I tried the $1.8k 'hearable' earbuds and I fear ChapGPT may have left these niche brands behind

Ah, man. Some pieces in this gig you simply don't want to write – but you know that ultimately (and after a long old think), you're going to have to.

I've followed Breggz's high-end custom-fit 'hearables' with keen interest for well over a year now. In case you're not familiar with the brand, Breggz is the plucky high-end audio firm co-founded Xander de Buisonjé, a celebrated Dutch vocalist with several number-one hits to his name in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The singer, now CEO of Breggz, wanted to create something better than the wired in-ear monitors (IEMs) he’d gigged with for years, and has taken to CES 2024 and CES 2025 to showcase them – to much fanfare.

The very publication you're reading right now wrote some highly positive words on the custom-fit Zohn-1 back in January of this year, noting that Buisonjé's quest to make "the Ferrari of earbuds" had been a roaring success – the Zohn-1 custom-made $2,200 Bluetooth buds couldn’t simply be bought in stores, requiring buyers to scan their ears using Breggz's mobile app. And aside from the fit, this was no regular earbud. No, this was "the world’s first truly wireless, custom-made in-ear computer".

Perhaps the company noted that buyers didn't much like waiting weeks for their buds, custom-fit or not. And perhaps $2,200 (or around £1,900 or AU$3,375) was a bit much, after all.

So Breggz has released the new Zohn-1 RTW (which stands for Ready To Wear, as you probably guessed) and reduced the price by a whole, er, $355 at MSRP…

Ultimately, Breggz went quiet on the 'in-ear computer' angle and lost its USP

It's not all bad news – far from it. The hexagonal case fans out beautifully, giving you no small degree of pride when holding it in your palm. And the buds feature a sort of nub on the far underside, furthest from the neck, that just works to keep them in. You'd think other manufacturers might have cottoned on to this shape, but Breggz tells me it's simply too hard to level up to mass production for the heavy-hitters, while Breggz still makes each unit to order.

But I'm dancing around the issue at hand. The reason Zohn-1 RTW are no longer an easy sell? Despite a likeable companion app made by Bragi that Breggz says incorporates "advanced AI capabilities to enhance the user experience" including a tailored listening profile, the company's headline-grabbing 'in-ear computer' tagline is gone. Why? Because in May 2024, Nothing won the whole ChatGPT race by putting squeezy-stem access to the chatbot in even its $39 cheap-as-chips CMF by Nothing Buds.

And thus, the hearable in-ear computer goal was largely achieved – and not by Breggz. Ultimately, ChatGPT has already brought what used to be advanced earbuds tech to the masses, and said tech moves so fast now that competing products can feel obsolete before they’re even out. I'm worried the Breggz Zohn-1 RTW is one such product, and by also bypassing the custom-fit personalisation to save a few dollars, you're simply left with very (very) expensive earbuds… that don't offer active noise cancellation.

Breggz Zohn-1 RTW and sound: what you need to know

Perhaps I could forgive all of this if the Zohn-1 RTW sounded as good as I'd been led to believe. To clarify, despite various members of the TechRadar team trying them during CES visits, I'd never been to CES and thus never had the pleasure – until now.

The fact that they fit near-perfectly in my tough-to-please smaller ears (you get six ear tips in the box) means I had every chance of getting the best out of the balanced armature driver nestled into each Zohn-1 RTW earpiece. When streaming These Bones by The Fairfield Four, it's clear that a resonant, impactful low end is something Breggz is proud of here. There's good separation and the track's textured vocals and simple percussive accompaniment feel textured, emotive and three-dimensional.

But moving on to my tried-and-tested playlists, Joni Mitchell's Blue comes through a little too warm and cloying to be anywhere near neutral and balanced. It's as if I'm in a hot room, with thick rugs on every surface – and Mitchell's higher trills and inflections aren't really meant to be part of it. In No Mono's Violence Broken, the clicks and pops at the outset of the song aren't as impactful through the treble as they might be, and bass chords continue to encroach on the whole somewhat.

It strikes me now that I didn't get to spend a long listening session with the Zohn-1 RTW and I may well have been listening with the owner's Personal Sound profile deployed (see above, for a look at the companion app). Nevertheless, that's my mini appraisal, for what it's worth. Even if these buds cost $250, I'd mention that I found them a bass-heavy listen. I write this with a heavy heart – I'd wanted to love them when I arrived at the listening session – but I'm duty bound to offer an honest opinion, and there it is. Would they feature in my best earbuds roundup at the time of writing? Unfortunately not.

How will the Breggz Zohn-1 RTW fare in the super-congested, highly competitive true wireless in-ear market? I'm not so sure.

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