What's better than an exciting new pair of headphones? That's right. Four Exciting new pairs of headphones.
This has been an unusually good week for anyone looking for the best truly wireless earbuds, as we've had some big new releases from some of the biggest brands.
Whether you're looking for a cheap and cheerful pair of earbuds or the best earbuds for great audio, we've got some very interesting new ones coming out this week. Audio-Technica has updated its fantastic affordable earbuds that were a staple of our best budget headphones list, Bowers & Wilkins has released a pair of Hi-Res headphones with clever extra features and (most importantly) a much better design, JBL has added a display and unique streaming feature to the case of its latest earbuds, and after weeks of leaks, the OnePlus Buds Pro 3 are finally official.
Below we tell you the essentials about these releases.
Great sound at an affordable price from Audio-Technica
The Audio-Technica ATH-SQ1TW2 are the successors to the firm's brilliant budget headphones, the Audio-Technica ATH-SQ1TW, and they're cheaper too: just £49 in the UK, though there's no US or Australian release yet.
As we reported, the new versions are even lighter and smaller than before, so should offer greater comfort, with the same super-cool square design. Battery life is rated at 6.5 hours, and an additional 13.5 hours with the charging case, and water and dust resistance has been improved. There's a low-latency mode for games and movies, and there's Google Fast Pair, as well as multipoint pairing. Despite their small size, the earbuds have built-in microphones for calls, and have been designed to reduce wind noise and ambient audio during conversations.
There are four colors to choose from: jet black, pure white, navy/red and forest green.
JBL's Screen Era Kicks
The JBL Tour Pro 3 are a pair of screen-enabled headphones that incorporate a major new feature: Auracast, which turns the charging case into a Bluetooth audio transmitter for dozens of other Auracast headphones. This means you can use the case on a plane to connect not only your headphones to your entertainment system, but anyone else sitting nearby… or to stream to other devices from a work laptop so everyone can hear the same call, or any other time you want to stream from one device to many. They feature Spatial Audio 360, plenty of sound optimization, and impressive noise cancellation.
Battery life promises up to 44 hours of music playback, 11 from the earbuds' own batteries and three more charges from the case. That's with active noise cancellation turned off; expect eight hours from the earbuds alone and 32 hours total with active noise cancellation on.
As for pricing, they're listed at £279.99/€299.99 (around $365 or AU$540). We haven't reviewed these earphones yet (the linked article is about our first impressions), but we like what we've heard so far.
Amazing B&W audio
The new B&W Pi8 and Pi6 promise incredible audio. The flagship model, the Pi8, offers lossless 16-bit 44.1kHz audio quality over Bluetooth and a case that, like JBL’s, can stream audio from a wired sound source to your Bluetooth headphones. They’ve been significantly redesigned to improve comfort and sound reproduction – which was really their only previous flaw – and the top of each earcup is now a large capacitive touch sensor.
We think the Pi8s are “hands down the most comfortable headphones the brand has ever made,” which is handy because you’re likely to listen to them for long periods of time due to that excellent sound quality. Both have Bluetooth 5.4 with multipoint, IP54 water and dust resistance, impressive active noise cancellation, and significantly improved battery life—24 hours total for the Pi6 and 20 for the more complex Pi8.
The Pi8 is available now, priced at $399/£349/AU$599. The Pi6 will be available from 15 September, priced at $249/£219/AU$449.
The OnePlus Buds Pro 3 come out of a leak zone
After what felt like weeks of detailed leaks, the OnePlus Buds Pro 3 are finally official. The big improvement here is in audio performance, thanks to dual 11mm and 6mm drivers and, in a OnePlus first, two digital-to-analog converters (DACs) per earbud – one for each tweeter and one for each woofer. There are new Dynaudio EQ presets and a promised 50dB of noise cancellation (OnePlus’ best active noise cancellation yet), along with Apple-style ambient awareness to adjust active noise cancellation as the environment gets louder or quieter.
OnePlus promises up to 43 hours of playback with ANC off, and the charging case has been redesigned along with the earbuds to make everything look a little more modern.
There are two colours with the usual fancy names: Midnight Opus and Lunar Radiance, which are a beige shade and a black shade respectively. Both versions are available now for £199 (about $250 / AU$380).
