufacturing process which aligns the baffle, magnet, voice coil and diaphragm to allow for “exceptionally precise diaphragm movement”.

Externally, each earcup housing is made using Japanese Kiso cypress wood, highly regarded for its durability, natural beauty and distinctive grain. Each wooden housing is finished using Echizen lacquer, applied by hand to highlight the grain of the Kiso cypress.

The ATH-AWX7000 employ soft leather earpads to provide a “gentle yet effective seal”, while precision-machined aluminium sliders are paired with a lightweight magnesium frame and arms.

A 2.5m balanced cable with XLR connectors and a 3.0m unbalanced cable with a 6.3mm stereo plug are included in the box, as well as a hard-shell carry case.

The ATH-AWX7000 are available now, priced at £3299. For context, we thought the stunning Yamaha YH-C3000 were pricey at £1499 / $1700 / AU$3000; the Audio-Technicas make them look positively affordable by comparison.

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Check out our Sony MDR-Z1R review

Best over-ear headphones: wired and wireless pairs tested by our in-house experts

Écoute Audio raised quite a few eyebrows – including our own – when it launched its TH1 over-ears in the UK earlier this year.

The TH1's bank-busting price was one thing, but what really stood out was their claim to be the first headphones in the world featuring a valve-based preamp stage, a DAC and dual-mono amplification. That's half a hi-fi system crammed into a pair of over-ears.

Écoute is now back with a sequel, refining the original design in a bid to improve sound quality, comfort and noise cancelling, all while introducing a few new colourways and material options in the process.

The TH2 refine the dual-mono amplification and valve preamp stage of their predecessors. Central to this is the Nutube 6P1 dual-triode valve, which then hands over to two solid-state amps that maintain channel isolation through to the 40mm titanium-coated Mylar drivers.

The headphones' dual-mono configuration keeps left and right channels separate to reduce crosstalk and better preserve stereo imaging.

The TH2 employs a new resonance chamber design from that found in the TH1, aiming to produce "deeper, punchier bass and a more sharply defined treble. Improved shielding around the Nutube valve further aims to reduce the noise floor, offering better isolation from interference to aid greater clarity and expression".

The sophomore headphones pack standard active noise cancellation alongside a transparency mode to let in outside sounds. Battery life clocks in at around 20 hours, the same approximate lifespan as the original TH1.

As well as Bluetooth 5.3 with support for Sony's higher-quality LDAC codec, you can listen wired via USB-C or standard 3.5mm. If using the latter, you can select 'active mode' to use the TH1's built-in valve preamp and dual-mono power amp, or 'passive mode' to power them with an external amp like normal wired headphones.

The TH2 have also been tweaked in pursuit of better long-term comfort. A redesigned headband uses a hybrid suspension system with three points of articulation, built to remove pressure points for a more tailored-feeling fit.

The Écoute Audio TH2 are available in three colourways – Charcoal, Gunmetal and Nickel – priced at £999 with a fabric trim or £1099 with leather.

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Why aren't there more open-back wireless headphones?

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These are the best audiophile headphones you can buy

Brooklyn-based audio manufacturer Grado today announced a new pair of wired headphones, the Signature S150, which it calls “the most accessible entry” into its expanding Signature Series.

The new model uses technology from Grado’s high-end HP100 SE and S950 headphones and includes a newly developed 44mm paper composite driver, which the company claims delivers a “full-bodied, musical presentation”.

As part of their “lightweight” construction (the headphones weigh 220 grams), the S150 use a new single-piece housing with a padded leather headband. “Refined mechanical components”, including matte-black polymer gimbals, stainless-steel height rods, and reinforced junction blocks, provide “improved stability, adjustability, and durability”.

Like Grado’s more upmarket headphones, the S150 use a detachable cable system, with 3.5mm sockets in each headphone housing. Their cable also comes with a 6.3mm adapter.

The new headphones feature with Grado’s ‘F cushions’, which feature internal acoustic slits to promote airflow and “contribute to the headphone’s open, detailed presentation”. The S150 are also compatible with the company's other headphone cushions, which allow for further customisation.

The Grado S150 will be available in late November for £295 / $295, and we look forward to getting them in our test rooms.

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If you were to anthropomorphise wireless headphones, they would probably look a bit like Lady Gaga – possibly Harry Styles, if you’re Gen Z.

Why? Because they are constantly reinventing themselves to meet today’s tastes.

A new chipset here, reworked drivers there, the occasional complete reinvention (think the current rise of open earbud designs) – there’s always something new.

Earlier this year that continued with the launch of the Audio-Technica ATH-AL5NC, the firm’s first open-back wireless headphones.

Exciting? 100 per cent.

What Hi-Fi? has long championed the, at first glance, contradictory category, since New York-based Grado made it a thing in the early 2020s.

But as the team and I started to think about which rivals to compare with the new Audio-Technicas, it struck me: have there actually been any new open-back wireless headphones launched since the second-generation Grado GW100x we reviewed all the way back in 2022?

Dear readers, please correct me if I’m wrong, but among mainstream audio firms, I don't think there have been any. Even if there have, they haven’t been reviewed by What Hi-Fi?.

Which led me to another key question: why aren’t there more of them?

After revisiting the Grado GW100x and using them as my primary home headphones for a while, truthfully, I still don’t have an answer. For a specific type of listener, they still make complete sense.

Yes, there are some annoyances inherent to the form factor for people sharing your space, as we mentioned before. I listened to Gunship while my wife tried to read in the same room, and she did complain about the sound leakage.

But open-backs make up for this in multiple ways, chief of which is their audio.

Four years on from their launch, the GW100x still sound great – especially considering their sub-£250 price.

Clean, open and enthusiastic, the Grado’s rapidly became my go-to pair of home headphones after getting my feet tapping along to Peter Gabriel’s One by One (Darkside Mix) within seconds of connecting them to my phone.

Then they delighted me with their more natural soundstage when I switched gears to Eddie Vedder’s stellar track Hard Sun, giving it room to breathe, as good music deserves.

More than anything, though, it was the fact that a few weeks in, I realised I was wearing them for whole work days at a time without fatigue. No pinch, no distractions, just music throughout the day, uninterrupted and joyous to hear coming from the GW100x.

I couldn’t sum it up any better than our senior staff writer, Harry McKerrell, who said in our review, four years ago:

“The idea of a pair of Bluetooth-ready, and therefore supposedly portable, headphones that don’t fold away, leak sound and feature no noise-cancelling puts them in a strange, somewhat contradictory position compared with the market leaders from Bose, Sennheiser and Sony. But if it’s simply great untethered sound you’re after for quiet spaces, such as your garden, you’ll struggle to find better than these brilliant-sounding Grado on-ears.”

As I continued using them, however, I did come to wish for one thing to be added to the mix that would make them even better…

Better connectivity

Former What Hi-Fi? magazine editor Jez Ford, our current global technical editor, Ketan Bharadia, and I have all talked about the limitations of Bluetooth for some time.

It’s a format that is lossy, unreliable, heavily compressed, and often poor quality. There is a reason that serious music fans prefer wired headphones over wireless – even wireless cans that support hi-res aptX codecs.

In the past, we accepted Bluetooth as a limitation you had to put up with if you wanted to enjoy the freedom and convenience wireless headphones offer. If you’re out and about, it’s a fair trade.

But in 2026 and for the purposes of this article specifically, things are a little more complex.

Wireless open-backs make sense primarily for home use. And there’s no denying that, as good as the Grados sound compared with other wireless sets, you can get a much better experience if you remove Bluetooth from the equation.

Putting aside how they compare to my standard home desktop setup – which features a Chord Mojo 2, Hifiman HE400se and my laptop or phone streaming Tidal – just plugging the GW100x in using the included 3.5mm cable leads to palpable audio improvements, adding another level of sharpness and weight to the sound.

The groove of Funkadelic’s Good to Your Earhole became remarkably more infectious and fun the moment I added the cable, and it felt like a compromise removing it.

When the GW100x first came out, this was fine as Bluetooth or cabled were the only options available. The chips used by most headphone providers didn’t support wi-fi and even if they did, the connectivity is a power hog, so you definitely wouldn’t get a day’s full listening wirelessly that way.

So if you wanted wireless playback, that was the sacrifice you had to make. There was no middle ground.

A few weeks ago, though, Qualcomm unveiled some new technology that could fix, or at least alleviate the problem, in the shape of its Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2 platform. This is a new platform of advanced chipsets that have the XPAN tech we have talked about many times before.

The technology is designed to let headphones scale the quality they are streaming responsively, depending on network conditions.

So, in theory, if I had my GW100x in my lounge, next to the router, it could deliver 24-bit/96 kHz lossless audio over wi-fi; but then it could intelligently scale down when I move away and the connection becomes less stable, forcing it to switch back to Bluetooth – kind of how the SCL6, or Airia as it’s now called, tech from MQA works.

The tech is new, and we’re yet to test any headphones with it, and yes, it probably won’t bring the wireless performance in line with wired, but it could help close the gap between the two, making the switch less jarring. And that makes it a compelling idea, especially for wireless open-backs.

For me, this feels like an ideal launchpad for headphone makers thinking about dipping their toe in the open-back wireless headphone market – one I really hope they take advantage of given how much I have loved my month revisiting the Grado GW100x.

The idea just makes sense, at least for me.

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Audio giant Bose has bought fellow US company Skullcandy, a headphone maker known for its brash, youth-oriented designs.

It might seem an odd fit, but their respective differences might well complement each other. The two will combine Bose’s “audio expertise, technology, and global reach with Skullcandy’s design, understanding of its consumers, and authentic community connections to create new products and experiences and accelerate growth,” says Bose.

The two have collaborated previously during a multi-year partnership. Over the summer, they released the Skullcandy Crusher 1080 ANC (pictured), which feature Bose’s active noise cancellation (ANC) tech.

Skullcandy will remain a separate brand within Bose’s portfolio, much as Beats has since being acquired by Apple in 2014.

Indeed, the acquisition has echoes of the Apple/Beats deal, with an established market leader snapping up a youth-oriented upstart with a strong reputation in sports and plenty of athletes as ambassadors. Skullcandy is big in board sports, gaming and fitness.

Bose says the deal will allow it to reach previously untapped markets.

“For more than 60 years, Bose has been committed to delivering incredible audio experiences however and wherever people choose to listen. As we work to reach even more people, we’re expanding how we do that, not only through Bose products, but through technology partnerships and a growing portfolio of brands,” Lila Snyder, chief executive officer of Bose Corporation, said in a statement.

Skullcandy’s CEO said the deal was “a win for Skullcandy and our fans”, allowing it to bring Bose’s “audio expertise and technology to our products”.

As well as giving Skullcandy access to its technology, Bose will share resources, global distribution, and commercial relationships while allowing it to “continue evolving in ways that are authentic to its identity and consumers”, Bose said.

Skullcandy will continue to be based in Park City, Utah. Financial details of the deal haven’t been disclosed.

The deal was announced just a week or so before Halloween, which is a time for both skulls and candy. But will it end up being a trick or treat for the two brands? Skullcandy products don’t have a particularly great reputation in terms of sound quality, so hopefully some Bose tech will improve both its audio and ANC capabilities.

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Check out our Bose QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen) review

We’ve said it before, but there is no shortage of noise-cancelling headphones on the market these days. If you are willing to part with a three-figure sum for a pair of over-ear headphones with solid active noise cancellation, you’re likely to find yourself spoiled for choice.

The Bose QuietComfort range has a storied history when it comes to noise cancelling technology – in fact, the company was among the first to release ANC headphones, after its owner got frustrated with the sound of an aeroplane engine during a flight.

Recently, Bose has released the QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen), which put in a smooth sonic performance with expectedly refined noise-cancelling. But these cans have been born into tough circumstances, with the five-star Sennheiser Momentum Wireless 5 already waiting in the ring.

The Sennheisers earned a glowing review from the What Hi-Fi? review team for their sonic talent, impressive battery life and comfortable design. So, with two solid options in the same price bracket, which should you go for?

Bose QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen) vs Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless: price

The Bose Quietcomfort Headphones (2nd Gen) launched at a price of £300 / $359 / AU$550. Given they were only released in August 2026, we haven’t yet seen them selling at a reduced price just yet.

The Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless are also a fairly new pair of headphones, released just two months prior to the Bose. They launched at a price of £330 / $400 / AU$750 and, similarly, we haven’t yet seen any significant reductions in price.

So, without sale prices adding an element of flux to this comparison, the Bose QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen) take the lead for being the more affordable set.

**Winner: Bose QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen)**

Bose QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen) vs Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless: build & comfort

The updated QuietComfort Headphones have seen several design updates from their first generation, including a new headband, improved clamping force for a more secure fit, and new oval-shaped earcups with plusher cushioning. The headphones are available in five colourways: Black, White Smoke, Eucalyptus Green, Dewdrop Mint and Rosewood Mauve.

We thought the 2nd-gen QC headphones were a very comfortable pair of headphones, but most significantly, they remained so across a range of head sizes. In our review, we said "these headphones fit firmly, without becoming constrictive, even on the very largest and smallest of What Hi-Fi? reviewers’ heads.”

Thanks to their roomy earcups, which are angled so your ears won’t touch the grille cloth, our ears didn’t ache over longer listening sessions, either.

The headphones sacrifice a more premium feel for lighter weight (just 230g) and foldability. There is no capacitive touch strip built into the earcups, so all controls are done via built-in buttons on the earcup or by using the Bose app. The right earcup also features a USB-C input for charging and audio playback up to 24-bit/48kHz, alongside an LED indicator showing Bluetooth and battery status.

The Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless have shaken off the slightly-too-functional look of the previous Momentum models by including “little touches, such as the headband’s attractive fabric exterior” and metallic badges which we think “go a long way to making the Momentum 5 Wireless feel more premium”.

The earcups are plenty large enough, but feel a little looser on our heads than the Bose headphones. This is, no doubt helped by the Momentum 5’s weight of 290g, which isn’t particularly light by class standards. With less internal space inside the earcup than the Bose, we also find that our ears begin to heat up slightly and ache during longer listening sessions.

The Sennheiser’s earcups swivel but don’t fold down completely like the QC headphones. Their larger surfaces do, however, come in handy when using the responsive, built-in capacitive touch controls for volume, playback and ANC. Like the Bose, these headphones can use a wired connection, allowing playback up to a slightly higher resolution of 24-bit/96kHz.

It’s a close match for these headphones when it comes to their design, as each seems to fill in the other’s gaps. So, here, we call it a draw.

**Winner: Draw**

Bose QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen) vs Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless: features

In terms of battery life, the QC Headphones can provide a fairly standard 24 hours with ANC switched on, which falls to 18 hours once the immersive modes are enabled via the Bose companion app.

Immersive Audio is Bose’s take on spatial audio, and these headphones feature three main immersive modes: ‘Still’, which keeps audio in place relative to the listener’s head; ‘Motion’, which tracks head movements and reconfigures the soundfield accordingly; and ‘Cinema’, which is similar to the Still mode, but with dialogue optimisation and a ‘wider’ soundstage.

We found the ‘Still’ and ‘Cinema’ modes interesting, despite a slightly more “processed” sound, but due to a lagging response to movement, ‘Motion’ mode left us feeling disoriented, and we prefer keeping these modes turned off.

From the Bose app, users can also make tonal adjustments using a three-band equaliser and configure their own ‘modes’, combining ANC, equalisation and immersive settings.

When it comes to wireless connectivity, the QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen) feature Bluetooth multipoint for connecting two devices simultaneously, and support Bluetooth 5.4 for standard AAC and SBC codecs. There are no high-quality codecs available here.

In our review of the Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless, we said that battery life was “a nice feather in Sennheiser’s cap”, boasting an impressive 57 hours with ANC switched on – a figure which towers over most price rivals, let alone the Bose QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen).

Sennheiser’s companion app gives users access to Dolby Atmos-optimised immersive listening options with optional head-tracking, adjustable ANC and an eight-band equaliser. We find Sennheiser’s immersive audio somewhat less enveloping than the Bose equivalent, but it certainly sounds more natural and is less distracting.

Unlike the Bose, however, the Momentum 5 Wireless also feature optional ‘on head detection’, which enables smart pause, holding calls and power-saving mode when the headphones are taken off. Handy.

The headphones also offer a wider range of Bluetooth codec support, with standard SBC and AAC codecs alongside higher-quality aptX HD, aptX Lossless and aptX Adaptive options. The headphones currently support Bluetooth 5.4, but a firmware update scheduled for later this year promises to bump this up to Bluetooth 6.0 with LE audio for reduced latency, improved battery life and potentially better sound quality.

We were pleased to see higher-quality Bluetooth codecs included in the Sennheiser headphones. At this price, we think it’s a shame that Bose didn’t include these options at their price.

For the cherry on top of their fully-loaded feature set, the Momentum 5 Wireless also support Bluetooth Multipoint for simultaneous connection to two devices.

**Winner: Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless**

Bose QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen) vs Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless: ANC & call quality

In an ever busier world, solid ANC performance has become a vital characteristic of a good pair of wireless headphones. Bose has quite the reputation when it comes to ANC, so we were pleased to hear that the company wasn’t resting on its laurels and had made “subtle upgrades” to the ANC of the new QC Headphones, especially to account for any gaps in the earcups' seal for listeners with glasses.

Like the flagship QuietComfort Ultra (2nd Gen), the QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen) feature ‘Quiet’ and ‘Aware’ modes, as well as the option to adjust the amount of ANC to your taste, or turn it off completely.

‘Quiet’ mode provides full-fat noise cancellation, while ‘Aware’ mode lets environmental sounds in, so you can remain aware of your surroundings. The headphones also feature ActiveSense technology, which smoothes sudden spikes in environmental sound while using ‘Aware’ mode.

In our review, we said that the ANC performance of the QC headphones (2nd Gen) did a “sterling job, effectively countering the low-frequency rumble of trains, as well as the hubbub of traffic and ambient chatter”. We also found that ‘Aware’ mode worked well, letting a touch more external noise in than the Sennheiser’s ‘Transparency’ mode.

But how did the Momentum 5 Wireless perform?

We said that the Sennheisers' ANC put in a “good performance”, keeping “most noises – traffic, wind, the hum of air conditioners – at bay”. We did note, however, that the overall effect was “more like a softening of sounds rather than a complete exclusion – something which the Sony and Bose manage more effectively”.

Taking the Sennheisers to the gym, we said: “The ANC results in a softening of the hubbub of a busy public space, even if harsher noises, such as clanking weights, can penetrate through.”

‘Transparency’ mode, which is Sennheiser's version of ‘Aware’ mode, is highly effective, but doesn’t quite bring the same level of clarity to environmental sounds as Bose managed.

In terms of call quality, however, the Sennheisers do a better job of blocking out surrounding sounds than the Bose headphones and leave voices sounding slightly more natural on the other end of the line.

**Winner: Bose QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen)**

Bose QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen) vs Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless: sound

Sonically speaking, these two headphones are of fairly different characters, but they do have some things in common.

Both headphones offer rich, smooth performances, with ample detail and texture in the middle and high frequencies. We described the Bose’s midrange as “tightly controlled but nonetheless expressive”, while the Sennheisers impressed us with “naturalness and insight that gives even more premium alternatives a run for their money”.

In both cases, using a wired connection provided a palpable uplift in dynamics and midrange sweetness.

Both headphones handle high frequencies responsibly, too, providing ample shine and sparkle without overwhelming the sonic balance. Even during the most raucous punk rock tracks in our music library, both of these headphones kept their cool, delivering our music with maturity and a satisfying degree of detail.

These headphones begin to diverge when it comes to bass performance. During testing, we found that the Momentum 5 Wireless sounded a little too rich, and noted that “some listeners might prefer a tauter reproduction at the lower end”, which we think the Bose provide.

Both headphones struggled somewhat to “clip along” during songs with propulsive central rhythms, but we found this to a lesser degree with the Sennheisers. During driving, rhythmic tracks, the Bose left us “feeling somewhat left behind”, while the Sennheisers simply favoured a “more relaxed presentation”.

The most notable difference, however, is in the way that these headphones handle dynamics.

Listening to the QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen), we found ourselves craving “a greater degree of dynamic subtlety and nuance”. Large jumps in volume were convincingly rendered, but “finer dynamic details felt less explicit than we would expect” at the price.

The Sennheisers, on the other hand, teased out dynamics ably, with a performance that was subtle and delicate, “bringing out small-scale dynamic shifts superbly”. Overall, we simply enjoyed listening to the Sennheisers' peformance more at this level.

**Winner: Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless**

Bose QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen) vs Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless: Verdict

With virtues in slightly different places, both of these wireless over-ear headphones put in a respectable performance, with each having its specific advantages and designs that will suit many prospective buyers.

While the Bose QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen) are slightly cheaper, weigh less, feature a foldable design and have stronger ANC performance, sound quality plays a vital part in our assessment, and the Sennheisers prevail in this regard.

With more nuanced dynamics and a greater sense of fun, plus the fact that they feel more premium and have almost twice the battery life, the Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless are our preferred pick at this price.

*Overall winner: Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless**

MORE:

Read our full Bose QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen) review

Plus, our Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless review

Stay up to date with our pick of the best over-ear headphones tested by our expert reviewers

Bose has something of a storied history when it comes to active noise cancelling headphones. Back in 1989, the company became one of the first to commercialise noise-cancelling headphone technology after its founder allegedly developed a mid-flight gripe with the noise of an aeroplane’s engine.

As such, Bose kicked things off with noise-cancelling headphones designed for pilots. It wasn’t until the year 2000, with the dawn of the QuietComfort series, that the technology made its way into the consumer market on terra firma.

The current flagship model from the series, the QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen) were awarded four stars by our review team for a smart folding design, superb noise cancellation and effective spatial audio. The headphones missed out on a fifth star, beaten by sterner competition with better sound quality and battery life.

We now have the updated standard over-ear models, the QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen), in for testing. Can these deliver a more appealing performance at a more appealing price?

Price

The Bose QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen) are priced at £300 / $359 / AU$550, sitting under the flagship Ultra (2nd Gen) model that originally cost a more premium £450 / $450 / AU$700. Having been on the market a while longer, we have seen the Ultra (2nd Gen)’s price drop to around £320 / $399 / AU$494, which puts some pressure on the performance of the new standard model.

Turning up the heat yet further, the headphones’ closest price rival outside of the Bose family are the five-star Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless (£330 / $400 / AU$750), which we praised for their “comfortable design”, “impressive battery life” and “refined presentation”. At a slightly lower price point, Sony has also recently introduced the WH-1000XM4C, a reborn version of the Award-winning original WH-1000XM4, which have just gone on sale for £219 / $300 / AU$450.

These formidable rivals mean the QuietComfort headphones (2nd Gen) have their work cut out for them, if they wish to stand out from the crowd.

Build & comfort

There is good sense behind making a pair of wireless headphones light and compact. Whether they are being chucked into a tote-bag, worn around your neck, or packed into a rammed suitcase, generally the smaller and lighter a pair of headphones can be, the better. In this area, the Bose QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen) excel, weighing just 230g in a neat, foldable design.

They are a comfortable pair of over-ear headphones to wear, with soft pleather lining the headband and earcups. Across our test team, we found these headphones fitted firmly, without becoming constrictive, even on the very largest and smallest of What Hi-Fi? reviewers’ heads.

Additionally, the earcups are satisfyingly roomy and make our ears feel nicely isolated from the outside world. The sloped interior of the earcup means our ears don’t rub up against the internal grille, as we find happens with the Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless.

These headphones feel breathable compared to rivals, and we find that even on a hot summer’s day, we are quite comfortable wearing them for extended listening sessions.

Our test pair arrive in the Dewdrop Mint finish, with a satisfyingly colour-coordinated headband and earpads. But if a minty-fresh look isn’t your thing, there are four other finishes available: Black, White Smoke, Rosewood Mauve and Eucalyptus Green.

By price standards these wireless headphones look a little basic, and lack the visual flair of rivals like the Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless. Details such as the Sennheisers’ fabric headband and metallic badges go a long way to give an impression of luxury, which is something that these Bose headphones lack.

Unlike the Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen), the standard model doesn’t feature capacitive touch controls, but we enjoy the simplicity of the built-in buttons, as well as the fact that we don’t accidentally end up skipping songs while brushing our hair out of the way or readjusting the headphones.

The right earcup features three buttons: a central button for playback and call controls, flanked by buttons for increasing and decreasing the volume.

The left earcup has a button for controlling Bluetooth as well as a ‘shortcut’ button, which can be assigned to cycle through immersive modes, access voice assistant (on compatible devices) or control Spotify via the Bose control app. Buttons are responsive and easy to find, so after a while, we find ourselves using the controls instinctively.

The right earcup also has a USB-C input for charging and wired audio playback (up to 24-bit/48kHz), alongside a small LED indicator showing Bluetooth, charging, and battery status.

It is worth noting that because the USB-C connection is slightly inset on the side of the earcup, larger-fingered members of our review team find the provided USB-C cable somewhat challenging to unplug.

In terms of battery life, the QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen) can run for 24 hours with ANC enabled – less than half the 57-hour battery life of the Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless. Switching on the QuietComfort’s immersive modes will reduce their runtime further to 18 hours. After which, a full charge will take three hours.

While 24 hours of battery life isn’t an insignificant figure, it is clear now that Bose lags well behind the best of the competition.

Features

The QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen) support Bluetooth 5.4 for standard AAC and SBC codecs, as well as Bluetooth Low Energy, which uses significantly less power than regular Bluetooth for short-range connectivity.

At this price, we are a little disappointed to find that Bose hasn’t included support for hi-res codecs such as aptX HD or aptX Adaptive.

Bluetooth multipoint connectivity is supported, alongside Google Fast Pair for Android users, and we find that connecting to devices and switching between them is a breeze thanks to the Bose app.

What’s more, our connection to our smartphone remains stable throughout testing, and we experience no dropouts, even when passing through busy areas such as train stations and shopping centres.

Bose’s immersive audio settings have by now become something of a hallmark of the more up-to-date QuietComfort Headphones, offering access to the company’s take on spatial audio.

There are three immersive audio settings – ‘Still’, ‘Motion’ and ‘Cinema’ modes – that can be explored via the Bose control app.

‘Still’ and ‘Cinema’ fix audio in place, keeping your music in position even as you move your head (‘Cinema’ provides an extra boost for voices, clarifying dialogue in dense film soundscapes), while ‘Motion’ lets your music move with you, tracking head motions and reconfiguring the stereo field accordingly.

We find that ‘Still’ mode works well, adding a sense of depth to our music, despite a slightly more processed sound. ‘Motion’ mode, on the other hand, becomes distracting due to a slightly laggy response to movement, causing us to feel disorientated while listening to music on the go.

We end up switching all immersive modes off, as they ultimately distract us from enjoying our music.

Through the Bose app, which is intuitively laid out and easy to use, you can also create and save your own personalised ‘modes’, with modifiable features including the amount of ANC, enabling/disabling wind blocking and immersive settings.

A three-band equaliser is also accessible within the app, with +/- 10 points of treble, mid and bass control. The range of adjustment is subtle, but large enough to be practically useful. Even at the equaliser’s upper bounds, we find that tonal changes avoid becoming unpleasantly extreme.

ANC & call quality

Between the first and second generation of QuietComfort Headphones, Bose says it has made subtle active noise cancellation improvements, as well as including the option for ANC to be switched off.

With ANC switched on, users have access to two settings: ‘Quiet’ and ‘Aware’.

‘Quiet’ is the fully-fledged noise-cancelling option. Using a six-microphone array to detect and cancel unwanted external sound, the Bose do a sterling job, effectively countering the low-frequency rumble of trains, as well as the hubbub of traffic and ambient chatter.

Even in a bustling city centre, music takes centre stage, and podcasts, too, are delivered with only minimal interruption from the most shrill of nearby voices.

The engineers claim to have made improvements to the headphones’ noise-cancelling array in order to compensate for gaps in the earcup’s seal when wearing glasses. Bespectacled members of the What Hi-Fi? review team agree that the ANC remains highly effective with glasses on, and we notice no discernible difference in performance with or without glasses.

If the heavy hand of ‘Quiet’ mode isn’t your cup of tea, selecting ‘Noise Control’ lets you toggle how much ANC you want to apply. We find that dialling the noise cancellation back alleviates the suction-cup feeling that Bose’s intense noise-cancelling processing can cause.

The headphones’ ‘Aware’ mode does what it says on the tin, letting external sounds in, so you can remain aware of your surroundings. Nonetheless, Bose has taken pains to ensure that sudden environmental sounds won’t deafen us using their ActiveSense technology, which allows the ANC to kick in automatically to soften sharp spikes in ambient noise.

We find that the setting works well, and even the slam of a car door doesn’t overpower our music. Compared to the Momentum 5 Wireless’ version of Aware mode, the Bose headphones let more sound in, keeping us well aware of the wider world.

Testing the QuietComfort Headphones’ call quality, we find that the built-in microphones do an excellent job of filtering out environmental noise and wind sounds, even while standing near to a busy main road.

Compared with the Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless, which deliver voices with a more full-bodied, natural sound, the Bose leave our voices sounding somewhat tinny on the other end of the line. But despite the slight tonal imbalance, our voices remain clear and comprehensible.

Sound

Like the premium QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen), these wireless headphones sound a little uptight right out of the box. But given some time to warm up, they offer a smooth and well-balanced sound. Indeed, the QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen) handle even the very most extreme test tracks in our Tidal music library with a cool, mature hand.

We begin testing with Geese’s 100 Horses and find that overdriven bass and shambling drums are rendered with pleasing low-frequency weight, richness and a good degree of texture. Guitar parts and percussion, meanwhile, are appropriately detailed and capable of sparkle without overwhelming the sonic balance.

Further into the song, when Cameron Winter’s vocal harmonies fill the soundfield, the QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen) showcase their tightly controlled but nonetheless expressive midrange, and we feel every last drop of emotion in Winter’s warbling tone.

We know that these headphones will be used wirelessly most of the time, but we enjoy the uplift in dynamics and clarity that comes with using a wired connection to our source device.

These headphones also provide pleasing separation between instruments. In the dense, funky arrangement of Superman's Big Sister by Ian Dury & The Blockheads, Wilko Johnson’s jagged rhythm guitar remains sharply defined against a busy backdrop of saxophones, slapped bass and orchestral strings, which all occupy their respective places with clear-cut authority.

We feel that the QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen) could provide a greater degree of dynamic subtlety and nuance. Listening to Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 in D Major, large jumps in volume are convincingly rendered and arrive with impact, but the composition’s finer dynamic details feel less explicit than we would expect at this price.

In terms of rhythmic drive, we feel that the QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen) could do a little more, too, with a performance that is somewhat less propulsive and energetic than price competitors. In a piece such as 100 Horses, which should carry you along with its rhythm, we find ourselves feeling somewhat left behind.

Verdict

Bose has tackled its second generation of QuietComfort Headphones with an ambitious attitude that sees features of the flagship Ultra model trickle down to the standard model. In terms of functionality, this approach has expanded the QuietComfort Headphones' horizon, with a truly impressive feature set for the price.

Despite missing out on a class-leading sonic performance, these wireless headphones are nonetheless capable and articulate. Paired with their ergonomic, foldable design, they are worthy of consideration for music fans on the move.

Review published: 21st October 2026

SCORES

• Sound 4
• Build 4
• Features 4

MORE:

Read our Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless review

Also check out our Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen) review

Our pick of the best wireless headphones for every budget

When Apple added active noise cancellation to its eartip-less AirPods 4, it worked so well that both new-generation AirPods 5 models have active noise cancelling as standard now.

The new Apple AirPods 5 also promise 50 per cent improved ANC and better sound than before, a new custom EQ, all while retaining a familiar design and many of the features that made these wireless earbuds so popular.

It’s certainly more a case of evolution than completely rehauling a tried-and-tested design, but are the new AirPods 5 still competitive in today’s growing open earbuds market?

Price

As before, there are two AirPods 5 variants, but the delineation between them is now less clear-cut. In the AirPods 4, the pricier model had ANC, the cheaper model didn’t – simple, right?

In the AirPods 5, the differences come down to on-stem volume control, a wireless charging case, and an extra hour of battery life. We’re not sure if these are crucial enough differences for buyers to make a clear choice, and we wonder why Apple didn’t just make a single version of AirPods 5 that had all the complete features.

The base model of the AirPods 5 cost £119 / $129 / AU$219, while the step-up version with the wireless charging case – which is the sample we are reviewing here – is yours for £139 / $149 / AU$249. There’s less of a price gap between the two than in previous generations, and it once again makes us question why Apple felt the need to make two versions. We fully expect the cheaper model to go down in price for the holiday season to make it a more attractive proposition.

On the plus side, the AirPods 5 are less expensive than the previous generation: the ANC model launched at £179 / $179 / AU$299 in 2024, while UK buyers can save a whole tenner on the standard AirPods 4’s original price (£129 / $129 / AU$219).

Build & design

Place the two generations of AirPods side by side, and you’ll find them to be identical in design. The AirPods 5 have the same ‘semi-open’ design as the AirPods 4 so you are aware of your surroundings when wearing them, with no silicone eartips to create an acoustic or ANC seal.

How comfortable and effective the design is proves, as before, to be entirely dependent on the shape of your ears – they either don’t sit securely for some members of the What Hi-Fi? review team, while others found wearing them perfectly comfortable.

Getting the ‘nozzle’ of the buds pointing towards your ear canal at all times without being dislodged is the tricky bit, especially if you want the best sound quality. Apple’s always-on Adaptive EQ aims to keep the sound consistent to account for different ear shapes, although this doesn’t help if the buds don’t stay in your ears.

Those who don’t like the feeling of eartips burrowing in will appreciate the less-intrusive design, though, and the buds are small and lightweight enough to wear for long hours. They also have an improved IP57 rating for water and sweat resistance, which is ideal for those who wear these buds while commuting, running or exercising.

The base model features force-sensitive controls, where you pinch the stems to control music playback, change noise modes and accept calls, while gesture controls – a nod or a shake of the head – can be activated to accept or reject incoming calls.

The pricier AirPods 5 model features all of the above and adds the swipable volume controls from its Pro sibling, meaning you can swipe up and down on the buds’ stems to change volume. As we found with AirPods Pro 2 and Pro 3, it’s swift and intuitive in use.

Both charging cases look identical from the outside: small, pocketable, with a USB-C charging connection. The pricier model (clumsily called AirPods 5 with Wireless Charging Case) has wireless charging capabilities, working with Qi-compatible and Apple Watch chargers, and the case emits a sound to indicate low battery status or when you’re trying to locate it using Find My. The standard model can only be charged with a USB-C cable, which neither model provides in the box.

Features

The AirPods 4 were already so stacked with features we’re not sure how they have space for more, with Apple continuously bringing flagship-level features down to its standard line with every iOS update. The AirPods 5 and Pro 3 models are almost identical in features these days thanks to sharing the same H2 headphone chip, with only the hearing aid, hearing test and heart rate sensors now reserved for the flagship.

The cheaper AirPods 5 model gets the bigger upgrade here, with it now having pretty much the same features as its bigger brothers: with ANC ability comes adaptive audio and transparency modes, the conversation awareness mode that lowers media volume when it detects you’re speaking, and all AirPods running on the H2 chip (the 4, 5 and Pro models) now feature live translation.

The AirPods 5 continue to support personalised spatial audio with dynamic head tracking and other iOS-centric features such as easy switching between connected iOS devices and compatibility with the updated Siri AI. These are all useful to varying degrees and work as well as expected.

We would recommend downloading the latest version of iOS 27 when using the AirPods 5 for the best performance, as we initially found a few instances of lag in our review sample. We’re talking mere milliseconds here, but it’s noticeable when we’re used to a seamless, intuitive feedback with Apple products – although these issues ironed themselves out after the software update.

The iOS 27 update also brings with it a more orderly AirPods settings interface, adjustable adaptive audio, and a three-band custom EQ. Available in the Audio & Routing section in the AirPods’ settings, you can adjust the low, mid and high frequencies to customise the sound when music is playing.

The adjustments are subtle, and it’s a nice feature to have, but you can’t save multiple presets; alternatively, you can simply leave it on Apple’s recommended default EQ.

The most disappointing part of the AirPods 5 experience is battery life. The AirPods 5 with Wireless Charging Case offer just five hours on a single charge, with 22 hours in total with the charging case. It’s worse on the base AirPods 5 model, with a measly four hours unchanged from the previous generation.

A five-minute charge in the case does give you an hour, but dipping into the case continuously for extra juice means you’ll be needing to charge the ’Pods more regularly overall. With the AirPods 5’s ANC powers and feature set matching those of traditional premium wireless earbuds, they’re lagging behind the eight hours quoted on the AirPods 3 and Sony WF-1000XM6. Even cheaper ANC buds such as the Sony WF-C710N offer 8.5 hours on a single charge.

We know the demands of these extra features and improved ANC performance put additional pressure on the battery life, especially in a more open design, but we would hope that Apple would counteract those power-hungry updates with a larger battery capacity.

ANC & call quality

It’s taken us long enough to get to the real heart of the AirPods 5 design: improved ANC. We were impressed with how effective the noise-cancelling was when we reviewed the AirPods with ANC, and the same is true in the AirPods 5.

For a design without any eartip seal, the full noise-cancelling mode does a great job at quietening the sound of traffic, train engines and general hubbub around you. Higher frequency noises will be heard clearly, as is expected for this kind of earbud design, and we find the lower frequencies are suppressed even more on the AirPods 5 than on the AirPods 4 with ANC.

It’s a more obviously powerful effect too. If you want a more natural blend of environmental awareness and your music, the adaptive audio mode does a fine job of automatically adjusting the ANC levels according to the noise around you. You can now fine-tune the level of adaptive audio; move the slider left or right depending on whether you want more transparency or more noise-cancelling. It’s a subtle but useful addition to have.

Call quality is another high point, with our voices sounding clear and detailed, with only a slight hardness around the edges. What’s impressive is how the AirPods 5 don’t transmit any surrounding noises to the caller. We were on a very busy road with rush hour traffic when testing voice calls, and the other person on the line couldn’t hear any hint of cars passing.

The AirPods 4 with ANC have a similar silencing effect, although voices sound a little thinner and sibilant compared with the more solid sound of the AirPods 5. For their noise-cancelling prowess and excellent call quality, the AirPods 5 are highly recommended if these are your priorities.

Sound

We’ve been fans of Apple’s recent sonic balance: detailed, agile, natural, open. With every generation, the standard AirPods have had a knack for knitting music together in a way that sounds immediately enjoyable, even if they don’t necessarily trouble the class leaders when it comes to absolute clarity, dynamism or insight.

The AirPods 5 exhibit many of the same sonic characteristics of the older AirPods 4, and it doesn’t take us long to enjoy our Tidal and Apple Music playlists in the earbuds’ airy soundscape.

Apple doesn’t give specifics, but it has updated the innards of the AirPods 5 by way of a new “multiport acoustic architecture”, and the result is a sound that has greater extension and weight in the lower frequencies. For such an open design, the amount of power and heft to the sound is quite impressive.

The outside world will intrude upon your music or podcast listening if you don’t have any kind of noise-cancelling turned on, but even still, we find ourselves enjoying the amount of detail and spaciousness you get with the AirPods 5.

The enhanced bass power comes to the fore when listening to the taut, fast bassline in Ice T’s Addicted To Danger, which sounds more menacing and muscular than before; while Max Richter’s The City Was A Chaos instrumental is admirably delivered with deep punchiness and increasing scale and intensity. Highs have plenty of headroom to soar too, with no hint of sharpness or brightness to disturb our listening.

Dynamically, there is enough variety to hold our attention, although the AirPods 5’s open design still doesn’t hold a candle to their eartip-equipped sealed counterparts when it comes to outright punch and dynamic contrast.

With certain songs, we find the AirPods 5’s newfound weighty balance can overpower more delicate, subtler moments at times. The finer details and nuances of The Unthanks’ singing in Here’s The Tender Coming are a little subdued. Voices are less prominent in the mix than before and as a result don’t sound quite as clear; we find the leaner sound of the older AirPods 4 with ANC delivers a sweeter and more agile presentation.

Many will find the older AirPods 4 to have a lightweight sound in comparison to the AirPods’ more full-bodied presentation, and it simply depends on which balance you prefer.

Verdict

An open design will always have its compromises when it comes to outright dynamic punch and clarity, but the AirPods 5’s more powerful and weightier sound does a fine job of keeping the music front and centre even as you’re constantly aware of your surroundings.

This fifth-generation model is a fairly gentle evolution that aims to bring wider iOS ecosystem features to all price points, while those using older generations of AirPods will find it a much bigger and more satisfying update. The AirPods 5’s highly effective ANC performance in this kind of open earbud design is the biggest draw here, and we’ve yet to encounter an open alternative that sounds this good.

Review published: 20th October 2026

SCORES

• Sound 4
• Features 4
• Build 4

MORE:

Our pick of the best wireless earbuds for all budgets

Read our full Apple AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation review

Check out our AirPods Pro 3 review if you want the very best earbuds from Apple

I'm excited for Apple's newly announced AirPods 5 – but one major issue has me scratching my head

We have tested hundreds of headphones here at What Hi-Fi?, and as much as we love the flagship offerings with all the bells and whistles, we’re just as big fans of a good budget pair.

Which is why we were delighted when we first reviewed the Sony WF-C510 – now only £28 at Amazon – back in September 2024.

Your expectations shouldn’t be too high at this price point, of course, but these earbuds deliver great sound with minimal fuss, along with a sense of fun and musicality. And, two years on, they are still the best budget earbuds in the business.

We have spent a good amount of time with the bargain buds since then; here’s what we’ve learned.

The sound is yet to be beaten at this price

If you’re after a pair of budget earbuds, the sound quality won’t be beaten at this price. They’re fun, engaging and musical, with a level of entertainment that belies the budget price tag.

“We test them with a range of genres and the Sonys just go about their business,” our Sony WF-C510 review reads.

“You can tell the WF-C510 are part of the Sony family, such is their musicality and rhythmic ability – even complex pieces of music don’t unravel and their sense of timing and ability to just get into the groove of a song works with any music you play through them.”

Admittedly there isn’t a lot of competition at this price, but while we are fans of the five-star EarFun Air, nothing else we have tested has come close in the two years since. The only way you’ll beat the sound quality is to jump up a level to the Sony WF-C710N, which are also Award winners but more than double the price.

The battery life beats most flagship earbuds

The WF-C510’s mighty 11-hour battery life will be more than enough for most people – it’s longer than that on most premium earbuds, including the flagship Sony WF-1000XM6.

Granted, those buds offer active noise cancelling and can hold more charge in their case, but if you need headphones that can go the distance without a pit stop, then the WF-C510 might be for you. With another 11 hours in the case, I often go several days of use without a need to recharge.

They’re supremely comfortable too, ideal for extended listening sessions.

There’s a surprising amount of features

While there is no active noise cancelling, there are still plenty of features, even at this price level.

Bluetooth Multipoint allows you to have two sources connected at once, while IPX4 water resistance will protect against splashes and raindrops. You can also listen to each bud independently, and there’s also Ambient Sound Control to allow some external noise through.

If you haven’t upgraded your earbuds for several years, you should be pleasantly surprised by the amount of features you can get for the price of a round of drinks.

The Sony WF-C510 won’t be beaten at the price of £28 at Amazon – but if you do have more of a budget, we recommend these step-up models:

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Check out the best cheap wireless earbuds you can buy

If you’re worried about the environmental impact your headphone habit is having on the planet – or just fancy a pair you can repair yourself – the Fairbuds 2 wireless earbuds could be for you.

They are made by Fairphone, the Dutch manufacturer who specialises in modular, repairable and eco-friendly designs. And they add impressive audio specification to the bargain.

Such as support for LDAC, Sony’s hi-res audio codec. There is also a new 11mm dynamic driver with an organic bio-cellulose diaphragm, and tuning by Rotterdam-based studio Form Follows Frequency.

Fairphone claims that the driver is lighter and responds faster than that in the original Fairbuds, and that it delivers a brighter, crisper treble. We are also promised “a rich, balanced sound out of the box, with deeper bass, warmer mids and clear highs.”

They are well-specified in other regards, too. You get 40 hours of total battery life (including the case), active noise cancellation, IP54 water resistance and Bluetooth 6.0 complete with Multipoint for connecting to two devices at once.

They are also 37 per cent smaller than their predecessors, with a charging case that’s 32 per cent smaller.

But it’s the buds’ eco credentials that will appeal to many. They are made with SGS-tested, PFAS-free plastics and silicone that come in direct contact with your skin, and many components are replaceable by users, including the earbuds and batteries within the case. Unlike other earbuds, the batteries and components are not sealed behind glued-shut cases. So if they fail, you can just swap them for a new one.

They are also made with about 49 per cent “fair and recycled materials” – those produced under fair working conditions as part of Fairphone’s Living Wage Bonus and Workers’ Voice programmes.

They’re also completely e-waste neutral.

Fairphone went back to the drawing board for this pair of in-ears, saying they are “completely re-engineered for all-day comfort across a wider variety of ears”. This better fit should also improve passive noise cancellation, while active noise cancellation comes via a six-mic array that claims to block noise by up to 45dB.

The Fairbuds app has also had a refresh, with a new design, and new features including new audio presets, customisable equaliser settings, and a tips and tricks section.

Despite these improvements, the Fairbuds 2 are actually around 20 per cent cheaper than their predecessors. They are out now in the UK (coming 2nd November in the US), and cost £99 / $119 (around AU$190). They come in Forest Green or Horizon Black.

Fairphone claims that less than 15 per cent of small electronics such as earbuds are ever reused or responsibly recycled, with around 40,000 tons of headphones being thrown on the scrapheap each year. Anything that can help can only be a good thing.

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Lord Byron once said, “Always laugh when you can; it is cheap medicine.” Nice though the Baron poet’s advice is, some circumstances simply aren’t fit for a giggle. In such cases, a cheap, top-notch pair of headphones might be a more suitable tonic to your ills.

Sony's five-star WH-CH520 headphones have been sitting pretty as our ‘best cheap’ pair of wireless headphones for a couple of years now. Recently, Sony has released a next-generation sequel in the form of the WH-CH530, which promise “a major sonic boost” on the previous model, for almost the same launch price.

The eagle-eyed among you will be sure to notice that these two budget headphones look almost identical. Their similarities aren’t just cosmetic, either; there is a significant amount of hardware shared between designs – as if choosing a pair of headphones wasn’t complex enough…

The new Sony WH-CH530 is another five-star success, but what are the differences between the two models, and is it worth the upgrade? We put the two in a side-by-side test to help make your decision.

Sony WH-CH530 vs Sony WH-CH520: price

The Sony WH-CH530 are yours for £50 / $70 / AU$100. As they are a new pair of headphones, we haven’t yet seen any notable price reductions on them.

A couple of years their senior, the predecessor WH-CH520 launched at £49 / $59 / AU$79, and we have seen sale prices as low as £25 / $34 / $58. For context, that’s about the cost of a new hardback book in all territories – not too shabby for a five-star pair of headphones.

**Winner: Sony WH-CH520**

Sony WH-CH530 vs Sony WH-CH520: design

Much has remained the same between these two Sony designs. Besides an inscribed, rather than printed, Sony logo on the headband, a smaller, central power on/off and Bluetooth button and L/R labelling inside the earcups (rather than on the headband), the new WH-CH530 look more or less identical to their predecessors.

The same materials have been used between designs (plastic and pleather), and even the drivers are the same 30mm full-range dynamic variety that we saw in the WH-CH520. In terms of colourways, both headphones come in standard Black, White and Pink options, but Sony has swapped out the Blue, Beige, and Yellow finishes of the older WH-CH520 for new Mint, Cobalt, and Coral finishes for the WH-CH530.

The new headphones weigh around three grams more than the previous model, bringing them to a total weight of approximately 150g, but we would be lying if we said they felt appreciably different on our heads. Both on-ear designs have a reassuringly snug fit that is made more comfortable by pleather ear-cushioning and headband lining.

Both sets of headphones also feature a three-button strip of built-in controls for powering on/off, Bluetooth pairing, skipping forwards and backwards, volume up/down, and answering, ending and rejecting calls. The central button on the WH-CH530 is slightly smaller, but remains easy to locate and makes little difference to the headphones’ easy operation.

So, with very little having changed between designs, we are going to have to call a draw.

**Winner: draw**

Sony WH-CH530 vs Sony WH-CH520: features

When it comes to features you can expect from a pair of wireless headphones at this price point, we have often found that beggars can’t be choosers. In the case of the WH-CH530, however, there’s a surprisingly ambitious feature set at your disposal.

Wireless connection is via Bluetooth 6.0, with support for Auracast sharing and Google Fast Pair for Android devices. The WH-CH530 also have Bluetooth multipoint connectivity for simultaneous connection to two devices, and are compatible with SBC, AAC and LC3 codecs. LC3 is the standard codec for Bluetooth Low Energy, which uses less power than regular Bluetooth for short-range connections.

Beyond the physical controls available on the right earcup, the WH-CH530 can also be used with Sony’s Connect app. The app features a 10-band equaliser with saveable presets so you can customise the sound, the option to set a maximum volume, a ‘Find Your Equalizer’ hearing test to identify your ideal EQ settings, access to Sony’s Digital Sound Enhancement Engine (DSEE) (which improves the quality of lower-res, compressed files), and support for immersive 360 Reality Audio tracks from compatible streaming services.

The WH-CH520 also do well in terms of features for their price, but don’t quite reach the heights of the newer model. The headphones support the older Bluetooth 5.2 version and multipoint connectivity, plus Fast Pair for Android Devices. Notably, though, they don’t support Auracast and they are compatible only with SBC and AAC codecs.

The older Sonys can also be used with the Sound Connect app. While this grants users access to DSEE, 360 Reality Audio and ‘Find Your Equalizer’ features, the available equaliser includes five, rather than 10 bands, and does not offer the option to limit the maximum volume.

When it comes to battery life, both headphones boast impressive figures, with the WH-CH530 pulling just ahead, at a maximum of 55 hours of music playback compared with the WH-CH520’s 50 hours. Both headphones charge via USB-C and can run for an hour and a half on a three-minute quick charge. Neither set accepts wired audio.

Of course, neither the CH520 nor the new CH530 feature active noise-cancellation; if you do want ANC powers, you'll have to pay extra for Sony's step-up CH-730N headphones.

For the longer battery life and the wider spread of features, the WH-CH530 takes the lead here.

**Winner: Sony WH-CH530**

Sony WH-CH530 vs Sony WH-CH520: sound

Given that these on-ear headphones are so similar in design, it comes as no surprise that they have a lot in common in terms of their sonic character.

Both Sony models deliver a balanced and engaging listening experience. The bass is deep and solid, while the midrange is highly detailed, with the WH-CH530 offering a touch of extra clarity and expression.

High frequencies are handled by both headphones with impressive control for this price point. Even the jangly, aggressive guitars of 1970s punk rock stay smooth and clear without sounding shrill, while retaining all of the raw power and energy we would hope for.

But there are crucial differences between these headphones. Namely, the digital signal-processing tweaks that Sony has made to the WH-CH530 have resulted in a marked improvement in dynamics and rhythmic drive.

In our review, we describe the WH-CH530 as “sensitive enough to convey subtle shifts in volume” while also sounding “animated and impactful” during pieces with a wider dynamic range. Compared with the WH-CH520, which we thought sounded “a little inhibited”, the improvement here is obvious.

Although both headphones lack somewhat in terms of headroom, which is not altogether unusual at the budget price, this is to a much lesser extent for the newer model.

Rhythmically, too, the WH-CH530 outperform their predecessor. While testing, we “find ourselves pulled into the songs we listen to, toes tapping and heads bobbing” thanks to an appropriately robust sense of rhythmic drive. Compared with their older sibling, the new headphones give songs a healthy dose of additional punch.

While both headphones feature the same drivers, advancements in digital signal-processing have meaningfully elevated the sonic performance of the WH-CH530 above their predecessor. Consequently, choosing a winner in this section is simple.

**Winner: Sony WH-CH530**

Sony WH-CH530 vs Sony WH-CH520: verdict

Looks can be deceiving, and, indeed, it would be tough to tell the Sony WH-CH530 and WH-CH520 apart from the outside, with their remarkably consistent designs. Inside the WH-CH530, however, the addition of extra features and the tweaks to digital signal-processing have provided a palpable sonic boost over their predecessors, improving dynamics, detail and balance – all without incurring a price hike.

It’s often said that good things don’t come cheap, but we count the Sony WH-CH530 as a marked exception to the rule. They are a fine budget buy.

*Overall winner: Sony WH-CH530**

MORE

Read our Sony WH-CH530 review

Want ANC? Consider the step-up Sony WH-CH730N

Then, why not check out our pick of the best wireless headphones tested by our expert reviewers

Sony has a formidable line-up of wireless headphones, offering talented performances at various levels, from flagship noise-cancelling over-ear options such as the Sony WH-1000XM6, to the budget but nonetheless class-leading WH-CH730N.

The most affordable wireless headphones in the line-up are the new Sony WH-CH530 on-ear headphones, which replace the five-star WH-CH520. From the outside there is little to differentiate between the two models, apart from some minor cosmetic details.

On the inside, there isn’t too much difference either. The drive units are the same, but Sony claims to have made advancements in the digital signal processing and algorithms used inside the headphones, promising a major sonic boost over the previous model.

The question is, will the changes made between designs prove worthy of a new model?

Price

The Sony WH-CH530 are currently available for £50 / $70 / AU$100. Their predecessor, the WH-CH520, were released at a similar price of £49 / $59 / AU$79, but having been on the market a while longer, that figure has since fallen as low as £25 / $34 / $58.

If you do want a pair with noise-cancelling, you’ll have to pay more for Sony’s step-up pair, the CH-730N, which are yours for £100 / $180 / AU$230.

It goes without saying that these figures aren’t exactly pricey for a pair of well-equipped, wireless on-ear headphones. In fact, the WH-CH530 face such scarce competition at the price that their main rival remains the older Sony model.

Build & design

It would hardly be reasonable to expect a premium build at this price, and indeed, the WH-CH530 have a relatively spartan appearance. That is besides their vibrant range of colourways, which includes Black, White, Cobalt, Mint, Pink and Coral options.

Our test pair arrive in Coral, and they are impressively radiant – so eye-catching, in fact, that we find them catching stray glances as we wear them while on the London Underground.

The headphones feel somewhat plasticky to touch, but we could level the same accusation at headphones far further upmarket; materials like plastic are often chosen for their cost-effective resilience and lighter weight. With a quoted weight of approximately 150g, these headphones aren’t going to bog you down. It is worth noting, however, that they do not fold down or include a transport case, so some caution is necessary while packing them into bags.

Despite their plasticky feel, we find the WH-CH530 are a well-built pair of headphones for this budget level. Their on-ear (rather than over-ear) design fits securely across the various heads of the What Hi-Fi? testing team, and their adjustable headband is robust, clicking between sizes with a reassuringly solid feeling.

We find the medium-thickness pleather padding on the underside of the headband and the earpads to be fairly comfortable, but we also find that the firm fit of these on-ear headphones can cause aching ears among the larger-headed members of our test team during longer listens, though we suspect this small gripe would ease with longer-term use.

The fact that the earcups swivel slightly helps with finding a more comfortable fit, too, and the pleather lining does a good job of mitigating unpleasant ear warming, in all but the very hottest of listening conditions.

The trade-off of a somewhat tighter fit is that these headphones do a reasonably good job of keeping outside sounds out, which is important as the CH530 don’t feature active noise cancellation. Loud sounds will make it through the earcup’s barrier, as will any high-pitched screeches, but for everyday street wear, we find the passive noise isolation to be ample, allowing our music and podcasts to take centre stage in most environments.

Features

For headphones of their price, the WH-CH530 have a fairly comprehensive feature set.

Wireless connection comes via Bluetooth 6.0, with support for Auracast and Google Fast Pair for Android devices. The WH-CH530 also support Bluetooth Multipoint, for simultaneous connection to two devices, and they are compatible with SBC, AAC and LC3 codecs – LC3 is the standard codec for Bluetooth Low Energy, which uses less power than regular Bluetooth for short-range connections.

It’s a shame that Sony didn’t push the boat out and include high-resolution codecs such as aptX HD, but as the Rolling Stones famously sang, “You can’t always get what you want”, and Sony tends to reserve higher codecs such as LDAC for its more premium models.

Sony claims a connection range of 10 metres for the headphones, and we don’t encounter any problems with connectivity within this radius.

Physical controls are housed on the right earcup, in the form of a three-button strip. Controls include Power on/off, Bluetooth pairing, skipping forwards and backwards, volume up/down, and answering, ending and rejecting calls. Skipping between songs is done by holding buttons either side of the central button for a couple of seconds, and we find ourselves accidentally raising the volume (which requires a single, unsustained press) from time to time.

Besides this small hiccup, however, we find that the buttons are responsive, large enough for most fingers and easy to use.

A single microphone handles calls, which is aided by AI-assisted noise reduction. When we test the call function, we find that our voices come across with a fairly full-bodied and clear sound that is perfectly acceptable for the price. We have no trouble hearing or being heard by the people we are speaking to.

While the built-in physical controls are all well and good, for further functionality, users can turn to the Sound Connect app, which is available for iOS and Android. The app provides a stable and intuitive control interface.

It features a 10-band equaliser, with set presets alongside personalisable EQ slots. The equaliser offers a useful range of tonal modification, and we enjoy the flexibility provided here.

Other features include the option to set a maximum headphone volume, a ‘Find Your Equaliser’ function, which runs a hearing test to help you identify your ideal EQ setting, and access to Sony’s Digital Sound Enhancement Engine (DSEE) – a proprietary Sony upscaling technology, which claims to restore frequencies lost during lossy audio compression. We find the feature works well, and adds a sense of air to our music.

Sony has also made the Sound Connect app compatible with certain immersive audio apps, such as 360 Reality Audio Live, Artist Connection and Nugs.

The headphones charge via a USB-C input on the right earcup. It is worth noting that this input does not accept audio, however, and can only be used for charging.

The WH-CH530’s battery life comes in at an impressive 55 hours for music playback, which drops to 35 hours for calls. We aren’t sure that even the most intense long-distance romance would require a 35 hour phone-call, but if it did, Sony claims these cans would be up to the task. After a full charge, we get through four days of frequent listening without needing to reach for the charging cable.

When the battery does eventually deplete, a fast charge of just three minutes will give you up to 1.5 hours of listening. Testing this function, we find that the Sonys give us more than enough charge for our similarly timed commute to work.

Sound

Given that these headphones are essentially the same design as their predecessors, we were intrigued to see whether Sony’s digital signal processing tweaks would deliver on their promise of a sonic boost. We are pleased to report, they most certainly do.

Right off the bat, the WH-CH530 establish themselves as a well-balanced, expressive, and frankly, surprisingly enjoyable listen for the price. They offer more insight than we are accustomed to in this budget price range, with an energetic, musical sound that keeps us interested in our music library.

Streaming Shrine by Chat Pile from Tidal, formidable, grungy bass arrives with a good degree of crunch and low-end power, while a tightly tuned kick drum hits appropriately hard, offering a well defined, thumping rhythm. Despite the power of the bass, these headphones do well not to overwhelm the midrange, and the gleam of guitars goes on undisturbed, but heartily supported.

The WH-CH530’s midrange is expressive by price standards. Listening to John Martyn’s Solid Air, the singer’s voice is well-textured and detailed enough to convey a real sense of subtle rasping tones when Martyn pushes his voice to its limits. Across frequencies, these headphones put in a nicely integrated performance, and the mid and high frequencies flow effortlessly into one another, without a defined or uneven-sounding border.

High frequencies, too, are lucid and expressive. The WH-CH530 bring the cymbals of Sonny Rollins’ I’m An Old Cowhand to life, allowing them to shine alongside a busy, energetic saxophone. Notably, these headphones balance shine and substance well, and the saxophone resists becoming shrill, retaining a sense of body even in combination with bright percussion. Admittedly, fine detail is somewhat reduced in the high frequencies, but for headphones at this price, these Sonys put in a solid effort.

Dynamically, clear improvements have been made over the previous model, and the WH-CH530 are sensitive enough to convey the subtle shifts in volume of Debussy’s Le Rappel Des Oiseaux with compelling gravitas. In pieces with a larger dynamic range, such as Stravinsky’s The Rite Of Spring, the WH-CH530 sound animated and impactful, even if they don’t quite have the headroom to provide the jumps in volume we would expect to hear from a more premium set of headphones.

During classical pieces and rock songs alike, these headphones pleasingly keep up with rhythms and don’t let us lose track of the pulse of our music. We find ourselves pulled into the songs we listen to, toes tapping and heads bobbing.

Verdict

The Sony WH-CH530 are highly talented performers within their price range. While Sony didn’t make many changes between this and the previous model, the work it has done has resulted in a small but definite step up in performance.

Considering that they’re pretty comfortable, sensibly specified and have a seriously competitive battery life, we think anyone searching for a pair of headphones that will be kind to both their music library and bank balance should pay serious attention to these budget Sony headphones.

Review published: 14th October 2026

SCORES

• Sound 5
• Build 4
• Features 5

MORE:

Read our review of the Sony WH-CH520

Want ANC? Consider the step-up Sony WH-CH730N

Best wireless headphones 2026: reviewed and rated by our in-house experts

Tired of losing your wireless earbuds? Constantly charging them? Or just want to see what all the fuss is about?

We are big fans of wired headphones here at What Hi-Fi?, and we have reviewed plenty of them in our 50-year history.

So if you want a cheap wired pair that also sound sonically sophisticated, our expert audio testers recommend the Sennheiser CX 80U, now only £30 at Amazon.

It’s safe to say our reviewers were amazed at how good these buds sounded at this price. So good, in fact, that we have just given them a What Hi-Fi? Award.

True enough, the Sennheiser CX 80U are indeed wired, with a small, lightweight design that’s ideal for travel. Their modest size means they fit snugly without protruding out of your ears, and they also provide good passive noise isolation.

Given the price, you may not be surprised to hear that features are limited, but that may well be part of the appeal of the wired headphone resurgence. The Sennheiser CX 80U do sport a USB-C connection, which is far more common on smartphones these days than the 3.5mm connection of old.

The built-in DAC can also support hi-res files up to 24-bit/96kHz natively, and there is also an inline remote control on the right cable to answer calls, play, pause and skip tracks.

And the all-important sound? Big, dynamic and sophisticated.

“What greets us is brilliantly judged sound that’s both rich, detailed and surprisingly sophisticated for the money,” our Sennheiser CX 80U review reads.

“15 Step by Radiohead is a tricky test of timing, and the Sennheisers pass with flying colours. Not only do they hold on to and organise all the different musical threads that intertwine throughout the track, but they also extract an impressive amount of information from them.”

There’s a fine space around the different elements too, and no obvious bias in their tonal balance.

This deal may be only £5 off, but that's a 14 per cent discount on an Award-winning pair of buds that were already at an excellent price. The CX 80U are our top choice, especially for £30 at Amazon; but if you’re considering your options, we also recommend these five-star buds:

MORE:

Also consider our SoundMagic E80D review

Best wired earbuds: top in-ear models tried and tested by our experts

The What Hi-Fi? Awards 2026 winners have been revealed!

Wireless headphones have changed the way we listen, but not necessarily for the better. Because perhaps more than any other device category, they embody the shift to convenience over quality that's an unfortunate byproduct of some advances in personal listening.

True, the best wireless headphones sound very good indeed – almost as good as the best wired headphones, in fact. But to hear them at their best requires not only high quality sound files, but for both your headphones and digital music source to support a good quality wireless codec.

With so many competing codecs around – some of which are only supported by a tiny proportion of smartphones – this is easier said than done.

Surely there must be an easier way. And as of late 2025, there is, courtesy of the Sennheiser HDB 630.

These cans don’t just sound great, they include an ingenious solution to the codec clash problem plaguing so many wireless listening sessions. They come with a wireless dongle that's bursting with codecs. That way, even iPhone owners can enjoy the delights of the various flavours of aptX via their wireless headphones.

The HDB 630 quickly earned rave reviews, lodged themselves in our various lists of best headphones (including best over-ear headphones, best wireless headphones and best noise-cancelling headphones), and recently won a coveted What Hi-Fi? Award.

Here’s the story behind how they were made.

Research and you will find

The wireless headphone market is fiercely competitive, so making a pair that stands out and genuinely does something new is a very tall order. Rather than just offering the usual glut of minor upgrades and a tweaked design, the Sennheiser team went big on the research. And they discovered some interesting tidbits.

"Our research showed that, on average, audiophiles only listened to music for one, or maybe one-and-a-half hours a day. And we asked ourselves why that was – these people love music, so why aren't they listening to it for longer?" says Wee Hong Kuan, Sennheiser's Senior Product Manager.

They worked out it was due to what's involved in getting top quality sound.

"The best sound relies on being tied to a home system with an amplifier, so we asked ourselves: What can we do about this?" he says. "How can we cut loose this audiophile sound without losing the quality they demand? How can we get them listening not just for 90 minutes a day, but all day, wherever they are?"

Like other headphone makers, Sennheiser is obsessed with sound quality, so it was already hard at work on that front. But it realised this is only one side of the coin. Its research revealed another startling statistic: less than 16 per cent of phones are compatible with aptX Adaptive, and less than 1 per cent work with aptX Lossless. Having the best-sounding headphones in the world isn't much use if the sources feeding them audio aren't up to the task.

Which is where the dongle comes in.

An ingenious solution

The BTD 700 brings support for up to 24-bit/96kHz hi-res quality via the best wireless codecs (including aptX Lossless and Auracast). And it brings them to any Bluetooth headphones – just plug it into your music source and connect it to the headphones over Bluetooth. It went on sale a few months before the HDB 630 launched, but the decision to bundle the two together was a canny one.

To realise just how much of a gamechanger it is, it's worth considering the sheer number of Bluetooth codecs there are available: you’ve got SBC, AAC, aptX, aptX HD, aptX Adaptive, aptX Lossless, LDAC, LHDC, L2HC, LC3, LC3+... It's an alphabet soup dumped on top of a word salad, followed by acronym crumble and initialism custard. Talk about making a meal out of it.

How many people know which codecs their phone or laptop supports? And whether their headphones support the same ones? Chances are, not many.

To make things more complicated, even the same model of certain Android phones will support different codecs depending on where they're sold – some Samsung Galaxy S handsets sold in the UK have Samsung Exynos processors instead of those made by Qualcomm, and so don't support Qualcomm's aptX codecs, for example.

Plug in the dongle, and all of this complexity disappears. Sennheiser estimates that it ups the percentage of phones able to support aptX Adaptive to over 80 per cent (that remaining 20 per cent accounts for all the Lightning port-based iPhones that are still in use, which don't work with the dongle's USB-C connection).

"That's the purpose of the BTD 700 – to erase these worries," says Kuan. "You don't have to worry about which codec your phone supports. You just need to make sure it has a compatible USB-C port." And that your headphones support the best codecs, of course.

This wasn't actually the first time Sennheiser bundled a dongle with a pair of headphones, though its previous offering was aimed more at business folk than audiophiles. The Accentum Special Edition (which are still on sale) come with a USB-A dongle for lower latency video calls on a PC. Though perhaps it could've done with a sound boost – the dongle-less version only scored three stars in our review.

Nevertheless, Sennheiser applied learnings from the Accentum model to the BTD 700.

A dongle isn't the most exciting product to look at – it's a dongle – but a lot of thought went into its design. Sennheiser added a groove near the USB-C connector to allow it to fit a phone that's wearing a case, and it had to be slim enough not to block vents or other ports on any phone, tablet or PC with which it's used.

The downside, of course, is that it's yet another thing to carry, and due to its compact size, it could be easily lost. Some users have taken to carrying it in a coin pouch when not in use, which isn't ideal. (Kuan recommends keeping it plugged into the HDB 630’s USB-C port when not in use.)

And of course, it's still limited by Bluetooth's bitrate, which posed a quandary for Sennheiser. "We had a decision to make," Kuan says. "Did we want high resolution but in a compressed format? Or to maintain a lower resolution, but lossless? That's the trade-off that we had to make. To achieve true hi-res lossless playback, a higher Bluetooth bandwidth will be needed to support that resolution. Which requires industry effort."

Even without the dongle, the HDB 630 fared very well in our review, thanks to their excellent sound quality and customisable features – like the parametric equaliser, which lets you not only input an exact number of Hz for your tuning preference rather than adjusting a slider, but also share your tuning via a QR code for anyone to scan and try out your preferences.

It's a compelling package that just goes to show, when you do your research, the rewards speak for themselves.

MORE:

Read our Sennheiser HDB 630 review

Check out the best wireless headphones

"Sound comes first" – we speak to Sennheiser about German engineering, changing ownership, and 80 years of making music

• Check out our best wireless headphones buying guide

• Check out our best wired headphones buying guide

It appears that sightings of people with cables hanging out of their ears are on the up, which must mean wired headphones are back in fashion, right?

Whether or not there’s any longevity in this latest trend remains to be seen, but it does feel like more headphone manufacturers are adding wired options to their model ranges, as an alternative to wireless earbuds.

However, because the 3.5mm headphone socket has become rarer on modern smartphones, you’re more likely to come across a pair with a USB-C connection than a 3.5mm jack, just like the Sennheiser CX 80U.

Now, with this category of headphone, you do need to bear in mind that some of the manufacturer's costs needs to be assigned to the built-in DAC (digital-to-analogue converter), which takes the digital signal from your source’s USB-C output and converts it into analogue for your ears, as well as a pair of amplifiers.

So when you look at the price of the Sennheisers, you’d be forgiven for wondering if this leaves any room to make an in-ear headphone that’s up to scratch sonically? Let’s find out.

Price

At just £35 / $40 / AU$59, the CX 80U sit firmly at the budget end of the wired earbuds market. The closest comparable pair that we have tested and rate highly is the USB-C-equipped SoundMagic E80D, which will set you back £39 / $44 / AU$66.

Design & comfort

Cheap and cheerful is the name of the game here, and that’s reflected in the build quality and plastics used in both the headphone cable and earbuds.

They’re a lightweight design, and the buds themselves are tiny, which means that although they can be a bit finicky to get to grips with, they do fit snugly and don’t protrude out of your ears.

Add the soft silicone eartips into the equation, which come in small, medium and large sizes, and everything adds up to a comfortable, discreet fit with good passive noise isolation.

There is some cable noise, which isn’t exactly unexpected given the design – what could be useful here is a rubber clasp that can keep the left and right earbud cables connected so there’s less rustling about when you’re on the move. This is something you do get with the SoundMagic E80D.

Features

Given their asking price, you won’t be unboxing the Sennheiser CX 80U expecting a long list of features.

There’s obviously the USB-C connection for your smartphone, tablet or laptop, inside of which sits the DAC, which converts all the digital files you feed into them.

Speaking of which, the DAC can support hi-res files up to 24-bit/96kHz natively and will downsample anything higher. We think this level of compatibility is going to be more than enough for most users.

The inline remote control is housed on the cable for the right earbud. You can answer calls, play, pause and skip tracks through different combinations of tapping and holding the button.

There aren't any volume controls on the remote, though – you’ll need to use your source device should you need to turn it up or down. And, being particularly picky, we’d like a simple travel pouch to keep them protected.

Sound

We plug the USB-C connector into an iPhone 15 Plus and are immediately taken aback by the surprising level of maturity and sophistication that greets us.

For the money, you might be expecting a slight imbalance at one end of the sound spectrum, either scratchy, wince-inducing highs or fat, blobby bass, but the CX 80U produce nothing of the sort.

In fact, what greets us is brilliantly judged sound that’s both rich, detailed and surprisingly sophisticated for the money.

15 Step by Radiohead is a tricky test of timing, and the Sennheisers pass with flying colours. Not only do they hold on to and organise all the different musical threads that intertwine throughout the track, but they also extract an impressive amount of information from them.

There’s a fine sense of space around the different elements too, and a sense of expression and natural tone from the vocal that poorer-performing in-ear headphones at this price just wouldn’t be able to provide.

And as we’ve mentioned, there’s no obvious bias in their tonal balance: highs sound crisp but never harsh. Bass notes have a wholesome flavour but don’t arrive at your ears overpowered and lacking definition.

We switch to Arctic Monkeys’ I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor and the Sennheisers display musicality in spades.

You’re encouraged to tap along to the brisk, pointed drum play. The CX 80U showcase speed and agility, and that goes for the accompanying electric guitar play too. The track is off to a frenzied start, but these earbuds don’t find themselves flapping. It’s a very mature sound for the money, and an even more rewarding listen than the SoundMagic E80D.

Each thwack from the drum kit sounds solid, the bassline is precisely cut and easy to follow, and the vocal is natural and expressive – the headphones do a great job of capturing Alex Turner’s northern swagger and keeping your attention all the way to the end of the track.

Verdict

If you’re tired of charging or losing your wireless earbuds, or just want to relive a time when wired earbuds were all the rage, we seriously recommend the Sennheiser CX 80U.

You might not be expecting much given the price, but we think you’ll be shocked – in the best way possible.

Review published: 9th October 2026

SCORES

• Sound 5
• Build 4
• Comfort 5

MORE:

Also consider the SoundMagic E80D

Best wired earbuds: top in-ear models tried and tested by our experts

If you're looking to elevate your desktop music listening or simply want to swap out your wireless earbuds for a wired pair (as is trendy these days), then Sennheiser has two wired models that are worth your attention.

We've tested both the Sennheiser HD 505 open-back wired over-ears and Sennheiser IE 200 in-ear headphones, praising their comfortable design and clear, smooth performance for the money. Both models are a great stepping stone into audiophile territory – Sennheiser has a strong 80-year reputation in the headphones market, and these models give a taste of what you can expect from the brand's more premium, five-star models.

The IE 200 and HD 505 are also on the affordable side, and you can even save a chunky amount off their full price if you check out Amazon's Big Prime Day sale that ends today.

The HD 505 are yours for £155 at Amazon (a big £75 discount), while the IE 200 are available for just £82 at Amazon (down from £130). So if you've been looking for the right time to treat yourself to a wired headphones upgrade, now could be the time to pounce.

Despite being very different headphone designs, both Sennheiser models have one thing in common: they're a likeable listen right from the start.

The IE 200 in-ear headphones have a clear, spacious and rich sound that we found "instantly likeable" when we tested them, and similarly priced wireless earbuds don't get close to the "level of openness, clarity and insight" that these wired models offer. They sound well-organised at either end of the frequency, with a good deal of authority, too.

They are well built, come with six ear tip choices in total (it's worth trying the different sizes and material types to ensure you get that rich, weighty sound we describe) and it ends in a 3.5mm connector that can be plugged into your laptop, MP3 player or smartphone (Sony still provides a 3.5mm headphone jack).

The HD 505 are a different proposition altogether, with an open-back design that means they're best suited to listening at home, as they will leak sound. The upside of this design is a wonderfully airy and spacious soundstage compared with closed-back alternatives.

They have a particular talent with voices, which are delivered with subtlety and refinement, while the smooth yet breathable top end makes sure everything from your Spotify/Tidal playlists to Netflix TV show binges remains easy to listen to.

These are comfortable, lightweight over-ear headphones to wear for hours on end, with plush velour ear cushions (which are replaceable) and an adjustable headband that keeps things secure but not too tight.

The HD 505 come with a long cable ending in a 3.5mm plug and a 6.3mm adaptor, which means they can be plugged into your laptop, DAC, or even a variety of hi-fi systems.

We did point the same criticism at both Sennheiser models: that they could do with more attack and bite overall, with greater punch to the bottom end and more revealing detail – qualities their rivals are able to display – hence the four-star rating for both. However, don't let that deter you: their smooth, clear and refined balance is exactly what we loved about them, and we think many will favour their particular sonic balance, too.

So pick your poison: a clear, rich-sounding wired in-ear experience with the Sennheiser IE 200, or a comfortable, refined and spacious at-home listen with the open-back HD 505 headphones. Both Sennheiser models are good value (and even more so if you take advantage of today's Amazon Prime Day deals), but whichever model you choose, you'll be on the first step of your audiophile journey.

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While jaw-dropping hi-fi deals are thin on the ground this October Prime Day, we do have the usual assortment of wireless headphones savings to wade through.

One such deal you might stumble upon is for the Sonos Ace. You can currently buy the black version for just £206 on Amazon, which is their lowest price ever.

Now, given they originally cost £449 when they launched back in 2024, it's quite frankly a ridiculous discount.

But as big as the discount is (it’s actually their lowest price to date) and as satisfying as it feels saving a huge wad of cash on the original asking price, I would recommend putting your money elsewhere this Prime Day.

I would actually recommend buying a brand new pair of wireless headphones instead. Now, it might sound counterintuitive to buy something full price in the midst of a sale, but I genuinely believe the pair that I’m about to recommend will suit most people most of the time.

If you’re a big Sonos user, I can see why you might be tempted by the Sonos Ace, but in my opinion, if you really want to go down this route, I would wait for a deal on the Sonos Ace Ultra.

They are a much more convincing proposition than the original model. There have been some big improvements in the noise-cancelling and sound quality departments, and while they cost £399, I think they are worth getting instead. Fingers crossed for a deal this upcoming Black Friday.

Instead of the Sonos Ace, I would seriously consider the Sony WH-1000XM4C. These wireless, ANC headphones are fresh from a five-star review, and I think they are one of the standout models of 2026 so far. At £219 on Amazon, I think they deliver a fantastic blend of awesome performance and excellent value even at their full asking price.

The Sonys are comfortable to listen to for long periods, their noise-cancelling is excellent, and the sound quality is as musical and entertaining as it gets at this price. Yes, the Sonos might look and feel more premium, but their ANC isn’t as good, and they are seriously lacking in the sound quality stakes, with only average levels of detail and dynamics.

The Sonys boast 27-hour battery life with ANC on, Bluetooth 6.0 support and also have features like Bluetooth Multipoint, Speak-To-Chat and wearing detection.

In our Sony WH-1000XM4C review, we say “If you don’t want to stretch into that upper tier of wireless headphones where Sennheiser, Bose and even Sony themselves sit, the WH-1000XM4C are going to be more than enough headphone for most people.”

It might seem strange recommending a full-price pair of headphones during Prime Day, but some deals aren’t always the great option they initially appear…

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Looking to expand your record collection? Here are the best vinyl bargains from Amazon's Big Deal Days

One of the finest Dolby Atmos systems you can buy has a new lowest price – but not at Amazon

Ask anyone 'Who makes the best wireless earbuds?' and they'll probably mention Sony, Bose and Sennheiser. But it was Technics that won the most recent What Hi-Fi? Award for best premium pair – that honour went to the stunning EAH-AZ100, which have now fallen to their lowest price ever.

Keen to see what all the fuss is about? This is the perfect time – they're now just £180 at Amazon, a discount of £79 on their RRP, and a tenner cheaper than their previous low price during Prime Day over the summer. Get in.

A pricey option at the time of their release, the Technics nonetheless landed themselves a stint as our best premium pick on our best wireless earbuds page.

With a 10mm “Magnetic Fluid Driver”, these earbuds have a clear, spacious sound that gives each part of a composition ample breathing room.

Reviewing the EAH-AZ100, we were struck immediately by their “clear and open sound“ and “superb amount of detail”. Digging, deeper, we found them to be punchy, present and dynamically impactful – a combination that ultimately earned them a five-star review.

Complementing their sonic merits, the Technics are also small, light, and comfortable to wear over long periods of time. Touch controls for audio modes, playback and volume are fully customisable, so you can use them any way you please.

A strong and stable Bluetooth connection (with support for SBC, AAC, LDAC and the LC3 codec) means you are unlikely to find yourself grieving a wired option, especially given the earbuds’ impressive 10-hour battery life with ANC enabled.

Used alongside the charging case, their battery life rises to 28 hours.

Nobody, it seems, can keep up with the class-leading noise cancellation of Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen), but the Technics make an honourable attempt, with an effect “like heavy snowfall muffling the world”.

They also feature an Adaptive mode, which automatically adjusts noise-cancelling based on your environment. Alternately, of course, you have the option to dial the intensity up or down yourself.

For a cherry on top, these earbuds include three-way Bluetooth Multipoint connectivity, allowing for connection to multiple devices at once, as well as support for Auracast transmission.

Conventionally, the main drawback of a premium product is its price, but given that these headphones are now available for £180 from Amazon, in this instance, you can have your cake and eat it.

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Read our full Technics EAH-AZ100 review

Visit our best wireless earbuds 2026: seven sensational pairs reviewed and rated by our experts

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Great cheap wireless earbuds might be ten a penny nowadays, but that wasn't always the case. Just a few years ago, cheap pairs were best avoided by anyone who valued sound quality. That all changed with the launch of the Earfun Air.

They were the first budget earbuds to earn five stars from us, and that's despite competition from some very big brands. They genuinely kickstarted the budget 'buds revolution, and now here they are six years later, dropping to a new low price.

They're now just £21 at Amazon, to be exact – down from their launch price of £55. A great price for a pair of genuinely groundbreaking earbuds.

We originally reviewed the EarFun Air back in 2020, but that doesn't mean they don't continue to earn a solid recommendation from us as some of the best budget wireless earbuds you can buy.

Nowadays, you'll see the likes of Sony dominating the affordable wireless earbuds market, with the WF-C510 and WF-C710N, but EarFun kickstarted the current trend for well-specced wireless headphones that cost very little.

At first glance, the EarFun Air true wireless earbuds may seem too good to be true. But that's not the case. An extensive feature list includes voice assistance, an IPX7 waterproof rating, a wireless charging case and Bluetooth 5.0 support.

Not forgetting the impressively long battery life of 35 hours, seven from the buds and a further 28 from the charging case. And they certainly don't feel cheap either, with a pretty classy build and finish, including four tip sizes to choose from. More than we'd expect for earbuds this cheap.

But, how do they sound? In our full review, our expert testers said: "Fans of a grippy, energetic listen to get you through a workout will find much to enjoy here."

Adding: "While similar budget-friendly headphones can come off somewhat congested, here the design of the driver and earpiece (which doesn’t sit too far into the ear canal) allows for a pleasant and spacious presentation."

They're not noise-cancelling earbuds, but you'd be seriously hard pushed to find that at this price. Fortunately, given their age, you'll often find a discount on the EarFun Air. But, this is the best price we've ever seen, so grab them while you can for just £21 at Amazon.

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Read the full Earfun Air review

Check out the best cheap wireless headphones, tested by our experts

And the best wireless earbuds: top pairs tested by our reviewers

Sony loves a good discount during sales periods, and this year's Amazon Big Deal Days, AKA Prime Day 2, is no different.

The brand's flagship wireless headphones, the Sony WH-1000XM6, are fabulous all-rounders, and now that they've dropped from their usual retail price of £399 to just £319 at Amazon, we can imagine that you're tempted to dive in and grab a pair.

It's not a bad idea, but just hold fire for a second. The XM6s' Award-winning predecessors, the WH-1000XM5, are also heavily discounted, dropping from £380 to just £192 at Amazon, a mega saving of £188.

Looks like you've got a tough decision to make....

Best Prime Day Sony wireless headphones deals

Right then, two pairs of flagship Sony over-ear wireless headphones, but which pair should you pick this Amazon Prime Day?

For sheer value, we'd direct you towards the WH-1000XM5. They're not Sony's newest cans anymore, but the XM5 remain a sensational option for anyone seeking great sound, high-performance features, and a comfortable, premium-feeling design.

Plus, you're getting all that Sony quality for one of the lowest prices we've yet seen on the former flagships.

30 hours of battery with ANC on? Check. DSEE upscaling for cleaning up lower-quality files? Check. Support for Sony's 360 Reality Audio and higher-res LDAC codec? Check. A five-star review and a few What Hi-Fi? Awards for their trouble? Also check.

The WH-1000XM6 are, essentially, a case of 'more of the same but better'. All of the same features as above are transferred across to the new flagbearers, including 30 hours of battery, DSEE and 360 Reality Audio, now bolstered by even better noise cancelling and the ability to fold away into a ball.

They take the XM5s' sound to a new level, too, offering a step above the XM5 in terms of detail, dynamics and openness. Both pairs are a joy to listen to, but if you want the best wireless sound that Sony has to offer, it's the WH-1000XM6 every day of the week.

A tricky decision to make, but neither pair will leave you feeling short-changed. Check out the XM5 and XM6 on Amazon and save yourself a packet.

MORE:

The best Amazon Big Deal Days savings on headphones, OLED TVs, Dolby Atmos soundbars and more, direct from our experts

Love Sony? Read our recent Sony WH-1000XM4C review

These are the best wireless headphones you can buy

It’s not often a new product announcement catches us off guard, but the news that Sony was launching the WH-1000XM4C came as quite a shock. A huge brand reviving a classic pair of wireless headphones is something we haven’t really seen before.

But you can see why Sony chose this particular pair. The original WH-1000XM4 were hugely popular, so much so that they’re the first and only pair of wireless headphones to currently be featured in the What Hi-Fi? Hall of Fame.

They’re also one of the few models you regularly see when you’re in the wild, which shows the general public were quite fond of them too.

Nostalgia is all well and good, and we’re excited to have them back, but is this new version of a six-year-old model still competitive? Let’s find out.

Price

Thankfully, Sony’s seen sense when it comes to pricing the WH-1000XM4C. £219 / $300 / AU$450 keeps them away from flagship rivals from Bose, Sennheiser and Technics and positions them as an ‘entry-level’ proposition for Sony’s premium range of wireless headphones.

There’s a big enough gap between the new model and the step-up WH-1000XM6, which launched for £400 / $450 / AU$699 last year. Don’t forget Sony also now has a top-of-the-range offering, the 1000X The Collexion, which cost £550 / $650 / AU$900 and went on sale in May 2026.

Ironically, the biggest competition for the WH-1000XM4C at the time of writing is Sony’s very own WH-1000XM5, which we first tested at £380 / $399 / AU$550 back in 2022. This older flagship pair, which succeeded the XM4, can currently be found for almost half price. This puts them in the same ballpark as the new WH-1000XM4C and they will probably stay there until end-of-life, which Sony has told us is likely to be around February 2027.

Design & build

To all intents and purposes, the design and build of the WH-1000XM4C are virtually identical to that of the original model. During testing, we have a pair of the original XM4 on hand, just so we can compare the two, which gives us an excuse for a quick game of spot the difference.

The changes are subtle, with the Sony logo now more of a silver colour than rose gold. You also get the letters ‘L’ and ‘R’ stamped on the inner mesh of each earcup so you immediately know which way round they need to be. The model name has been removed from the bottom edge of the headband, and the ‘custom’ button has been renamed ‘NC/Ambient’ which better reflects its function.

The button positioning hasn’t changed, so you’ll still find this and the power/pairing button towards the lower edge of the left earcup. The USB-C charging socket is on the right cup.

The key difference is internal, but not where you might think. The driver is the same 40mm unit that was used in the original XM4.

It’s the battery that has seen the biggest change. Or should that be smallest? Sony has added a smaller battery which is now removable and means the headphones now comply with the EU battery regulation (EU) 2023/1542.

This new regulation comes into force in February 2027 and stipulates that portable batteries need to be able to be removed by the end user. This wasn’t possible with the original XM4 model. And before you ask, yes, the smaller battery does mean you get shorter battery life, but more on that later.

Generally speaking, though, the headphones look and feel virtually identical. According to the specs, there’s only one gram difference in terms of weight, with the new model being a tiny bit lighter, but you’re not going to notice this either in-hand or, more importantly, on your head.

These headphones feel just as sturdy as we remember them. The black finish of our review sample has an identical matte texture, which is smooth and premium-feeling. The plastic buttons feel the same quality, as does the padding on both the earpads and headband.

We find the WH-1000XM4C comfortable for both short and long listening sessions, which is just what you want for headphones of this type, especially if they’re going to be your main travel buddy. They don’t grip your head as strongly as their pricier WH-1000XM6 siblings, but it’s still very good for daily use.

The WH-1000XM4C are hinged and fold up properly, which is great news if you prefer this kind of portability over the store-flat design of the WH-1000XM5. They come with a sturdy carry case (the design of which has been tweaked ever so slightly) which includes a 3.5mm headphone cable inside for wired listening.

Sony has introduced a new lavender finish for the XM4C, which goes with the standard platinum silver (which Sony claims is a little lighter than before) and black options. There’s no midnight blue variant, which is a finish Sony introduced for XM4 during its life cycle.

Features

As we touched on previously, the introduction of a smaller battery has affected the battery life of the WH-1000XM4C compared to the original model. It’s down from 30 hours to 27 hours with ANC on, although we don’t think it's likely to put too many buyers off.

The headphones feature Sony’s DSEE Extreme engine, which has been around since the original XM4 and aims to upscale compressed music to near hi-res quality. It also adds a splash of artificial intelligence technology (called Edge-AI), which claims to analyse and give a more accurate presentation of the music being played.

The WH-1000XM4C get Bluetooth 6.0 support and offer Multipoint Bluetooth, but there’s still no aptX or aptX HD support. This isn’t a major surprise as Sony’s headphones tend to steer clear of these codecs, instead favouring their own LDAC option for higher-quality streaming from compatible sources.

The usability features at your disposal with the original model make a return, such as Speak-To-Chat and Quick Attention. The former enables their transparency mode by just speaking, while the latter lowers the volume of your music when you cover the right earcup so you can quickly hear your surroundings.

They’re both nice to have but not imperative to the user experience.

Noise-cancelling & call quality

The headphones are once again powered by the same HD Noise Cancelling Processor QN1, which featured on the XM4 (which has since been superseded in newer models like XM5 and XM6) and call upon Sony’s Personal NC Optimiser to maximise the noise cancelling performance.

Give the NC/Ambient button a long press to kick the Optimiser into gear, and the Sonys will run a quick auto-calibration program by firing a couple of test tones in the direction of your ears before the algorithm works out the best ANC for your listening environment.

And we can report that the noise cancelling from the WH-1000XM4C is very competitive. We certainly have no real issues using them out and about, and whether they’re given the task of subduing a coffee machine and chatter in a busy cafe, or the drone and rumble of a bus engine, the Sonys do a very good job.

Yes, the ANC systems of more expensive wireless headphones are more finessed when push comes to shove, but you can’t really argue with what you’re getting for the money here.

With phone calls, it’s a similar story. Our voices come through with a good level of clarity and expression. Exterior noise doesn’t intrude too much, and we don’t sound robotic, distorted or muffled, which can happen with poorer-performing mic systems. We actually think the XM4C do a slightly better job of suppressing wind noise than their predecessors.

Sound

It doesn’t take long for us to remember why we were such huge fans of the original Sony WH-1000XM4. It was the impressive and infectious sense of musicality that got under our skin, and the WH-1000XM4C delivers it in spades.

We start with a blast of electronic dance music in the form of Turn On the Lights Again by Fred Again… and Swedish House Mafia, and it’s not long before our head is bobbing along in agreement with the headphones and their infectious sense of timing.

They’re a hugely enjoyable and entertaining listen. There’s something about the way they combine dynamics, detail and rhythm that keeps you entertained from the first second to the last.

The deep, wallowing bass notes that surface as the track progresses impress with their depth, but they’re dextrous and neatly defined.

Sprinkle in an open, precise vocal and some punchy, projectile electronica, and we soon find ourselves caught in a musical trance.

We take that energy and add a huge dollop of attitude by playing Rage Against The Machine’s Killing In The Name, and the WH-1000XM4C deliver more of the same.

We are talking powerful, solid drum thwacks, tight guitar strings and an expressive vocal all sat on a quiet background. The opening salvo of the track delivers explosive drum play, a tidily delivered guitar riff and a couple of clear, nicely defined taps on a cowbell.

The XM4C sound as balanced as you could hope for from a pair of wireless headphones at this level. You can access a ten-band equaliser through Sony’s Sound Connect app should you want to play around with their sonic balance, but we really don’t think it’s necessary.

Compared to the original XM4, the WH-1000XM4C do sound better – Sony has tightened the bass ever so slightly, sharpening and cleaning the edges, and you’re also getting a slightly more open sound.

But this hasn’t been done at the expense of cohesiveness or bass weight: there’s still plenty of heft in reserve, but we think it’s better controlled this time around.

They’re just so fun and musical, whatever your sonic taste. We switch to the slow-burning Day One track from the Interstellar OST, and there’s a real delicacy to the piano playing at the start of the track. The low-level dynamics from each keystroke really shine through.

Background noise is kept to a minimum, and when the rest of the orchestra starts to bleed into the picture, you can hear the Sonys step in to extract an impressive amount of detail. Edges of notes are nicely defined, and it’s a convincing presentation.

When the track starts to swell from below and stretch up high courtesy of the strings and organ, the headphones move on the same trajectory, delivering a rocketship’s worth of dynamics.

Verdict

A 1000X model is normally introduced as a flagship proposition from Sony, so seeing the WH-1000XM4C arrive in 2026 as an ‘entry-level’ premium model takes a little getting used to, but listen to them and it all makes sense.

If you don’t want to stretch into that upper tier of wireless headphones where Sennheiser, Bose and even Sony themselves sit, the WH-1000XM4C are going to be more than enough headphone for most people.

They’re a great blend of performance, features and comfort at a competitive price. An easy recommendation at this level.

Review published: 5th October 2026

SCORES

• Sound 5
• Features 5
• Comfort 5

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Also consider the Sony WH-1000XM5

For a cheaper pair, read our Sony WH-CH730N review

Best over-ear headphones: wired and wireless pairs tested by our in-house experts

Talk about big shoes to fill.

The Award-winning WH-CH720N may not have been Sony’s most premium over-ear wireless headphones, but these budget cans proved that great sound and stellar noise-cancelling were available at a sensible, affordable price. For pure sound-for-pound value, few contemporaries came close.

Following such excellence is like walking on stage after Jimi Hendrix has just played his iconic Woodstock set, or donning the famous Number 10 jersey after Lionel Messi bade farewell to that peerless Barcelona side. That is the task of the WH-CH730N, Sony’s successors to the excellent CH720N and the brand’s most affordable headphones to feature active noise cancellation.

Thankfully, the new Sony WH-CH730N appear to be up to the task. With a new look, an expanded feature set and a fine-tuned sound, they appear to have everything that it takes to pick up the gauntlet laid down by their predecessors and really run with it.

Price

We have some bad news for our US readers: the WH-CH730N are more expensive than their predecessors. The WH-CH720N launched at $129, whereas the WH-CH730N have arrived at $180, making them around $50 more if you’re in the States.

Don’t be too glum, as it’s not all bad news. If you live in Australia, the WH-CH730N are actually cheaper than before, dropping from AU$250 to AU$230, while UK readers can rest easy knowing that the new cans are priced at £100, the same initial RRP as their forebears.

At this level, the WH-CH730N are reasonably short on competition. The excellent Austrian Audio Hi-X25BT remain a quality pick at £129 / $129 / AU$255, but they don’t offer active noise cancellation (ANC). If you want to go cheaper, the new budget WH-CH530 on-ears are now available at £50 / $70 / AU$100, but also don’t have ANC, while the step-up Sony WH-1000XM4C have launched at £219 / $300 / AU$450.

Build & comfort

This is where we thought the WH-CH720N could stand to be improved, and lo and behold, this appears to be where Sony has been putting in the hard yards.

The new cans’ more premium look and feel belies their modest outlay, with their predecessors' basic plastic ear cups replaced by larger, more oval alternatives that have a greater air of quality about them. The on-cup button controls still feel a little cheap and plasticky, but they do their respective jobs just fine, and that’s what really matters at this kind of money.

Better still, the new budget Sonys are more ergonomic to live with thanks to their new folding capabilities, a talent that was lacking in the rigid WH-CH720N. We’ve spent time taking the WH-CH730N out and about on our travels – on a train to the office, in a bag on the way to work, on dog walks – and we haven’t perceived any glaring points of weakness or concern.

Even those hinges, which swivel from side to side and now up and inwards, feel like they could repeat such motions for many years before giving up the ghost.

Comfort-wise, we’re in good hands. Both the headband and ear cushions are reasonably forgiving and well padded for headphones of this type and price, while a reasonably slim profile and light overall weight of just 207g means they’re not much of a burden during extended wear. The clamping force is nicely judged, too, with our sample pair clinging nicely to our skull as we take them for a brisk walk with Juno the What Hi-Fi? hound in tow.

The WH-CH730N are a little heavier than before, yet not to the extent that your head suddenly feels like Atlas straining to hold up the heavens. Plus, their ear cushions are now fuller and plusher, which aids comfort and improves passive noise isolation.

Internally, not much has changed from one generation to the next. The CH730N retain the same 30mm dynamic drive units as the last-gen model, with Sony promising improved sonic tuning to squeeze out even more performance from an Award-winning formula.

Features

Modest price, monster battery life.

The WH-CH730N boast a huge 50 hours of battery life when ANC is in play, which extends to a gigantic 75 hours with noise cancelling switched off – which certainly surpasses the previous generation’s figures. Better still, a three-minute quick charge will grant around an hour of playback, a useful facility if you’ve run out of juice and need to get your headphones back in action in a hurry.

Despite their modest outlay, the new over-ears also pack the kind of extra – dare we say premium – features to make a money-conscious buyer feel positively spoiled. Bluetooth Multipoint lets you stay connected and switch between two devices on the fly, whereas Sony's ever-helpful DSEE sound upscaling algorithm cleans up low-quality, heavily compressed audio files.

There’s even support for 360 Reality Audio, Sony’s own take on spatial sound, from supported streaming services such as Amazon Music Unlimited, a feature we wouldn’t expect to find for a pair of over-ears at this kind of money. Add active noise cancelling into the mix, and you’ve got a set of headphones that do a lot for not much cash.

The only thing that might raise a few eyebrows is the absence of any higher-quality codecs, such as aptX HD or LDAC, but given the budget price at which we’re operating, the omission is understandable.

Delve into the comprehensive Sony SoundConnect app, and you’ll find even more tricks and treats to enjoy. Aside from an intuitive 10-band equaliser and ANC mode toggling, you can set up a shortcut to the likes of Apple Music, Spotify and Amazon Music via a ‘Quick Access’ button, or use a ‘Battery Care’ setting to extend your headphones’ lifespan by stopping charging before the battery gets completely full.

ANC & call quality

Sony has claimed clearer voice calls for the WH-CH730N thanks to its updated AI noise reduction algorithm, which seeks to enhance human speech while dampening the clamour of the outside world.

The new headphones’ noise cancelling has been improved, too, with a refined V1 processor and ‘Dual Noise Sensor' technology working alongside an array of four beamforming microphones and thicker, more isolating ear cushions to keep environmental noise at bay.

As far as noise cancelling goes, we’re granted a satisfactory experience. Naturally, the flagship WH-1000XM6 cans are more powerful, but the WH-CH730N keep the general background hum of life – distant chatter, buzzing light fittings, passing traffic – nicely subdued.

The barrier they provide, however, isn’t impenetrable, and while this is a good sound-per-pound performance, blind spots arise. Sit in an office with a few chattering co-workers, and you’ll soon realise that, while nearby voices are softened, speech is still often discernible.

If you don’t want the full details of your colleagues’ plans to redecorate their downstairs bathroom or their kids’ upcoming school play, it might be worth saving up for a more premium and capable ANC pair.

What about voice calls? In this regard, Sony’s wallet-friendly noise cancellers are excellent, with human speech conveyed in a clear, natural and emotive manner. We get a firm sense of the headphones pushing voices to the fore, all while effectively minimising intrusive background noise as we conduct our testing next to a busy road.

Sound

For a few brief, sickening moments, we fear that Sony has taken a good thing and ruined it. Out of the box, the new WH-CH730N don’t seem to have the energy, presence or clarity of their Award-winning predecessors, and that’s enough to make a grown man shed salt tears.

Thankfully, our fears are soon allayed. The new-gen headphones’ default tuning is a little muffled and bass-heavy, but once we dive into the Sony app and switch them to the ‘Clear’ equaliser setting, things quickly sound far more open and revealing. We’d urge you to do the same, and while you’re there, make sure DSEE upscaling is up and running, because for us at least, it wasn’t switched on right off the bat.

After making the aforementioned tweaks, and giving them plenty of running-in time to really loosen up, our consternation turns to elation as it becomes clear that Sony has done it again – the WH-CH730N are stellar cans and then some.

Let’s be clear that this is evolution rather than wholesale reinvention, with the WH-CH730N taking everything we liked about the WH-C720N and refining it to superb effect. The newer headphones are clearer, more natural-sounding and a little more full-bodied than before, offering a presentation that expertly rides the line between punch and precision.

Like the brand’s best offerings, the WH-CH730N just seem to tune straight into the emotional intent of each song they play and then reveal it with enthusiastic élan. From artist to artist and track to track, Sony’s budget noise cancellers sound effortlessly involving regardless of what is played through them.

Feeling sad? The WH-CH730N bring a rich, sombre melancholy to Johnny Cash’s Hurt. Need a pick-me-up? Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal is as sharp and snappy as Jacko’s pristine white suit. Want to headbang until your nose bleeds? Trivium’s Like Light To The Flies pulses with thrilling intent.

Admittedly, these are headphones that slightly prioritise entertainment over out-and-out insight, but at this level, that’s both understandable and expected. That said, instrumental textures are still conveyed with power and depth, with the Sonys capably filling in the gaps to prevent music from sounding blocky or unsubtle.

Best of all, Sony’s budget belters have a double-sided trump card. Dynamically, they’re hugely expressive, while rhythmic patterns are revealed with all of the agility of a Border Collie at Crufts. Put the two together, and Tool’s progressive Forty Six & 2 becomes a three-dimensional powerhouse as the WH-CH730N convey every subtle dynamic variation while tracking interlocking bass and guitar strands with zealous precision.

Verdict

These Sony headphones are a delight. If your budget doesn’t stretch to the upper echelons of the market’s premium players but you still want decent noise cancelling and an expressive, deeply engaging sound, these are great-value headphones.

The Sony CH730N retain the same articulate, entertaining character that we so admired in their highly recommendable predecessors and elevate it to new heights, while still keeping it at a price that is acceptable to many. For a budget pair, they come highly recommended.

Review published: 2nd October

SCORES

• Sound 5
• Build 5
• Features 5

MORE:

Read our review of the Austrian Audio Hi-X25BT

Best over-ear headphones: wired and wireless pairs tested by our in-house experts

Cambridge Audio has announced a special-edition twist on its affordable Melomania A100 wireless earbuds.

The new Melomania A100 SE offer a twist on the standard buds, bringing Dolby Audio and a new blue finish into the mix.

The special edition buds use the same Class A/B amplification found in Cambridge’s established CX and EX lines, paired with a set of 10mm neodymium drivers to deliver what the brand characterises as “deeper bass, richer mids, and crystal-clear highs” designed to “make music feel even more alive”.

The new earbuds also benefit from dedicated Qualcomm Kalimba digital signal processing for a more refined, less distorted sound, while Snapdragon Sound helps achieve a more stable low-latency connection. The Melomania A100 SE also support the higher-quality aptX Lossless and LDAC codecs for accepting files up to 24-bit/96kHz.

As before, adaptive hybrid noise cancelling is featured, with a standard setting sitting alongside a transparency mode for letting in more of the outside world. A six-microphone array, meanwhile, aims for “exceptional call clarity” on the go.

The new buds’ Dolby Audio spatial sound capabilities are accessible via the Melomania Connect app, delivering spatial audio with a “natural, lifelike presentation” for movies, music and games.

The special-edition buds grant more playtime than their standard counterparts, with 6.5 hours from the buds and up to 39 hours of total battery life available with noise cancelling switched off.

Cambridge’s latest wireless earbuds also come equipped with touch controls which can be customised via the accompanying app.

The Cambridge Audio Melomania A100 SE are available this October in black, white or blue finishes, priced at £129 / $149/ €149. For context, the standard edition of the A100 launched last year at £119 / €139.

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When Technics set about making plans for its new flagship wireless headphones, the EAH-A1000, it knew it couldn't just enlarge the 10mm Magnetic Fluid Driver used in the five-star, Award-winning EAH-AZ100 wireless earbuds and call it a day.

The magnetic fluid technology – an oil-like substance with magnetic properties that reduces the rocking vertical movement of the diaphragm without adding mass – worked successfully in delivering a clear, detailed and low-distortion sound in the AZ100 buds. But the larger 40mm drivers required in an over-ear model proved a greater challenge.

As part of the pre-launch briefing of Technics' new EAH-A1000 over-ear wireless headphones, I got a chance to hear from Technics' headphones and acoustic departments in Tokyo about the trial-and-error process for developing the new flagship headphones' drivers, along with an extensive look at all the elements inside them – so here's a closer look at the new drivers of the A1000 headphones.

Magnetic fluid driver: the next chapter

Planning for the EAH-A1000 over-ears started pretty much after the AZ100 buds, with the question: "Can magnetic fluid work in a 40mm driver?"

A larger driver results in greater excursion, more possibility for flexing, and more scope for distortion. Simply using the same tech in a bigger driver "didn't deliver the sound we were aiming for," says Technics. The magnetic fluid sits between the voice coil and driver magnet, and is able to precisely support the driver's movement so it is more consistent, but too much damping could limit the natural expression of music.

While excited by the potential of the magnetic fluid technology, Technics' goal wasn't to simply build a larger driver, says Riku Takeda, acoustic engineer at Technics. It was to "create a new over-ear headphone driver that could go beyond hi-fi speaker performance."

The main aim for this new driver was to reduce distortion as much as possible for a clearer, cleaner sound, but without sacrificing the power, detail or natural resonances of music. And so the newly developed 40mm drivers in the A1000 feature a combination of technologies, all with the aim of delivering an immersive listening experience.

The first of these new technologies takes inspiration from the brand's own hi-fi speakers, with the modified magnetic fluid drivers enhanced with an SST (Symmetrical Surround Technology) Edge. This is a similar technology used in Technics' flagship SB-R1 speakers.

This surround's distinctive shape ensures that a symmetrical volume of air is displaced by the backward and forward movement of the driver. The cuts in the surround increase the flexibility of the edge, while also reducing distortion.

"No compromise on shape; no compromise on material"

Additionally, the diaphragm of the driver is made of a "pure carbon fibre" material, chosen for its lightweight and rigid properties that ensure fast, responsive performance. Technics further clarifies that this 'pure' carbon fibre material isn't composed exclusively of carbon fibre, but it refers to a "non-composite, non-laminated" diaphragm construction. A very thin but stiff layer, essentially.

As larger drivers naturally flex more as they move, Technics settled upon a complex shape consisting of a cone and a raised dome to further stabilise the movement of the driver.

This posed another challenge, as the mould for this complex geometry (in the relatively small dimensions of a headphone driver) was difficult to produce in mass quantities consistently without deformations.

The team experimented with alternative shapes and materials to get a more stable, consistent moulding, with a long trial-and-error process – but every 'solution' resulted in a less-than-ideal sound. A flatter cone geometry would make things simpler, but it resulted in a less powerful, muddier and less clear sound. A laminated structure would improve moulding stability, but it delivered a narrower soundstage compared with the pure carbon fibre material.

Ultimately, Technics decided that the compromises to the sound quality were simply "not acceptable to us", and ploughed ahead with these two necessary elements of the complex shape of the diaphragm, with some solutions, to achieve the desired sound that Technics wanted. This included strengthening the carbon fibre material itself by changing the direction of the fibres woven in, and adding a 'rib' to the dome to add stability.

Technics says it's a combination of all these different technologies, not just one element, of the new driver that is key to delivering accurate bass, clear highs, and a natural spatial expression from the A1000 headphones.

The development doesn't stop at the drivers themselves. The new 'baffle flat structure' minimises the uneven surfaces around the driver to reduce the effect of unwanted reflections, while an 'acoustic control chamber' behind the driver helps to manage airflow.

These combine to deliver a "natural sound field with clear imaging" and to ensure the sound is balanced without emphasising any specific frequency range.

Sound quality is just one aspect of the Technics EAH-A1000. Every product in Technics is guided by three philosophies: sound, technology and design.

The design of the headphones and all the necessary features (connectivity, ANC, call quality) need to be up to scratch, too, with Technics acknowledging that "personal audio" products such as headphones have huge demands from customer expectations these days. Over-ear headphones are more visible than earbuds, too, so achieving the design and style of the premium A1000 to a high level became even more important.

The design of the new over-ears – from the slender 'flow arm' structure, the headband's clamping pressure, and evenly distributed plush memory foam cushions – has been given as much care and attention by the Technics team.

We're shown various prototypes of different ear cushion shapes, arm structures and variations in the spun metal plate with the Technics logo adorned (check out the gallery above) – examples of more trial-and-error processes undergone by the design team to achieve the 'right' look and feel for the EAH-A1000 headphones.

The philosophy remains the same

Ultimately, though, anything that affects sound quality will need final approval by the acoustics team, as for Technics, the sound philosophy is most important.

"If sound quality isn't achieved to our high standard level, we don't bring it to the market," says Technics. Every audio product, including the EAH-A1000, is subject to the approval process by Technics' internal Sound Committee, which includes Yu Tanaka, who was responsible for the magnetic fluid driver in the A1000 and set the targets for the headphones' sound quality, and Technics' brand director Michiko Ogawa, who has the final say. If those sonic targets aren't met, they would simply postpone the launch until they were happy with the sound performance, I'm told.

Technics' head of headphone business, Kazunori Otsu, says that in the 60+ years of Technics' lifetime, "high quality music experiences" have progressed from in the home, with dedicated hi-fi separates, to almost anywhere in everyday life thanks to portable headphones.

He states that while the "way we listen to music has changed" over the years, "Technics' passion has not."

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Read our Technics EAH-A1000 review

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Bose’s QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen) might be over a year old now, but they are gaining new sonic powers. The bad news? Not all the features are available to all users.

The latest firmware update is called 10.12.12 and it brings four new features to play.

First up, Bluetooth LE Audio support. This next-gen version is more efficient than standard Bluetooth, and supports the LC3 codec which has better sound quality than the standard SBC you find with bog-standard Bluetooth. It’s worth noting, however, that some don’t think it delivers on this promise.

The greater efficiency could help prolong battery life too, though Bose hasn’t commented on this in the firmware update notes, so any gain is likely to be marginal. And LE Audio opens the door to Auracast, which lets devices broadcast to multiple headphones at once, so you could tune into a news channel in an airport lounge, for example.

The downside? Bluetooth LE Audio doesn’t work with Apple devices, so this is for Android and Windows users only.

The update also brings 5.1 spatial audio with head tracking to compatible Android devices, and higher-quality gaming and voice audio over a wired USB-C cable from a compatible PC or mobile device. It also brings improved USB compatibility with web conferencing applications, for when you’re taking care of business.

Other big headphone makers also support Bluetooth LE Audio on select models such as the Sony WH-1000XM6, though the recently unveiled Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 5 will get it only via a future firmware update.

Still, Bose’s move is proof that once you buy a pair of wireless headphones, they can keep getting better. If you’re not using an iPhone, that is.

Keep an eye on the Bose app to see when the update is available. It should download automatically, but you’ll need to keep your headphones connected to your device while it transfers, which can take up to 40 minutes. Then actually installing it can take another 15 minutes.

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Read our Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen) review

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The best wireless headphones around

Technics might be a legendary name when it comes to turntables, but it has less household status when it comes to wireless headphones. The brand has been aiming to change that, and last year it came one step closer with the five-star EAH-AZ100 wireless earbuds, which beat out established rivals from Sony, Bose, B&W, Apple and Sennheiser to nab a coveted What Hi-Fi? Best Buy Award in 2025.

To see if they can repeat that success in the tough premium over-ears category, Technics has imbued its new flagship wireless headphones – the EAH-A1000 – with a refined design and plenty of new driver technology inspired by its hi-fi speakers and five-star earbuds. Has it done the job?

Price

The Technics EAH-A1000 launches at £399 / $449 / AU$699, which puts it right in the midst of some fiercely competitive territory. The class leaders in this bracket include the five-star Sennheiser HDB 630 at £400 / $500 / AU$1000, while the Award-winning Sony WH-1000XM6 can be found for £349 / $450 / AU$699.

Bowers & Wilkins’ Px7 S3 and Bose’s QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen) are also available at the same kind of money, so consumers aren’t short of high-quality choices at this premium end, where mainstream players mingle.

Design & comfort

These are a rather lovely pair of headphones. Where the predecessor EAH-A800 looked quite blocky, the EAH-A1000 has a much sleeker, more elegant look. The metal accents and refined contours on the headphones make them look and feel quite luxurious, as does the generous padding on both the headband and ear cups.

The headband is easy to adjust, and the inside of the ear cups is quite roomy, with plush memory foam ear cushions that hug your head quite snugly, but without any undue pressure. Technics has paid quite a lot of attention to the design and comfort of the A1000, with care taken over the metal ‘flow arm’ slider and hinges, and the angle of the ear cups so that there is an even pressure across the head when wearing them.

The headphones feel robust but also quite lightweight, and we find them to be a comfortable fit across the review team’s head sizes, even for those who wear glasses. Compared with the relatively slim profile of the Sony XM6 or Sonos Ace Ultra, the larger ear cups of the A1000 do stick out a fair bit, but overall they’re so nice and comfortable to wear that we don’t mind once they’re on our head.

The headphones fold up into a ball, too, which makes them easy to carry in a bag. They’re available in black or the nice silver/white colour of our review sample; Technics calls this colour ‘Platinum Greige’, but we’re going to ignore that.

Instead of any touch controls, Technics offers physical controls that are easy to use on the right ear cup. There are buttons for power and Bluetooth pairing, another one for changing the noise mode, and a multi-function slider control for changing volume, playing and pausing music, and summoning voice assistants.

They all work instantly with our commands, although we feel the slider control’s action could be more definite and feel more precise. It feels a little like a loose tooth on our sample, which mars the otherwise classy experience of using the A100.

Features

We must commend how swiftly the A1000 pairs with our source devices, with the connection remaining stable throughout our testing and reconnecting to our iPhone 16 without a hitch. Like their EAH-AZ100 earbuds counterparts, the A1000 over-ears feature three-way multi-point Bluetooth, which means you can be connected to three sources simultaneously and switch between them seamlessly – rivals are still limited to two devices only.

The A1000 supports the LDAC codec, allowing for higher-quality streams from compatible smartphones or portable music players such as the Sony NW-A306 and Astell & Kern SR35. Be warned that using the higher bandwidth LDAC disables certain features (such as the aforementioned three-way connection) and has a knock-on effect on battery life.

When listening using the standard AAC/SBC codecs, as we do for the majority of our testing with an iPhone 16, the battery life is an impressive 45 hours with ANC turned on. Turned off, this extends to a massive 90 hours. Those numbers are strong – they easily surpass the 30 hours offered by the Sony WH-1000XM6 and rivals from Bose and Bowers & Wilkins, although the Sennheiser HDB 630 still takes the lead at 60 hours with ANC turned on. We barely had to recharge the A1000 during our time with them, but a 15-minute charge does handily give you four hours of juice.

You can listen to the Technics EAH-A1000 using a wired USB-C connection, too – just note that the headphones need to be powered on to listen in this mode. You get two cables included in the hard carry case: a USB-C to 3.5mm audio cable, and a USB-C to USB-C lead for audio and charging.

We must commend how swiftly the A1000 pairs with our source devices, with the connection remaining stable throughout our testing and reconnecting to our iPhone 16 without a hitch. Like their EAH-AZ100 earbuds counterparts, the A1000 over-ears feature three-way multi-point Bluetooth, which means you can be connected to three sources simultaneously and switch between them seamlessly – rivals are still limited to two devices only.

The A1000 supports the LDAC codec, allowing for higher-quality streams from compatible smartphones or portable music players such as the Sony NW-A306 and Astell & Kern SR35. Be warned that using the higher bandwidth LDAC disables certain features (such as the aforementioned three-way connection) and has a knock-on effect on battery life.

When listening using the standard AAC/SBC codecs, as we do for the majority of our testing with an iPhone 16, the battery life is an impressive 45 hours with ANC turned on. Turned off, this extends to a massive 90 hours. Those numbers are strong – they easily surpass the 30 hours offered by the Sony WH-1000XM6 and rivals from Bose and Bowers & Wilkins, although the Sennheiser HDB 630 still takes the lead at 60 hours with ANC turned on. We barely had to recharge the A1000 during our time with them, but a 15-minute charge does handily give you four hours of juice.

You can listen to the Technics EAH-A1000 using a wired USB-C connection, too – just note that the headphones need to be powered on to listen in this mode. You get two cables included in the hard carry case: a USB-C to 3.5mm audio cable, and a USB-C to USB-C lead for audio and charging.

ANC & call quality

The EAH-A1000’s adaptive ANC performance uses four mics per side to adjust the noise levels according to your surrounding environment. In the app, you can choose the level of ANC on a scale of 0 to 100, or leave it in adaptive mode – curiously, we find that the adaptive mode does a better job of reducing rumbling traffic noise than full ANC.

The A1000’s noise-cancelling does a fine job of damping down surrounding noises – from train engines to traffic noises – enough that we can concentrate on our music. We spent a long-haul flight from Tokyo to London with the Technics headphones acting as a good buffer between our music and the plane’s engines (the plush cushioning helps here too), although frequent flyers might want even deeper, low-frequency rumbles to be silenced.

However, we are more aware of the sudden whoosh of passing cars and of background chatter here than on rivals, with the Sony XM6 dealing with such midrange and high-frequency noises more effectively. You can also feel the pressure of Technics’ ANC technology working hard when in adaptive ANC mode, which some may not like compared with Sony’s more natural, less-processed effect.

The customisable Ambient/transparency mode keeps you aware of your surroundings in a way that doesn’t feel too artificially amplified, while a further ‘attention’ mode enhances voices, so you never miss train announcements. The latter’s effect is more obviously processed, and we think the standard Ambient mode does the job well enough.

Call quality is a high point on the A1000, with our voices coming through clearly and with next-to-no background noise seeping through. We stand on a busy road during rush hour, and the caller on the other end can’t hear any traffic noise distracting from our voice. The Sony XM6 rival makes our voice sound fuller and more natural, but they also allow more background noise to cut through.

Sound

The biggest update Technics has made in its new flagship over-ear headphones is to do with the newly developed driver technologies. The Magnetic Fluid Driver technology worked so well for the AZ100 earbuds, it’s being used here again, albeit modified for the larger 40mm drivers in the A1000 over-ears. This aims to keep the movement of the driver consistent and reduce unwanted vibrations, without adding unnecessary mass.

The diaphragm is made of a lightweight yet rigid pure carbon fibre material, which, coupled with the driver’s cone shape and the SST (Symmetrical Surround Technology) Edge taken from Technics’ hi-fi speakers, aims to deliver a fast, accurate response with reduced distortion.

A redesigned acoustic control chamber further helps to manage airflow, with Technics promising a more natural soundfield for its “high precision music reproduction” to flourish.

Put it all together, and we’re met with a sound that is clear, spacious and very detailed.

Play Fallin’ by Alicia Keys, and her vocals soar in an open and roomy soundstage. The rough and raw edges of her singing come through with clarity and refinement, and the top notes have plenty of headroom to shine. Switch to Limit To Your Love by James Blake, and there is a satisfying amount of depth and solidity underpinning both his voice and the deep, plunging bass. The A1000’s presentation is full-bodied, with ample detail to voices and instruments giving them an immediacy that holds your attention.

Every instrument in The Dave Brubeck Quartet’s Take Five is fairly easy to place, with the robust, tuneful saxophone appropriately taking the spotlight, while the sharper hi-hats and snares in the background hit with crispness but don’t intrude unduly upon the composition. The overall sound is clean and clear – Technics has done a fine job at keeping distortion levels low, which means we don’t mind listening at louder volumes, either.

There is a sweetness and smoothness to the sound. This characteristic doesn’t attempt to gloss over any cracks or try to smother any harder edges; it simply makes for a refined balance that is appealing to listen to from the get-go.

While not obviously lacking in energy, we do wish the A1000 had a bit more verve and attack when required. The rival Sony XM6 and Sennheiser HDB 630 headphones counter with a more propulsive, driven sense of rhythm that sounds more musically coherent, with low-level dynamics handled with a bit more agility. The start and stop of notes could be more precisely defined on the Technics, with bass notes, while deep and fulsome, sounding just a touch soft around the edges.

They are simply more comfortable staying on the polite, gentler side of the fence rather than getting their hands dirty.

Despite this, the A1000’s sense of organisation and level of detail retrieval is admirable, and they don’t ever lose composure when confronted with more complex or busy recordings. They make the difference between a hi-res and low-res recording clear, but handle those lower-quality recordings with the same refined brush – it’s a quality that means we’re happy to listen to the headphones for hours on end.

Verdict

Technics’ EAH-A1000 are a fine pair of headphones. Their comfortable, elegant design and that refined, smooth presentation have plenty of appeal. There are many who will fall for the A1000’s charms, and we wouldn’t find much cause to deter them. At this level, however, the Sony WH-1000XM6 and Sennheiser HDB 630 rivals deliver just that bit more rhythmic precision and dynamic subtlety, leading to a more involving listening experience.

There’s plenty that Technics has done right with its new flagship over-ears. If they could combine just a bit more grit and punch alongside that sweet, open presentation, they could be on to a winner next time.

Review published: 29th September 2026

SCORES

• Sound 4
• Build 5
• Features 4

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"This is the headphone we set out to create from the very beginning" – a closer look at the development of the new driver technology inside the premium Technics EAH-A1000 wireless headphones

Best wireless headphones: reviewed and rated by our in-house experts

Technics has a new pair of flagship over-ear wireless headphones. The EAH-A1000 follow 2022's EAH-A800, and aim to rival the Sony WH-1000XM6, Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen) and Sennheiser HDB 630 as the best wireless headphones around.

Four years is long time in the headphone world – cans age in dog years. But thankfully Technics has brought its latest pair bang up to date on the technical front – these are no annual iterations, but a complete overhaul of the previous model. Technics says it "reconsidered every element" of the over-ears, with highlights of the new model including a new 40mm Magnetic Fluid Driver and acoustics technologies developed for the hi-fi brand's speakers.

The driver was developed to have precise control in order to deliver low distortion with an expansive soundstage. It uses Technics' magnetic fluid technology as found in its Award-winning EAH-AZ100 wireless earbuds – this material has both magnetic and liquid properties, and is placed between the voice coil and driver magnet to suppress unwanted vibrations and distortion.

The driver's performance is enhanced by the inclusion of an SST (Symmetrical Surround Technology) Edge, which is taken from Technics' flagship hi-fi speakers. This reduces distortion by improving the symmetry of the edge's back and forth movement as it supports the diaphragm. It's made of carbon fibre which is rigid yet lightweight, and its cone shape suppresses flexing to enable a fast response and stable movement.

Technics says that the two technologies work in tandem to "preserve the sense of scale in the bass and the spacious soundstage associated with over-ear headphones" while reproducing music how the artist intended.

A redesigned acoustic path preserves the air movement from the driver all the way to the ear, while a new Baffle Flat Structure reduces uneven surfaces around the driver to limit unwanted reflections, creating a natural sound field with clear imaging.

Airflow is managed by an Acoustic Control Chamber behind the driver, which should ensure a balanced sound. And Adaptive Noise Cancelling adjusts to your environment and fit, with three feed-forward microphones and one feedback mic on each side to detect and suppress noise from different directions.

The fit has also been re-engineered. The new Flow Arm headband is square at the slider but triangular at the hanger. As you can see from the pictures, it perches on the outside of the earcups like a luxuriously draped moustache.

The movement of the ear cups, refined headband shape and improved slider-based adjustability should distribute pressure evenly across your noggin, allowing you to wear them for longer periods without becoming uncomfortable. This will be helped by the memory foam earpads.

The headphones fold up into a ball for stowing in a bag.

They support high-quality audio via the LDAC codec and through wired listening over USB Audio. The battery is good for 45 hours with ANC on before needing a recharge, and like the Award-winning EAH-AZ100, they support three devices via Bluetooth Multipoint, instead of the standard two.

The Technics EAH-A1000 go on sale from 30th September for £399 / €449 / $449. They come in Black and Platinum Greige finishes (a mix of grey and beige).

Technics might be renowned for its turntables, but it does a nice line in headphones too – the EAH-AZ100 wireless earbuds won a What Hi-Fi? Award, while the A1000's predecessor pair (the EAH-A80) scored four stars. You can find out how the new EAH-A1000 headphones fare in our full review.

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Read our Technics EAH-A1000 headphones review

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Wireless headphones are about to get even more advanced with Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon Sound tech

Nothing has announced its latest pair of over-ear wireless headphones, the Headphone (1) Pro.

Following on from the original Headphone (1) and its more affordable Headphone (a) counterparts, the new Headphone (1) Pro sit atop the brand's over-ear range as its most advanced cans yet.

Aimed at audio enthusiasts seeking "the most detailed and customisable listening experience, the Headphone (1) Pro feature a triple driver architecture designed to more effectively cover the sonic spectrum.

Nothing teases punchy bass thanks to the headphones' bass dynamic driver, accompanied by textured vocals from a dynamic midrange unit and crisper highs courtesy of a new treble 'xMEMS' driver. For higher-fidelity playback up to 24-bit/192 kHz, you can connect to the new flagship cans via USB-C.

Nothing promises its best-ever active noise cancelling courtesy of the Headphone (1) Pros' 10-mic array and more isolating ear cushions. The brand's 'Clear Voice Technology', meanwhile, uses two mics on each side of the headphones to keep voices sounding clear and crisp.

What about battery life? The Nothing Headphone (1) really excelled in this area, granting a whopping 80 hours of playtime with ANC switched off and around 35 hours with noise cancelling turned on.

The more powerful Headphone (1) Pro don't quite match those numbers, but with 68 hours of playtime with ANC off and 30 hours with it on, plus four hours of listening from a 5-minute charge, they're hardly doing badly.

The Headphone (1) Pro are controlled using the Nothing X app, from which you can access a range of fine-tuning tools to personalise your experience.

This is an unashamedly Nothing pair of headphones in terms of looks, with the flagship cans sharing a similar design language with their more affordable forebears. The rectangular earcups return, boasting scratch-resistant glass which grants a glimpse of the drivers housed beneath.

Nothing also promises more even weight distribution thanks to a wider headband and thicker padding, as well as titanium arms and softer ear cushions to further aid user comfort. They're even IP52 rated, granting protection against water splashes and some dust ingress.

The Nothing Headphone (1) Pro are available now in Black or White finishes, priced at £349 / $399. That's a figure that puts them firmly in the mix with the likes of the Sony WH-1000XM6 (£349 / $400 / AU$699) and Sennheiser HDB 630 (£400 / $500 / AU$1000).

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These are the best wireless headphones you can buy

Bose has become the latest company to jump back on the wired earbuds bandwagon, announcing new Bose Noise Cancelling Wired Earbuds. Notably, the earbuds will still feature Bose’s QuietControl active noise cancellation.

Bose says the new earbuds will connect to compatible devices with a 128cm USB-C cable and draw power from the source, mitigating the need for a dedicated, rechargeable battery, despite the inclusion of ANC.

ANC is delivered by two microphones on each earbud, which “continuously monitor, react to, and minimise surrounding sound”.

Three listening modes are available: ‘Quiet Mode’ is the full-fat ANC option, ‘Aware Mode’ lets surrounding sound in when listeners want to stay tuned-in to their surroundings, and ‘ANC Off Mode’ does precisely what it says on the tin.

Each earbud includes soft silicone eartips in small, medium and large sizes, alongside medium and large stability wings. Bose suggests that listeners “mix and match the components to find a fit that feels both comfortable and secure”.

Despite their retro inclinations, the wired earbuds feature Bose’s proprietary SoundDesign digital signal processing, which the company claims delivers “crisp, clear audio with support for lossless audio listening”. The earbuds can accept source input at any sample and bit rate, with playback output fixed at 24-bit/48kHz.

Bose claims that a wired connection enables low latency performance, “keeping sound in sync while watching videos, gaming, or creating content”.

In the absence of a dedicated app, sound controls for volume, playback, call functions and cycling ANC modes can be accessed via an in-line remote with “tactile physical buttons”.

A dedicated microphone on the back of the remote handles calls, and "minimises unwanted noise from contact with clothing”, allowing users to “speak naturally without holding the remote close to [their mouths]”.

The earbuds also have an IPX4 rating for water resistance and come with a zippered carry case.

According to Raza Haider, president of Bose Premium Consumer Audio: “Wired earbuds are experiencing a cultural renaissance, and when we decided to bring them back, we knew we had to make them even better than before. Technology has come a long way since our last wired earbuds, allowing us the opportunity to bring our latest advancements to the category and set a new standard for what wired earbuds can be.”

The Bose Noise Cancelling Wired Earbuds are now available to pre-order for MyBose customers at a price of £99 / $99 / AU$170, with general availability starting 15th October. Finishes include Black, White Smoke and limited edition Dewdrop Mint.

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Sennheiser and Sony make some of the best wireless earbuds around, so when a new pair from either brand launches, it's big news indeed.

Sennheiser's latest, the Momentum True Wireless 5, do not disappoint. Their crisp, detailed sound and impressive battery life helped them earn a five-star review, but are they better than Sony's five-star WF-1000XM6? That's what we're here to find out.

We've compared every aspect of the two pairs to help you decide which is right for you. Ready? Let's go.

Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 5 vs Sony WF-1000XM6: tech specs comparison

Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 5 vs Sony WF-1000XM6: price

When it comes to price, there really isn't much to choose between these two pairs. The Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 5 launched at £250 / $300 / AU$480, which is very similar to the XM6's launch price of £250 / $330 / AU$500.

However, the XM6 went on sale back in February 2026, whereas the Sennheisers only launched at the start of September, meaning that the Sonys are much more likely to be discounted.

Indeed, they already have been. Last summer's Prime Day saw the XM6 drop to £199, and with both Amazon Prime Big Deal Days and Black Friday coming soon, expect plenty more drops where that came from.

It's too early for a major deal on the Sennheisers, though we could see a small discount this side of Christmas.

** Winner: Sony WF-1000XM6 **

Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 5 vs Sony WF-1000XM6: build & comfort

Sony and Sennheiser have strong legacies in the wireless earbuds space, so it's hardly surprising that both pairs stick to the respective brands' tried-and-tested designs.

The Sennheisers have had a few subtle tweaks to freshen up the design. They're now rounder and more similar in shape to a baked bean. The Momentum True Wireless 5 have a new case too, which is taller and slimmer than its predecessor, and made of speckled plastic.

Both pairs are comfortable enough to wear for long sessions, though we have found the XM6 (like most Sony 'buds) split opinion – some people get on with them fine, others struggle to get a secure fit even after trying the various sizes of bundled eartips.

Both pairs offer XS, S, M and L tip choices, though we'd predict that most users will find the Momentum TW 5s' fit more secure and forgiving than that offered by their Sony rivals.

With an IP54 rating, the Sennheisers are protected against dust and water splashes, whereas the Sonys only have water protection. If you're heading to the beach, the Momentum True Wireless 5 are the safer bet, as they'll offer a more reliable shield against small particle ingress.

Both pairs of buds feature touch controls which can be customised using the respective mobile apps, both of which are in-dept and a pleasure to use.

Do note that the Sennheisers come in far more finishes – five, to the Sony's rather measly two.

** Winner: Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 5 **

Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 5 vs Sony WF-1000XM6: features

These new Sennheisers support spatial audio with Dolby Atmos, while Sony's wireless buds have their proprietary equivalent 360 Reality Audio. Both features work well, especially the dynamic head tracking, though Atmos is the more widely supported format, so you'll find more spatial content to listen to using Sennheiser's 'buds. Plus, you'll have to have your ears 'analysed' to use 360 Reality Audio, something which some users might find to be an unnecessary hassle.

The Sonys counter with the longer battery life, on the buds at least – you get eight hours of playtime from the buds alone, and only six from the Sennheisers. The Sennheisers do last an hour longer when you factor in recharges from the case, however, offering 25 hours of use to the XM6s' 24 hours. These figures are all with active noise cancellation turned on. Turn it off, and the Sennheisers go for a marathon 40 hours in total)

For higher-quality listening, the Sennheisers support the aptX Adaptive codec, while the Sonys have LDAC. The Sennheisers also support a more recent version of Bluetooth: 6.0 compared to 5.3 on the Sonys. Bluetooth Multipoint comes on both pairs for seamlessly switching between connected devices.

Sony's DSEE Extreme processing boosts the sound of lower-quality files – handy if you're listening to compressed formats like MP3. But for the longer total battery life, more advanced Bluetooth and more widely used audio standards, the Sennheisers take this round.

** Winner: Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 5 **

Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 5 vs Sony WF-1000XM6: ANC & call quality

Sennheiser and Sony have been in the noise-cancelling game for quite some time now, and their flagship pairs of earbuds pack some mighty impressive ANC credentials.

Both pairs pack four mics in each earbud, while the Sonys add the brand's third-gen HD Noise Cancelling processor QN3e and Adaptive NC Optimiser, which automatically adapts the ANC algorithm to your fit and environment.

The Sennheisers' new shape is designed to provide better passive noise isolation. In our Momentum True Wireless 5 review, we found the noise cancellation "powerful yet not overdone" and more natural-feeling than some rival buds' ANC.

"The shrillest highs and most booming lows will penetrate," we concluded, "but for softening or excluding most external sounds, from general chatter to humming air conditioning, they confidently make the grade."

The WF-1000XM6 also fare very well in this regard. Testing them on planes and trains (but sadly not automobiles) for our XM6 review, we wrote that "they impressed us with their consistency and ability to extract both low-frequency rumbles of carriages and aeroplane engines, but also more high-pitched screeches and whistles that crept into our environment."

For call quality, however, there's a clearer winner.

The Sonys combine AI beamforming, bone conduction sensors, extra mics and a wind noise reduction design to devastating effect. They "do a great job subduing and minimising background noise, including tricky-to-handle wind noise – voices come through loud and clear with a great level of detail," as we wrote at the time.

While the Sennheisers' microphone plates and acoustic chamber are configured to reduce the effect of wind, and they handle calls competently, we found that "voices can sound a little muffled when compared with the natural clarity of the Sony WF-1000XM6."

A win for Sony on this one.

** Winner: Sony WF-1000XM6 **

Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 5 vs Sony WF-1000XM6: sound

And so to sound.

Sennheiser's flagship pair contain the brand's signature 7mm TrueResponse dynamic drivers, which helps the sound stay clean and balanced.

Playing Massive Attack’s Paradise Circus, the Sennheisers "confidently track clacking drums, scattered hand claps and glassy synths" with plenty of insight and clarity. They excel in the midrange too – witness Hope Sandoval’s breathy whispers – and have no trouble staying organised and composed when faced with trickier compositions. Their bass, meanwhile, is weighty yet precise, adding a natural anchor to the frequencies above.