For a long time, the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds took pride of place as the 'best premium open earbuds' in our round-up of the absolute best open earbuds. Even if the Shokz OpenDots 2 hadn't stolen that spot recently, it's likely a new competitor would have — this category is growing like you wouldn't believe.

And Bose is back too, with upgraded flagship open earbuds called, as you might have guessed, the Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen), which bring some refinements over the first-gen clip-style buds. They're set to sell from October 1, for £299.95 (about $400, AU$600, but we're waiting on international pricing).

This offering doesn't come alone. Likely taking inspiration from rival Shokz and the OpenDots Air, Bose has unveiled a cheaper alternative and called it the Sport Open Earbuds. These buds cut some of the features, use a different design, and will start selling on October 15, for £179.95 (roughly $240, AU$360). That makes them Bose's first affordable open earbuds.

Naturally, we'll be grabbing these buds as soon as possible to see how well they work, so prepare for reviews in the near future. Perhaps Bose will claw its ranking spots back from Shokz sooner than expected...

Lay me down on a bed of Boses

Let's start by looking at the sequel set: the Ultra Open Earbuds (2nd Gen). These mostly retain the angular look of the originals, but with a slightly revised look for a better hold, and a charging case that's easier to open and close (and has little feet so it can stay upright).

Under the hood, there have been a number of small refinements like a higher volume, extended battery life and improved bass response. They also feature Bose's TrueSpatial audio, improving on Bose Immersive Audio, to provide better spatial audio while you're exercising.

Like the previous Ultras, these are a premium product, and I see most people skipping them for the price tag alone. That's where the other buds come in.

The Bose Sport Open Earbuds ditch the angular look of the Ultras, for a more standard curvy clip-style design. That is to say, despite being new, I've been seeing these puppies for years.

Bose hasn't detailed the audio specs of these buds — it rarely does for its headphones, frustratingly for coverage — but reading between the lines, the Sport Open won't have quite the same bass response as the Ultras. I'm sure they won't sound bad, but you're not getting Ultra sound.

I'm pleased to see that the Sport Open have an IP54 rating, which makes them better-protected than the IPX4 Ultras, even if their battery life is slightly worse at 7 hours. However most features, specifically Bose ones, are likely missing here. There's no mention of TrueSpatial Audio, for example.

With the Bose Sport Open Earbuds, you'll likely miss some of the fancy tools of the Ultra. But just as in the Shokz rivals mentioned before, many users might not mind, if they're getting a more affordable product for it. I see the Sport Open being the more popular of the two here.

A note, before you get too excited for the new buds. While researching this article, I noticed that the original Bose Ultra are enjoying quite a solid discount in the US, perhaps to clear stock. You can get them for just $200 at Amazon, which is a $100 saving, effectively making them a better pair of 'budget' buds than the Sport Open. Just food for thought.

The TechRadar Readers' Choice Awards 2026 comprises nearly 100 categories, but we know that not everyone is interested in voting in every one, so on this page you can vote in just our TV, Streaming and Audio categories.

These include soundbars, projectors, Bluetooth speakers, headphones and earbuds, as well as televisions and streaming services. You can vote in the survey just below — or follow the links to see other specific categories, or to vote on the full list instead.

The shortlists were chosen by TechRadar's editors based on the best products we've tested or the most popular products of the year. You'll need to vote before 00:01am PST / 03:01am EST / 08:01am BST on Wednesday October 7th 2026 for it to be counted.

• All categories
• Phones & Cameras
• Computing & Gaming
• Fitness & Home Tech

Once the deadline has passed at 00:01am PST / 03:01am EST / 08:01am BST on Wednesday October 7th 2026, we'll tally your votes to find the winners in each category.

We'll announce the winners in our big TechRadar Awards 2026 Week, starting Monday October 19th. We'll reveal the winners of the Reader's Choice Awards, as well as the winners of our TechRadar Product of the Year Awards, which are chosen solely by our expert judges.

How many products will do the double? We'll be curious to see — but right now, all you can do is vote for what you think should win, so vote away!

I’ve said Apple could be the only company capable of releasing camera glasses without major backlash thanks to privacy-first approach, celebrated its approach to AI as possibly genius if the bubble does pop, and most recently said the iPhone Duo looks great and that the visible crease in some shots should be ignored — as if it’s like the Z Fold 8 Ultra you’ll never see it while you’re using it.

But in our most recent episode, I saw something that I couldn’t believe in the new AirPods 5 specs. I had to actually message our Audio Editor because I thought I must be wrong.

How are on-bud volume controls only now coming to AirPods? And how are they reserved for the pricier model?

Take back (volume) control

I brought this up in the podcast, but my Apple-wielding colleagues — Axel Metz and Matt Evans — argued the feature isn’t that useful anyway. Those with Pro-level AirPods that boast volume controls noted that they rarely use them

Folks, that’s beside the point.

Volume controls are one of the most basic earbuds functions. Take a minute to scroll through Amazon, and you can find dozens of wireless earbuds under $20 that offer volume controls. This shouldn’t be something reserved for the fifth generation of a premium earbuds brand like AirPods. It’s absurd!

Oh, and I think volume controls on the buds are useful, for what it’s worth. If I’ve set my phone up to watch a YouTube video and the volume spikes, I want to be able to quickly swipe down without reaching over; or I might want to change the volume of my workout tunes mid-session without pulling my phone out and risking getting distracted.

Sure, it’s not a game changer, but as I said already, it’s a basic feature we should expect. It would be like if your iPhone didn’t have an email app — there are ways around it, but why cut off the root of the problem?

What really grinds my gears, however, is that volume controls still aren’t truly standard. If you get the base $129 / £119 / AU$219 AirPods, you’ll be out of luck — you need to pay extra for the $149 / £139 / AU$249 model with a wireless charging case.

This isn’t anywhere near as egregious as those ridiculously expensive Mac Pro wheels from early 2020 — back when we could worry about such trivialities in the ‘before times’ — but it feels like a remnant of Apple’s arrogance, and the quality that has put me off the company’s tech for all these years.

People can get the earbuds they want, and I’m sure the AirPods 5 will be just as solid as the previous generation. But when there are so many excellent audio options out there, my philosophy is to get a pair that respects you, offers genuine value for money, and won’t nickel-and-dime you for features that should have been added back in the first-generation model — not as an upcharge on the fifth-generation iteration.

Being a parent has its rewards, but your kids taking over your Spotify account certainly isn't one of them — thankfully, Spotify is rolling out a solution that lets you reclaim your musical personality.

Marking the next step in Spotify’s goal to give parents more control, the best music streaming service is introducing a new toggle that, when enabled, allows you to exclude kids and family music from your recommendations. It can be found in Settings under the ‘Content and display’ tab, and is rolling out to Free and Premium users globally today (September 15), so it’s not annoyingly locked behind a paywall.

If you decide to enable the feature, songs such as TV themes, nursery rhymes, and chart-toppers from animated movies will no longer contribute to the recommendations you’re fed. This means your Discover Weekly, Daily Mix, and yes, even your end-of-year Wrapped summaries will reflect your taste more accurately.

While your personal recommendations will be untouched, it doesn’t mean that kids music is a complete write-off. Even with the toggle switched on, you can still search and stream your kids’ favorite songs and even make playlists with family music at the center — they just won’t affect your taste profile.

But Spotify’s new toggle is smarter than you think. Once you exclude kids and family music from your taste profile, the tool acts retrospectively, removing the music your kids have already streamed, meaning they won’t be counted in your top songs for this year’s Wrapped. That said, Spotify says that it could take up to 48 hours for these changes to be reflected in your personalized recommendations.

It’s all fun and games giving your kids the freedom to stream songs from their favorite movies and shows, but there comes a time where your taste profile doesn’t become yours anymore. Spotify’s new toggle gives you a more robust way of reclaiming control over your profile while improving your music discovery experiences, so that not every other suggestion is from KPop Demon Hunters or Spotify’s The Bluey Time Playlist.

The lack of separation between family music streams and regular music streams has been criticized by parents for some time. In response to this, Spotify has doubled down on its taste-adjusting settings.

In October 2025, the platform introduced a feature allowing you to remove individual songs from your taste profile, which I thought was a great way to purge my Wrapped of guilty pleasures. Shortly after, Spotify rolled out Managed Accounts to its Premium Family Plan, giving each account under one plan its own experience, separating adult and kids taste profiles from each other.

Spotify isn’t the only streaming service that’s been hit with this issue — rival platforms like YouTube still face similar criticism. Just like Spotify’s Premium Family Plan, YouTube Premium Family gives households a cost-effective way for all members to make the most of ad-free viewing and other benefits, but it’s still possible for young kids to infiltrate their parents’ profiles.

As it stands, there’s still no option to filter out kids and family content from your video recommendations like you can with Spotify, which leaves a gap for YouTube to fill.

If you didn't think ultra-portable hi-fi tech like the iFi Go Link 2 was small enough, then the British audio company's newest release in its lightweight Go series might be enough to placate you.

iFi has just unveiled its new Go Cable: a DAC and headphone jack which is literally built into an audio cable for in-ear monitors. It's available to pre-order for just $79 / £79 (about AU$160), ahead of a September 21 release.

The wire connects from a USB-C port in one end, through the DAC and headphone amp, to two 0.78mm 2-pin connectors for your favorite in-ear IEMs, though you'll have to provide those yourself. Basically, in combination, they're an active affordable audiophile alternative to the best wired earbuds with more customization.

Naturally, you might think that the iFi Go Cable could be designed for smartphones or laptops, but the brand also describes them as suitable for gaming, such as on the Switch 2. It supports microphone functionality too, so you can plug it into your controller or handheld to enjoy voice calls.

Making portable audio a little easier

Specs-wise, the Go Cable seems quite similar to the aforementioned Go Link 2. It supports 32-bit/384kHz PCM and DSD256, and outputs power at 70mW at 32 ohms. Its selling point isn't in the specs; nor is it in the on-cable microphone, playback and volume controls, though they're a neat touch.

No. The benefit is that unlike the Go Link 2, it's an all-in-one solution. The best headphone DAC/amp combos for portable devices generally require an entire set of headphones or earbuds to be separately plugged in. You have to bring your source device, your DAC/amp device and your headphones.

By acting as those latter two gadgets all in one, the Go Cable makes on-the-go hi-fi audio a little easier to achieve. That's fewer things to remember on a trip, fewer items to pack into your bag while going through airport security.

Many of iFi's technologies are used in the Go Cable. THD Compensation reduces distortion, while the ESS Sabre DAC chip provides dynamic range enhancement to improve sound by up to 6dB.

As mentioned before, you'll need to provide your own IEMs to enjoy the Go Cable, so it's not for everyone. However the brand is also selling a starter kit, which throws in a pair of AIRO Astra buds, for only $20 / £20 (about AU$40) more.

That means you're getting them for about half the price they usually cost, and then you've got plenty of time to mull on whether to get something more premium in the future — and you can just swap them onto the same cable.

If you're looking for a hi-res music player for your Mac that can make the most of your external audio equipment, YM Pro could be just what you're looking for.

It's free, open source, available on the Mac App Store, and offers an interesting alternative to Apple's way of doing things, especially if you use an external DAC. And while it's very much a work in progress it's got lots of potential.

Developer Yonesh Murugan has posted details of the app to r/audiophile. Getting it approved was apparently a "nightmare" because the app takes exclusive control of your audio hardware, something App Store reviewers weren't too happy about. But it's now approved and live, although there are a few rough edges still.

The key difference between YM Pro and other apps is that it bypasses the system mixer completely, connecting directly to your DAC and automatically switching its sample rate to the file you're playing, up to 192kHz.

It also has "hog mode", which turns off all your system sounds and other audio while you're listening.

YM Pro audio player: what works, and what needs work

The "bit-perfect" claim is about how the app handles music playback. Rather than up- or downsampling audio files to match your DAC's set bitrate, it adjusts your DAC to match the audio file's resolution — and does it directly, without any other software resampling as it passes through the OS, so your audio should remain pure.

Although YM Pro's core mission is to play hi-res, bit-perfect FLAC files, which the Apple Music app doesn't do (Apple wants you to use its ALAC equivalent instead), it also handles common formats including MP3 and WAV.

It's purely for PCM formats, not DSD, and it requires Apple Silicon (as does macOS 27, which launches imminently).

The app doesn't connect to your Music library; instead, you point it to the folder containing the music you want it to catalog and play. That folder can be the one containing your existing Music library, but it lacks auto-scanning and auto-updating so you'd need to keep it up to date manually.

This is a first release, so inevitably there are some issues. And I seem to be encountering more than most: I can't persuade it to use my preferred audio output, no matter how many times I change it in System Settings > Sound; the workaround described in the r/audiophile thread isn't working on my Mac Mini, where the app isn't paying attention to my selection. There are some interface issues, and others report some playlist organization issues too.

However, early feedback from others says the app sounds good, and as it's free, it's worth taking a look at or listen to so you can compare it with the likes of VOX.

Murugan seems keen on feedback from users, and is promising to make some enhancements based on the comments provided so far.

Carnegie Mellon University's CERT Coordination Center has warned Skullcandy's Dime 3 wireless earbuds will accept a Bluetooth pairing request from a stranger's device without the owner doing anything.

The resulting bond is permanent, and the only sign the owner gets is a spoken "new device paired" notification delivered after it has already happened, with zero user interaction to confirm the request.

The advisory covering the Dime 3 was written by CERT/CC's Bob Kemerer and credits independent researcher Jacob Nowak, who had posted his findings to the Full Disclosure mailing list in early August after testing it on hardware he owned.

A fix deployed that covers virtually no existing users

What makes this worse is that, ironically, while Skullcandy was swift in addressing the issue affecting earbuds running firmware version 1.0.0.28 by rolling out a patched version 1.0.0.30, it seems to address the issue only in newly made units.

CERT notes that there seem to be no "consumer-accessible" methods to upgrade existing units to the newest firmware because it reportedly has no support via the companion app, as a Tom's Guide review indicates.

A product without an update path that is user-accessible essentially means that its software flaws, or in this case, security issues, are here to stay for users who have had the bad luck of buying an earlier unit.

The underlying vulnerability, CVE-2025-20701, is not new and is not of Skullcandy's making. It is one of three vulnerabilities that Dennis Heinze and Frieder Steinmetz of the German firm ERNW disclosed in June 2025 at the TROOPERS conference in Heidelberg, affecting Bluetooth systems-on-chip from Taiwan's Airoha.

The Dime 3's Bluetooth identifier names Airoha as its chipset vendor, and while Airoha shipped a fixed SDK to its customers in June 2025 and published its bulletin that August, owners of the earbuds are in a unique situation, to say the least.

The vulnerability's severity is disputed: MediaTek (which owns Airoha) assigned it a relatively low 6.7 rating, while CISA's vulnerability enrichment program later assigned it an 8.8 with a 'high' categorization.

A potential attacker is limited to what the earbuds can access, since the vulnerability is essentially limited to the earbuds, but one could still wreak havoc with that alone. It should allow for more than just disrupting a person's routine by 'hijacking' one's earbuds by essentially using their microphones on them to record conversations or, in an extreme theoretical case (requiring chaining with other exploits), impersonate the headset and pull contacts, call history, and even pass hands-free commands to a paired smartphone. The latter, however, would require a high technical skill set, being within a few meters of a victim, and a Bluetooth connection turned on on the paired smartphone.

For now, a vulnerability exists that Skullcandy should have been able to patch, exactly as Apple recently did for its Beats Studio Buds, but a lack of support for any third party apps on the budget earbuds is somewhat annoyingly resulting in an unpatchable vulnerability for existing users.

For a few months earlier in 2026, it really sounded like Samsung's debut clip-style earbuds were set to debut; even the Galaxy Wearable app leaked the Galaxy Buds Able. There's been silence for a few months… but it's starting to sound like the buds are still coming, albeit with a different name.

A new report from Samsung fan site SammyGuru has surfaced new information about the buds, now called the Galaxy Buds On, apparently. The site claims to have found information in Samsung's Buds Manager app that gives us another glimpse into the earbuds and their features.

Now, before you get excited for this new audio venture by Samsung, it's worth bearing in mind that the old question still stands: when will these come out? Some leaks are pointing to an October release for some new Samsung tablets, so the Buds On could come then.

But it's also possible that the brand will wait until 2027, when it's also rumored that we'll see some over-ear headphones from the company.

So under 'release date' we're putting an all-caps 'TBC', underlined several times in red pen. But the leak makes it sound like Samsung is finalizing some assets on the buds.

A range of Galaxy Buds 4 features

At the start of 2026, Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Buds 4 Pro (shown at the top of the post) and one of the big new features was head-tracking control. This lets you nod or shake your head to reject or accept an incoming call, among other functions, and it sounds like the Galaxy Buds On will also get this tool.

SammyGuru's leak also details a Volume Boost feature, which could be how Samsung plans to deal with the innate open earbud problem: having the drivers away from your earbud means the buds don't always sound great.

Another tool promises a second way to address the same problem: an Auto Volume feature could temporarily increase volume while you're somewhere loud, to compensate for the lack of noise cancellation.

Of course it's 2026, so there's also AI features: Gemini or Bixby can be activated by your saying a key phrase or tapping the buds. A potentially more-useful function is the ability to instantly record a voice memo by doing a certain touch gesture, something some rival earbuds already offer.

To summarize this leak, it reiterates the existence of the buds and runs through some features. But I've tested dozens of similar buds: the best open-ears live and die by their design, and the ways they overcome the form factor's innate issues to deliver decent-sounding music. So features aren't as important as the elements we've yet to hear about.

Windows 11's new update is breaking the audio on some PCs, thanks to the latest nasty bug that Microsoft has let slip through the QA testing net.

Windows Latest spotted that Microsoft has admitted that the September update has torpedoed the audio on some systems, in a post on the Windows release health dashboard.

Microsoft explains that: "Some USB Audio Class 1.0 devices might fail to start or produce audio."

As well as your speakers being eerily silent, the September update can also render the Sound panel in the Settings app unresponsive, which hardly helps when troubleshooting the issue.

One way you can check if your device is affected by this bug — assuming it has no audio, and you want to rule out other possible causes — is that in Device Manager you'll see a 'code 10' error ("this device cannot start") for your sound controller.

Windows Latest also informs us that this bug can affect microphones, as well as the PC's speakers.

It's not the only glitch with the September update, either, as users have reported problems with GPUs, and the File History feature going awry and failing to work.

File History is a capability that allows you to back up your files to an external drive (or elsewhere), so it's pretty important for those who use the functionality.

Analysis: negative vibes

Microsoft says this audio bug could manifest in other ways, so you might get sound when using standard stereo, but that audio might disappear when switching to multichannel playback. This means it's worth checking what your audio output is set to, and changing it back to stereo if it's currently using a different playback mode, which might just resurrect your sound.

Otherwise, there's not much that can be done, other than trying different audio output options on your Windows 11 system (Windows Latest observes that wireless audio devices don't appear to be affected). The other alternative is to remove the September update until Microsoft fixes this issue, although that will leave you without security patches.

When might we get a fix for this issue? Microsoft tells us: "We are working on a resolution and will update this documentation when more information is available."

This is a somewhat widespread problem by all accounts, and the File History bug is even more so, although the latter hasn't yet been acknowledged by Microsoft.

The reaction on Reddit is much as you might expect in terms of Windows 11 users blaming Microsoft's increased use of AI in coding the desktop OS, and observing that these kinds of bugs are why people don't want to migrate to the newer operating system.

As one Redditor observes: "And they wonder why people don't want to move from Windows 10."

Another notes: "Microslop can keep vibe coding all they want, I'm already on Linux."

Windows 10 is a sounder (ahem) bet for avoiding bugs, seeing as Microsoft isn't adding new features or messing with the codebase much, and ks only applying security fixes and essentials. That said, this of course doesn't mean Windows 10 is immune to glitches.

There's a version of this Soundpeats Pop Clip2 that you'll never read. After several weeks with the Soundpeats Clip1's cheaper successor, I was half-way through writing a five-star review which declared them the best open earbuds you could buy. That version is, as you can already tell, not this version of the review.

You see, the longer I used the Soundpeats Pop Clip2, the more I had to contend with some annoying issues; the kind of problem which often emerge after months or years of use, especially in cheaper tech, but shouldn't be affecting the buds after just a few weeks.

For example, I had an issue with the charging case, where it wouldn't reliably power up the buds. Sometimes I'd take them out, only to find them drained. My biggest problem, though, was with connectivity: they'd often fail to connect to my phone, or repeatedly drop out while I was running. A few times, when I needed some buds for a cycle or run, I'd just use the recently-reviewed Baseus Bowie MC2 rather than try and fight with the Pop Clip 2.

It's a shame, because aside from these common cheap-bud problems, the Soundpeats Pop Clip 2 are genuinely fantastic earbuds. Or is it the Soundpeats UU2? Depending on where you live, they're called one or the other, but in many countries the brand is using both names. Confusing. I’m going to be using the former name, because it simply makes more sense.

The Soundpeats Pop Clip2 have to be some of the best-sounding clip-style earbuds I’ve heard: they have a nice simple V-shaped sound, offering bass with ‘oomph’ but tone, and clear crisp treble. They don’t re-invent the wheel, but nimbly avoid all the issues that come with audio in buds of this form factor.

They tick loads of other boxes too: they last longer than most rivals, fit really well, and offer a solid list of features like spatial audio, sound leak prevention and water drainage.

Perhaps most importantly, Soundpeats has defied our price-hike current state of living by dropping the price of the Pop Clip2 (compared to the predecessor). And not by a few pennies either: $20 in the US, £15 in the UK, $9.99 in Australia (okay, that one’s not a dramatic drop). The brand already had some of the best value open-ears on the market, and it’s really pressing its advantage here.

But because of the connection problems, they're a write-off, right? Uh, I'm not so sure. These problems were persistent, but not consistent. I frequently went for hours without a connection drop or problem, and found ways to cater for some of the quirks. As I write this mini-review, I've been seated at my desk and listening for three hours straight, without any problem. But I know if I went outdoors, they'd be less reliable.

I wish I could recommend the Soundpeats whole-heartedly, and the issues make that impossible. But it's possible that your mileage will vary, or that the brand will fix some of the connection issues through software patches.

Soundpeats Pop Clip2 review: Price and release date

• Launched in August 2026
• Sells for $49.99 / £59.99 / AU$70
• Cheaper than predecessors and other rivals

The Soundpeats Pop Clip2 were unveiled on August 10, 2026, just nine months after the unveiling of their predecessors, the Soundpeats Clip1. That’s not a long time to wait for them to… pop out.

At launch, the buds were tapped for a $49.99 / £59.99 / AU$70 asking price, which is cheaper than the $69.99 / £74.99 / AU$79.99 asking price of the last model. But just two weeks after release, I’m finding them available for £36 in the UK, so they may be even cheaper than reported. Let me be clear: this is rock-bottom prices territory from a trusted brand.

OK, they’re not technically the cheapest open earbuds around — there are options in the backrooms of Amazon and AliExpress that are much cheaper — but they’re the cheapest from a known, respected name in audio (notwithstanding sales on Soundcore, Baseus and Earfun products, which see them dip below Soundpeats’ cost).

The thing is, value only comes into effect if the performance is worth even the nominal outlay you'll have to part with to own them. So let's dig into that.

Soundpeats Pop Clip2 review: Specs

Soundpeats Pop Clip2 review: Features

• Solid 10h/42h battery life
• App offers loads of features
• Connectivity problems plague experience

The Soundpeats Pop Clip2 offer a 10-hour battery life per bud, and in testing they lasted that long regularly. According to the brand, the case offers a total of up to 42 hours. Both of those sums are a little above average, and I'd say they're enough for most uses.

There's no ANC here, but the Soundpeats app offers basically every other feature under the sun. There's spatial audio, find my earbuds, a low-latency gaming mode, a privacy mode to reduce sound leakage, a drainage function to shake water droplets out if the buds get wet, a dynamic EQ tool which adjusts your sound on the fly, and of course an equalizer.

This latter lets you choose between a range of presets based on genre, though it turns off dynamic EQ and spatial audio. There's an adaptive and custom mode too, but for some reason, you can only use these if you create a free Soundpeats account. Locking an essential tool unless someone hands you their email? Thumbs down from me.

In the Soundpeats app, you can also toggle LDAC and set up multi-point connection, as well as change what the gesture controls do.

Now, it's time to get to the elephant in the room, the one I mentioned in the review introduction. I had a bad time with the Soundpeats Pop Clip2's connectivity (or lack thereof).

Frequently, I'd remove the buds from the case, only for one to fail to connect. I never figured out a solution to this issue, though sometimes holding the 'on' button kicked it into gear, and it often prompted me to just pick up a rival pair of buds which actually connected.

Even when the Clip2 did connect, I'd sometimes have to contend with drop outs or a stuttery connection, particularly on whichever of the buds was furthest from the phone. And I wasn't using the buds at the extreme of their connection range; my phone could literally be in one hand, and the bud on the other side of my face would keep dropping out.

So, despite the use of Bluetooth 6.0 (and, of course, my attempts to fix the problem by changing phones and updating the firmware), connection is a real issue here. Depending on the root cause, it could be fixable with a software patch, but it might be an intrinsic problem with the buds.

• Features score: 3.5/5

Soundpeats Pop Clip2 review: Design

• Few differences from predecessor
• Case is small, but with problems
• Earbuds fit reliably and comfortably

The big Soundpeats Pop Clip2 difference from its predecessor is the case, which is smaller and more convenient to tote around. It's a small pebble, weighing 47.7g, which fits in a pocket with no problem.

There is a problem, but it's inside. Like in some other cheap earbuds I've tested, the charging pins in the Clip2 case can often get stuck down. These are those shiny needles which touch the connectors on an earbud, in order to power it up while it's in the case, depressing as they do. In some cases, they can fail to spring back up, sometimes stopping working entirely.

I often managed to free the charging pins by pressing them down and wiggling, but often I only knew to do this when a bud had failed to charge. That is to say, there's a manual solution, but I would've preferred earbuds that just worked.

Charging issues aside, the buds work great, which is no surprise given that they're almost identical from the wonderful previous-generation Clips. they're light, at roughly 5g per unit, and you can easily forget you're wearing them.

The fit is solid, and I never found any issues with them shaking or falling out of place while I was on a run. When it comes to the Pop Clip2's actual earpieces, I have no notes.

This extends to the on-bud controls. Instead of relying on a large and vague tap control, Soundpeats has placed a physical button on each bud, which is easiest to press by pinching the body of the device. This is easy to trigger, even when you're active, and a satisfying 'click' lets you know your gesture has been accepted.

A note to buyers: head to the app and customize what single, double-, triple-tap and long-held functions do. I didn't love the default options, but luckily it's easy to change.

• Design score: 4/5

Soundpeats Pop Clip2 review: Sound quality

• These are the best open earbuds I've heard
• Lovely balanced sound with plenty of customization
• 12mm drivers, LDAC and Hi-Res Audio Wireless

Several open earbuds makers have experimented with different multi-driver set-ups in order to solve the core problem with the form factor – getting good sound is incredibly tricky when the bud is far from your ear – and yet somehow Soundpeats has made the biggest leaps with a single driver.

Put simply, the Pop Clip 2 are the best-sounding open earbuds I’ve used to date, a compliment that’s a little limited in its reach but no less earnest for it. Each bud has a 12mm dual-magnetic driver, which according to Soundpeats has been tuned for “deep bass”, and seems on paper at least to match the Clip1’s driver. In practice, though, it performs a lot better.

By default, the earbuds have a fairly neutral sound profile, not favoring bass, mids or treble too heavily, and that’s pretty rare for exercise buds. In Handle With Care by Traveling Wilburys, I was surprised to hear the various rhythmic and harmonic instruments alongside the vocals and bass, and in Cinnamon by The Long Winters, it was easy to pick out the various simultaneous guitar lines which, in worse earbuds, blur together.

Despite this neutral focus, treble and bass are both handled well: the latter is bright, clear and crisp, the latter well-defined and energetic. And, thankfully, my Clip1 gripe about the max volume being too low has been fixed.

The buds’ sound can be pulled six ways from Sunday if you’ll let them too. In the dynamic mode, the bass and treble were boosted for a lovely V-shaped audio which gave Two Door Cinema Club’s Sleep Alone a lovely, bouncing energy.

Contributing to the sound is the Bluetooth codec support which Soundpeats has added — at least the connection works in one way. The buds support LDAC, and are certified for Hi-Res Audio Wireless, which isn’t something you can say about every set of open earbuds.

Of course, much of your enjoyment will depend on how you listen. No matter how good open-ears sound in the comfort of your home, the sound quality will plummet when you step outdoors into the busy word. But that’s the nature of the beast with these buds, and the dynamic equalizer went further than most in balancing for these issues.

• Sound quality: 5/5

Soundpeats Pop Clip2 review: Value

• Should be top-value earbuds
• Unfortunately, longevity isn't guaranteed

The Soundpeats Pop Clip2 sound fantastic and offer a solid range of features, despite being some of the cheapest open earbuds worth buying. They should be five-star buys.

Unfortunately, that appraisal would be forgetting the connection and case issues, two problems which sadly aren't uncommon in low-cost earbuds.

With that in mind, you're basically getting what you pay for, matching the promise of other same-price rivals: these are buds which work very well, but may stop working well before their time.

• Value: 3.5/5

Should I buy the Soundpeats Pop Clip2?

Buy them if…

Don’t buy them if…

Soundpeats Pop Clip2 review: Also consider

Looking for other affordable clip-style earbuds? Here are a few we've tested and would recommend.

How I tested the Soundpeats Pop Clip2

• Tested for roughly four weeks
• Paired with two different Android phones for music, podcasts, movies and games
• Used on runs, at gym, at desk and during travels

To write this full review, I used the Soundpeats Pop Clip2 for the best part of one month. In that time, I used it paired to two different Android smartphones: the Fairphone 6 Plus and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold.

To test the earbuds, I used them for various fitness activities including walks, runs, cycles and trips to the gym. I also used them while working at my desk, on the train and on a flight. Mostly, my listening was done on Spotify, but I also used Tidal and several video streaming services, played games and conducted calls with them.

I've been reviewing for TechRadar since early 2019, and over the last few years, that's included plenty of open earbuds, including the stablemates of the product here, the Soundpeats Clip1. I've also used various other Soundpeats headphones and earbuds.

• First reviewed in September 2026

• Read TechRadar's reviews guarantee

So says Marco Paglia, Chief Product Officer at Musixmatch - the platform delivering time-synced lyrics and translations across all major music streaming services.

At a time when passive background streaming feels like it dominates the landscape, I spoke to Marco to find out how lyrics are changing the game for musicians and their listeners.

In an era of passive streaming, why are lyrics still an important tool for turning casual listeners into diehard fans?

Lyrics represent one of the few moments in streaming when the listener stops being passive. A playlist plays at you, while lyrics make you lean in, follow the words and recognise something about yourself in what an artist is saying. That moment of connection is often where a casual listener starts to become a fan.

This experience has changed significantly over the last few decades. Lyrics used to be a souvenir: you bought the CD, pulled out the booklet, and read along. Now they are a fundamental part of the listening journey itself - time synced, translated and available immediately on screen as the song plays.

The scale of that behaviour is significant, with 88% of premium subscribers actively using lyrics. People read along, search for a chorus to find a track, share a line on Instagram or TikTok and print it on shirts.

Lyrics are where people find meaning in music. We see that reflected in listening behaviour too: tracks with lyrics generate 3.5x more saves, one of the clearest signals that someone wants to come back to a track. None of that is passive.

Ultimately, that’s why lyrics are such a powerful connective tissue between a song, an artist and the people who become invested in it.

On social media, a track can blow up in 24 hours. How much momentum does an artist lose if their lyrics aren’t synced on day one?

More than most artists realise, and that loss isn’t recoverable! The first few days of a release are a unique window: attention is at its highest, fans are actively searching for the track, and the moments that shape its trajectory are starting to build. Once that window passes, you can’t recreate it.

There are three things happening all at once in that initial period. Firstly, discovery: 81% of listeners search for lyrics online, so if a track’s lyrics aren’t available, it risks missing people actively trying to find it through words they’ve heard.

Secondly, algorithmic weighting: days one to seven are when saves and completion count most, and lyrics drive both of these things.

Thirdly, social engagement: lyrics give fans something to interact with and share. If there is no lyric card to screenshot, no sticker, no karaoke moment, you’re leaving fan engagement on the table right as curiosity peaks.

Then the window closes. Add lyrics on day eight and the opportunity to capture that initial release-week momentum has already passed. At that point, the focus shifts to longer-term discovery - and there’s no way to recreate that first week.

That’s exactly why we built Pre-Release, which means lyrics, sync and translations can all be in place and live from the moment a track drops.

For example, when the Rolling Stones released their latest album it launched fully covered, with lyrics, sync and translations in eight languages. Day-one lyrics aren’t a nice-to-have. They have to be part of the release itself.

How much manual effort is actually required from an artist or manager to get their lyrics and metadata release-ready across all platforms?

Historically an enormous amount, and almost all of it is invisible, unglamorous work: transcribing, time-syncing line by line, getting the structure and credits right.

Our job is to collapse that process. Customers can get verified in one step, we then pull their catalogue automatically from distributor data and audit it against what’s live on every Digital Service Provider (DSP). That produces a coverage report showing exactly where lyrics are missing, and prioritising the tracks where filling those gaps will have the greatest impact.

From there, customers can use our AI tools to transcribe and sync lyrics, or hand it to our expert curators. Our transcription engine is built specifically for the singing voice, and is more than twice as accurate as general speech tools.

That technology is backed by a global curator network that can help with proofreading across 100+ languages. Once everything is ready, it can be distributed to 25+ platforms simultaneously, with live status tracking. What could have taken months, now takes days.

There’s another part of this that catalogue managers sometimes underestimate: the same process can power the campaign around a release. Once the lyrics are ready ahead of release day, that file can also produce the vertical video loops for TikTok, Instagram, Spotify Canvas assets, and the YouTube lyric videos ready to go live alongside the track. One deliverable, every surface, no video shoot.

You describe Music Lens as ‘the world’s first Music Agent’. What does that mean in practice, who benefits and how?

Music Lens allows users to stop querying a database and to have a conversation with their catalogue. In practice, that means four things.

It can match a catalogue to a creative brief, it turns global trends into readable insight so you can see a breakthrough moment while it’s still happening, it gives clear visibility into royalties, splits and DSP performance (market by market), and it generates campaign-ready visuals from songs in seconds.

I like to think of it as an agent that develops through four stages: first, a musicologist, reading lyrics and extracting meaning, moods and themes. Then a DJ, enabling search by feeling, rather than simply based on the artist or title. Then it becomes a music expert, reasoning through a brand brief in the way a human sync agent would. Finally, it is an analyst, mapping how an artist's themes evolve and identifying patterns across countries and genres.

The biggest beneficiaries are publishers and labels with catalogues too large to know intimately, sync teams doing the matching process from memory, and independent artists who’ve never had this class of analysis available to them at all.

And the part I care most about is that it’s non-generative: it analyses meaning, but it doesn’t write songs. It’s built on derived data, meaning new information created by processing a catalogue of over 100 million works. It’s permission-based, with no scraping, no unlicensed content and no raw lyric ever surfaces in the output. That was a hard licensing constraint and it shaped every architectural decision downstream.

Do platforms like this level the playing field for artists to build a career without needing the support of a major label?

We give independent artists access to the tools and the infrastructure that historically were much harder to access without the support of a major label. We can offer reach across every platform, control over metadata, professional-grade catalogue intelligence, a merchandising operation, and the one people often forget: translation.

For example, an independent artist can verify their profile, own their lyrics, sync them for free, distribute them to 25+ platforms, ask Music Lens which of their songs has untapped potential, turn a lyric into merchandise, and reach fans in their own language on day one.

More than 1.5 million artists already use Musixmatch Pro to do exactly this. Ten years ago, much of that capability would have sat behind a label services deal.

Translation is the most underrated part of that shift. An artist making music in a bedroom in Bologna with listeners in São Paulo used to have no way to close that gap. Now the words travel with the music.

There are of course elements of labels that we don’t replace, and which are still a real advantage, such as capital, generating radio and playlist relationships and dedicated teams focused on building an artist’s career.

But we have certainly helped level the playing field by putting more information, tools and infrastructure directly into the hands of independent artists.

Beyond backend metadata and licensing, how do you plan to turn your platform into an active community and a richer experience for fans?

Musixmatch has always been a community, a large one, made of people who care enough about a song to get its words right. That passion is our asset. What we’re building now is the layer where fans and artists actually meet.

Translation is one of the most powerful examples. Most people know lyrics in languages they don’t speak, and translation turns that from a novelty into belonging.

Last November, we powered Spotify’s first global rollout of lyric translations on Rosalía’s LUX: 14 languages on one record, 23 translations synced for release day. It became the most-streamed album in a single day by a Spanish-speaking female artist. When language stops being a barrier, fandom stops being local.

Merchandise, and specifically fan-personalised merchandise, is another opportunity. Our Lyrics Merch tool allows an artist to turn a lyric into something a fan wears: designed, printed and sold through us, with the artist keeping 100% of sales. But the part I find most interesting is what happens when an artist opens that experience up to their fans.

If they want to offer it, the fan can choose their own favourite line from the song and have that printed on a shirt. It’s a completely different relationship from buying tour merch. The fan isn’t picking from what the artist decided to print, they’re telling the artist which words mattered most to them. Every shirt becomes a small piece of feedback about which lyric actually landed, and the fan ends up wearing a line they chose themselves.

Finally, there’s participation. We have a global community made up of music lovers, who transcribe, sync and translate lyrics. Our curators help us to ensure lyrics are accurate, properly synced and accessible to fans around the world. The more credit and better tools we give them, the better the data gets, which improves the experience for everyone.

Few audio brands have made as much noise on social media as Heavys. In the best headphones arena, the company made heavy music (sound)waves with its Heavys H1H headphones, a couple of years ago, and now it has attempted to translate that sound to the wireless earbuds format.

And largely, the H1E True Wireless Earbuds achieve the low-end sound and punchy prominence needed for a specialised listening experience within this music genre, although sadly, it makes them a poor choice for listening to any other kind of music.

Carrying an MSRP of $209 / £185 / AU$321, the Heavys H1E True Wireless Earbuds are far from the cheapest set of in-ears around, although we have seen them discounted to $169 in the US and down to £150 in the UK recently. They're priced to rival mid-range heavy-hitters such as the Samsung Galaxy Buds4 (and arguably even the flagship, hugely popular Apple AirPods Pro 3) rather than the truly elite end of the spectrum — think Technics EAH-AZ100 or Bowers & Wilkins Pi8.

But where those brands aim to provide a broader, more general listening experience, the H1Es are more specialist; instead of an everyday pair, these earbuds are more situational. You're spending around the $200 / £200 / AU$300 range for something that's purpose-built, for better or worse.

In the words of Gojira: Born for one thing. And listening to heavy metal music does sound solid through the Heavys H1E earbuds for the most part, with the vast majority of sub-genres within this spectrum accurately represented. What's particularly noticeable is just how good the dynamic drivers can be. The company promises a "concert-like experience," and even with what are (presumably) 10-14mm drivers (the size hasn't been publicly disclosed), under the right conditions, this has been delivered.

I can praise the Heavy's H1E earbuds' build quality too. A tactile case which can be customized with shells is neat, but the real advantage here is the multiple silicon and memory foam ear tips provided, which make them genuinely really comfortable over time. There's a wealth of sizes available, so you can find the right fit.

This helps to elevate the H1E's otherwise decidedly middling user experience though: a so-so seven hours of playback (24 hours from the case), and some of the most mediocre active noise-cancelling I've seen from earbuds at this price point.

A similar frustration can be levied at the connectivity options of the Heavys H1E earbuds. Low-latency Bluetooth 5.4 multi-connectivity is great when it works, but it doesn't always work. Countless times in my months with the earbuds, I was caught in a loop: the earbuds 'forgot' my phone, forcing me to re-pair and even to re-connect between charges as they don't seem to be intelligent enough to remember my Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max. That's to say nothing of times when only one earbud would work, with the other refusing to connect, which meant restarting the whole process over again. To be clear, this is something I've never experienced with any other earbuds or headphones.

The Heavys H1E True Wireless Earbuds are niche and not without issues, but the listening experience ultimately helps them stand out from the crowd. If you're someone who exclusively listens to heavy metal music, then they could be of value. As a metal musician myself, and someone who has seen thousands of metal bands play live over the last 15 years, I found them to be worthwhile, even if they won't rival what the best wireless earbuds and best earbuds overall can do outside of their specialism. Continue reading my full Heavys H1E review further down the page to find out why.

Heavys H1E review: Price & release date

• Officially unveiled on September 22, 2025, via social media
• Available now, shipping worldwide for $209 / £185 / AU$321

After being revealed on social media late last year, with pre-orders being fulfilled throughout early 2026, you can now get your hands on the Heavys H1E True Wireless Earbuds for $209 / £185 / AU$321, depending on your region. With that said, it isn't uncommon for these wireless earbuds to be available at a reduced rate through the deals the company runs on its store page, knocking anywhere from 10-20% off, depending on the season. Keep an eye out for the green banner around a peak sales time, and you could save some cash.

The price tag positions the Heavys H1E earbuds against the mid-range and higher-end competition. Chiefly, that means more well-known consumer models such as the aforementioned Galaxy Buds4 and the Apple AirPods Pro lineup. It also means a comparable price tag to "enthusiast" class earbuds, as can be seen from the Technics AZ100, and the Noble Audio Osprey. Both of these earbuds (and many more) hover around the $200 / £200 / AU$300 mark, so it's a fairly crowded space. For the audio performance on display, they're priced a little high. More on that further down the page, though.

Heavys H1E review: Specs

Heavys H1E review: Design & features

• "Hellblocker" ANC
• Dual microphone setup
• Excellent range of comfortable, changable tips for comfortable use

The Heavys H1E True Wireless Earbuds excel from a design perspective. They're made of a matte molded plastic which feels both premium and incredibly durable; there's IPX5 water and sweat resistance, meaning they can handle a splash of liquid as well. What impresses me most are the multi-sized ear tips that are shipped in the box, as you get a variety of sizes in different materials: memory foam and silicon, for a comfortable fit to suit most (if not all) ear sizes.

I'm someone who struggles with earbuds for long stretches of time, having previously ditched the likes of the Razer Hammerheads because they were too uncomfortable for long periods of use. Having multiple ear tips in various sizes meant I could find the fit that was right for me; whether I was out walking my Belgian Malinois, on a plane, commuting via train, or just working in the house. Once I found the right fit for me, I was away. Hours would go by, and I'd forget I was even wearing them; that's good ergonomic design right there.

A key design element present in the H1H headphones has been applied to the H1E earbuds too. However, instead of interchangeable ear cup shells, decorated to represent your favorite bands, the customization options apply to the case. There's a fair amount of official designs available, including Currents, Testament, Carnifex, Dream Theater, Opeth, and Whitelabel. Additionally, there are some original designs, including profanity-laden options or purple smoke to add a splash of color and personality. The case itself charges via USB-C and takes around two hours to juice up to full, giving you around 24 hours of total use, or around three full recharges of the earbuds' playback time. It's OK rather than great, as those numbers go.

Also so-so in the world of wireless earbuds in 2026 is Heavys' claim of up to seven hours of playback from the H1E earbuds, although your mileage may vary depending on your reliance on that "Hellblocker" ANC, as well as how you dial your EQ settings.

I've used dozens of wireless earbuds and headphones that feature great ANC over the years, and Heavys' Hellblocker solution just isn't it. The feature was also present on the H1H headphones with a dedicated switch to enable it, and worked well enough thanks (almost certainly) to the far larger drivers and mic array on the large ear cups. However, given the small size of the H1E earbuds, any real noise cancellation is pretty poor.

I tend to go out and walk my dog with the H1Es in, and even after hearing the gruff man on voice prompts announce "Hellblocker activated", I was still hearing other dogs barking, passing cars, wind noise, and all other background noise that should have been filtered out. All it really did was make the audio quality a little more muffled.

A good companion application can really elevate a pair of wireless earphones, giving you smart and reactive EQ options, helping you get the best listening experience possible. We've seen this before with Bowers & Wilkins' excellent Music App, to support its lineup of earbuds.

Unfortunately, the official Heavys app is nowhere near as good. Aside from updating the firmware, all it gives you is a basic EQ settings slider, and you're better off leaving it at the default, as it's hard to gear it towards one genre or another. My partner also experienced issues with having the H1Es connect to her Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra via the app, as it wasn't as user-intuitive as you would hope for from earbuds released in 2026.

• Design & Features score: 3.5 / 5

Heavys H1E review: Sound quality

• Prominent bass and good overall low-end presence
• Depending on the mixing, you get decent mids
• 'Hellblocker' ANC changes the listening experience for the worse

The Heavys H1E True Wireless Earbuds are good for metal music most of the time. It's situational and circumstantial, though. As touched upon above, they can sound incredible for metal music, with the major caveat being the trappings of the genre itself. Metal is the most diverse genre of music on the planet, separated into dozens of sub-genres with niches within them. For example, if we look at black metal, you have your classic first and second waves (Venom and Celtic Frost to Mayhem and Emperor) to the likes of atmospheric black, black/death, symphonic black, melodic black, black 'n roll, blackgaze, and the list goes on.

There's no true way to be geared towards all metal music, just as you can't fine-tune an EQ between bands within the same sub-genre of a sub-genre. It can get as granular as different audio balancing for the likes of Archgoat, Belphegor, Behexen, and Behemoth, and that's just scratching the surface. In blanket terms, the Heavy H1E earbuds excel with anything forcing the low-end, particularly with sub-genres such as death metal, grindcore, deathcore, and anything that benefits most from a down-tuned guitar, five-string bass, and percussion cutting through the mix.

In my months with the Heavys H1Es, I've listened to hundreds of metal records, and the best listening experiences I can recall most come from streaming Vomitory, Batushka, Blood Red Throne, Korpse, Vulvodynia, Death, Conan, Kanonenfieber, Mgła, and Imperial Triumphant. The drivers are incredibly punchy, differentiating harsh vocals against bass and lower-tuned guitars, or guitars tuned to E standard that are soaked in distortion; there's good distinction, with no muddiness or fizziness that we see when heavier music genres are played from more general earbuds.

Other metal sub-genres don't really benefit from the low-end tuning of the audio drivers though. I'm nearly 30, and nowadays just as likely to put on some Black Sabbath, Clutch, or Green Lung as anything recorded from the frostbitten valleys of Scandinavia, and it's when listening to clean-sung vocals, or any metal music with more traditional production that the H1Es feel just... okay. Solstafir, Zeal & Ardor, Katatonia, Candlemass, Sleep, Metallica, Slayer, and Acid Bath sounded fine, but the listening experience was about on par with just about any (cheaper) wireless earbuds I've used over the last 10 years.

I really would recommend listening to music without the Hellblocker ANC active, as enabling it via touch controls can drastically impact the overall listening quality. Depending on the mix, things can go from a little muffled to quite tinny. It's not a unique complaint against the H1E earbuds, as ANC can do that, but it's particularly disappointing when the passive noise isolation doesn't filter the outside world out, and you end up having worse-sounding music when trying to fix it. It's not sophisticated enough to do its job, and it really just annoyed me rather than being all too useful.

• Sound quality score: 3.5 / 5

Heavys H1E review: Value

• Expensive for what they are
• Poor overall ANC when compared to the competition
• Stellar situationally, for certain genres of metal music

I've been critical of the Heavys H1E True Wireless Earbuds in this review. Considering the fact that I enjoy using the H1H over-ear headphones so much, I was expecting more of that sound quality and feature set to be carried over, but it hasn't translated as smoothly as I expected.

For the asking price of $209 / £185 / AU$321, there's no getting around the fact that you can get a far superior listening experience from a competitor. USP aside, unless you're really into death metal (or its offshoots), the cons may outweigh the pros here.

The Heavys H1Es are well-designed and comfortable for extended periods of time, and the case is well-made and holds a respectable charge, allowing for 24 hours of total use.

However, the ANC is poor, the Bluetooth connectivity can be spotty, the companion app is mediocre, and they're priced a little too high for what is (essentially) a marketing ploy. Under the right set of circumstances, these earbuds can be exceptional, but with a higher mid-market asking price and stiff competition, they're a hard sell in 2026.

• Value score: 3 / 5

Should I buy the Heavys H1E True Wireless Earbuds?

Buy them if...

Don't buy them if...

Heavys H1E review: Also consider

How I tested the Heavys H1E True Wireless Earbuds

• Tested for a period of three months while comparing them to other wireless earbuds, headphones, and gaming headsets around my office.
• Primarily used when outside walking my dog, commuting via plane or train, and running errands.
• Throughout my listening experience, I mostly used Apple Music's Loseless tracks, Spotify, Bandcamp, and YouTube Music depending on the artist's availability.

I've been using the Heavys H1E True Wireless Earbuds over the last few months when I've been out and about, heading somewhere for work, walking the dog, or doing chores. They've lived in the case in the pocket of my jacket or my shoulder bag, and were actively used during commuting. For testing purposes, I did actively switch between them and the Heavys H1H over-ear headphones to compare sound quality and features.

Most of my time using the Heavys H1Es was spent with the earbuds connected to my iPhone 15 Pro Max. Although I did try them out on several occasions with my partner's Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, as well as my MacBook Air M1 (2020), to gauge how well the Bluetooth connection would be.

I am a metal musician (guitarist and vocalist) who has been recording and playing music for over 10 years. I have mixed and mastered many different metal albums, and have seen literally thousands of metal bands play live over the years at gigs and metal festivals, such as Damnation, Incineration, Bloodstock, Snuff Fest, Download, Brutal Assault, and countless others.

Read more about how we test

• First reviewed September 2026.

The JBL Live 680NC are a strong pair of headphones for the price. They have a lot to offer, such as a whole litany of features including well-implemented active noise cancellation (ANC) and Ambient Aware, a lot of EQ-related options, spatial audio, and Auracast support. They also offer a very, very long battery life.

But they come with some compromises to meet that $160 price point. The sound quality, while good, does have an unruly low-end and a more rolled off high end than I would like. The spatial audio is a bit underwhelming in practice. They don’t come with a charging cable. And they do put a little bit of pressure on the top of the head during long listening sessions.

If you’re trying to stretch your budget, they may be the best wireless headphones for you, but manage your expectations; they’re not going to compete with something like the Sony WH-1000XM6. And if you have the ability to spend an extra hundred bucks (or the equivalent in your regional coin), the slightly more expensive JBL Live 780NC do sound a fair bit better and handle the weight distribution a little better as well. That said, these are tough times for a lot of people, and the price tag on the Live 680NC is reasonable, especially considering everything that they can do.

JBL Live 680NC: Price and release date

• Priced $159.95 / $129.99 / AU$199.95
• Launch date March 12, 2026

With a price tag of $159.95 / £129.99 / AU$199.95, the JBL Live 680NC technically fit into the mid-range tier of headphones while still being a cool $100 cheaper than the JBL Live 780NC that was released concurrently in March 2026.

As you’ll see in this review, there are a few reasons to spend that extra hundred dollars (though you could spend even more for the JBL Tour One M3 Smart Tx). But if you’re okay with a slightly less articulate sound quality or marginally less comfortable fit, you can save that hundred bucks if you’re on more of a budget.

JBL Live 680NC: Specs

JBL Live 680NC: Features

• Multipoint connectivity and Auracast available
• Very adjustable Active Noise Cancellation and Ambient Aware
• Powerful EQ including personalization options

The JBL Live 680NC are chock full of features. Multipoint connectivity, Auracast (allowing connection to multiple headphones from one source), Bluetooth with LE Audio (unavailable for Apple users), the ability to customize on-ear controls, and on-ear wear detection are just some of what’s on offer. You can also upmix via JBL’s own spatial audio feature.

Adaptive active noise cancellation (ANC), Ambient Aware, and TalkThru modes are available with a good amount of customizations for the first two through the app. And while these modes won’t beat the best of Sony or Bose, they work pretty well. I don’t hear ambient noise with the ANC on at 50% (while something is playing), while I can hear ambient noise clearly with music at around 60%, which is nice when using these headphones for a walk or run.

There’s plenty more fine tuning available through the app. Of course, there’s plenty in the way of EQ. Not only are there a handful of EQ presets, but there’s a parametric EQ with the ability to boost or cut up to 6 dB anywhere between 32 and 16kHz, which is much more powerful than a lot of EQs available with other headphones.

Plus, JBL’s Personi-Fi 3.0 feature allows for creating a personalized EQ curve based on how you hear. It does so via a test of different frequencies at different volumes for each ear. Not only do I appreciate the personalization aspect of it, but also that it takes the guesswork out of trying to adjust the EQ.

Call-related features are available in the app as well, including allowing you to hear your own voice, as well as some relaxation focused features that, while they feel a little gimmicky, are a nice addition for anyone who wants to hear the sound of rain or birds chirping without pulling up a youtube channel for it.

• Features score: 5 / 5

JBL Live 680NC: Design

• Light, on-ear headphones
• Weight sits a little heavily on top of head though
• Comes without a charging cable

The JBL Live 680NC are fairly sharp looking headphones for around $160. They’re not quite premium, but they’re pretty close with a combination of plastic, metal (particularly the hinges), and leatherette-covered foam. There’s plenty of padding on the headband and ear cups, but since they’re on-ear more than over-ear, their fit is a bit different to the JBL Live 780NC I just reviewed.

They’re not that heavy at around 231 grams, but since they sit on the ear instead of over, more of the weight sits on top of the head. So while there’s plenty of cushion, I feel the headphones pressing on my skull in a way that lingers after wear. It’s not a lot so I didn’t feel discomfort, exactly, but it is something that separates it from its more expensive big brother.

Other than the fit and, relatedly, the ear pads, the JBL Live 680NC are identical to the Live 780NC in terms of design. They’re available in the same five colors (black, blue, green, white, champagne), have the same round ear cups, and have the same one and a half inch height adjustment per side. They’re foldable and have a big L or R on the inside of the non-removable ear pads as well.

Controls and ports are the same as well. The left ear cup houses the volume controls, while the right has the power and bluetooth slider along with the ANC / AmbientAware / TalkThru cycle button, not to mention that you can top on the center of the ear cup in various configurations to play or pause, rewind, or fast forward to the next song. The USB-C charging port is also on the right side.

And just like the JBL Live 780NC, the JBL Live 680NC come with a soft carrying case, a USB-C to Aux cable for analog listening, and come without an actual charging cable, though you can just use whatever you charge your phone with (you don't still have a Lightning iPhone, do you?).

• Design score: 4/5

JBL Live 680NC: Sound

• Low-end is often overwhelming
• Warmer sounding headphones with slight high-end roll off
• Incredible battery life

The JBL Live 680NC is a competent, if not quite inspiring set of headphones to listen to. There’s plenty of volume thankfully, so if you’re trying to fast track hearing loss, you can certainly do that with these headphones.

Just like the more expensive 780NC, the low end on these headphones is almost out of control. I’ve done a lot of my listening with the “studio” EQ preset, which is basically a flat EQ with a slight bass cut, and I still feel like I’m hearing too much bass, regardless of whether I’m listening to Bruno Mars or Nothing. Of course, fans of EDM and Hip Hop will probably love that.

And just like the 780NC, the JBL Live 680NC use 40mm drivers. However, they don’t have quite as much ‘sparkle’ or clarity in the top end so don’t have quite the presence. I would describe the high-end as slightly rolled off. It’s still pleasant to listen to, but just doesn’t sound as Hi-Fi despite also having the 10Hz to 40kHz frequency range, which is considered high resolution.

That roll off does give the JBL Live 680NC a little warmer of a sound, helped along by the fact that the mids are a bit more forward here. Some people may like that. Of course, audio can sound a little bloated with mid-heavy mixes, aka any dense rock-leaning mixes.

This also affects the soundstage as there isn’t quite the separation I’m used to. I am setting the bar a little high as I experienced better separation between instruments and audio elements in the more expensive JBL headphones, but that’s a hundred dollar difference. And these wireless headphones sound good for $150.

Also worth noting, the spatial audio here is not a fully immersive experience but just a virtual upmix of existing stereo audio (the headphones only have one driver per side). It’s an interesting inclusion that adds a little space to any audio I’m listening to, but is fairly nuanced to the point where you might not even realize that it’s on.

On the other hand, the battery life on the JBL Live 680NC is outright impressive. You get 80 hours on a single charge without ANC on, and 50 hours of use with it on. A fast charge of five minutes gives an additional four hours of use.

• Sound performance: 4 / 5

JBL Live 680NC: Value

• Great value proposition
• Comes with similar tradeoffs of other budget / mid-tier headphones
• As fully featured as anything else at this price point

The JBL Live 680NC is a very good value proposition. I do like the JBL Live 780NC more — it sounds better and has a better fit — but its $250 price tag might be a big ask for some. And the JBL Live 680NC still sound good if slightly different, having a warmer sound signature while still have the same battery life and feature set of the more expensive headphones.

Other headphones trying to bridge the gap between budget and mid-tier end up closer in price to the 780NC than the 680NC. The Beyerdynamic Aventho 100, for example, are a pair of headphones that I really enjoyed that also came with a handful of compromises to keep cost down, except that cost is higher at $229.99 / £199 / AU$314. They sound good but not great, have an interesting look, great battery life, and solid implementation of ANC.

• Value: 4.5/5

Should I buy the JBL Live 680NC?

Buy them if…

Don’t buy them if…

JBL Live 680NC: Also consider

How I tested the JBL Live 780NC

• Tested over a week period
• Tested with different music as well as video streaming
• Tested the various features

I spent a week using the JBL Live 680NC as my daily headphones. While using them, I listened to all sorts of genres from electronic and hip hop to rock and acoustic music to compare the frequency range and soundstage. I also tested the various settings such as ANC, transparency mode, EQ, and multipoint.

I’ve spent the last few years reviewing audio equipment and have spent even longer using my critical ear as a listener and musician to understand what does and doesn’t sound good.

• First reviewed in April 2026

• Read TechRadar's reviews guarantee

It seems IKEA is on a roll when it comes to cube-shaped, low-price Bluetooth speakers: following on from the Ikea Kallsup that we tested earlier this year, we now have the IKEA Badkruka, which is several times bigger and offers some extra features.

There's no official announcement about the Badkruka just yet, so we're relying on the product page on IKEA's German website (via Notebookcheck) for all the details. It also shows up on the Swedish site, but not the US, UK, or Australia yet.

Measuring 16cm wide x 16cm deep x 17.5cm tall (that's 6.3 inches x 6.3 inches x 6.9 inches), you can pick up the IKEA Badkruka in either black or pink. It's built from ABS plastic and polycarbonate, and doesn't look to be portable — there's a power cord in the product photos and no mention of a rechargeable battery.

Along the top of the speaker we've got physical controls for playback and volume, and there's also a Spotify Tap button, so with one button press you can carry on from where you left off on Spotify on another device.

Keep on pairing

IKEA doesn't give us any technical specs in terms of audio capabilities here, but does say we can expect "powerful" and "balanced" sound that's "ideal for gaming, streaming, or listening to music" (via Google Translate).

The product listing mentions that two speakers can be paired together for synced stereo sound, and the feature is shown off in one of the promotional images too. It also seems that additional speakers can be paired and synced too, if you buy a few — with the Kallsup, it's possible to pair up to 100 of them.

There are three EQ settings on the speaker as well, so you can tweak the audio output to match your preferences and the types of tunes you listen to. It's a decent set of features for an affordable Bluetooth speaker like this.

Speaking of price, it's available for €50 from the German site. We don't have official global pricing yet — fingers crossed that IKEA does roll this out more widely — but that works out as roughly $58 / £43 / AU$81.

Alongside 'Fast songs for the gym' and 'Band 101 for introducing a partner to a band on the eve of going to their gig', remembering moments or periods of your life is one of the most important reasons we make playlists. I still listen to "mix-tapes" (in digital format, mostly) I made while living abroad, road tripping around the outback or preparing for big university parties.

Now, streaming service Qobuz has taken time off its war on AI slop to acknowledge the link between music and memory for World Alzheimer's Month, teaming up with hi-fi tech brand iFi Audio to do so.

World Alzheimer's Month runs through September, and during that time, Qobuz and iFi are running a competition to submit a memory-laden playlist, and perhaps win an iFi iDSD GR 2 for your efforts.

Wait, what's the link? Well, it has been shown that musical memory remains well-preserved in Alzheimer's sufferers, and so a song may help with memory recall.

I'm getting this from a study published in the National Library of Medicine, which suggests that music interventions can "delay and decelerate the neurodegeneration in individuals at risk". But my colleague and Audio Editor tells me she has seen music's profound effect on memory recall in a fellow dancer who (even in advanced stages of this progressive disease) could still perform decades-old choreography, if the music were played.

Many non-profits, including Music & Memory or Playlist for Life, exist to help people by providing training, awareness or music-based care, to aid those suffering with various degenerative illnesses.

What about that competition?

Oh yes, the competition.

During September, Qobuz and iFi want you to make a playlist (on the former's hi-res download and streaming platform, of course) full of songs which bring you back to a certain time or important memory.

Then, you need to head over to iFi Audio's competition landing page, which will give you a few steps to complete and fields to fill in.

This page also lets you provide a 'short story' or description of what the playlist means to you. There's no stated word count, but this whole news story could be pasted into the field with without a problem.

Once you've submitted your playlist, you'll be in with a chance to win the iFi iDSD GR 2 DAC (or digital-analog-converter, to level up your music using, say, the USB-C port on your phone, and on to your wired headphones or earbuds), worth $529 / £529 / AU$849. And that's a great prize. We gave the iFi IDSD GR 2 a perfect, 5-star review, praising its sound quality and easy-to-use touch-screen. So good luck!

There's no indication of how the brands will choose a winner; if it'll be based on the description, or tracks, or at random. It's also not clear what will happen to the rest of the playlists; maybe Qobuz will publish some of its favorites for all to see, but perhaps the submission is just for the purposes of the competition. Either way, delving back into old albums and tracks that really take you back to a specific moment will be a cathartic — and sometimes profound — experience. Music's great, isn't it?

While the AirPods 5 upgrades offer you the best features of the AirPods Pro, they were small consolation at an Apple Event in which people were hoping for more sweeping audio upgrades. No AirPods with cameras, no HomePods upgrade despite teases, and no new Beats headphones.

However, that latter point could be addressed later in the month. How come? because according to MacRumors, Apple just released a firmware update for the Beats 360 headphones. Yes, that same pair of Beats 360 headphones we've been hearing rumors about for months, but that have yet to be officially announced.

Why is Apple updating headphones that don't exist? Well, bear in mind we've been seeing them for months, as Apple gave them to multiple soccer World Cup players to show off during the tournament. Celebrity sportspeople need their tech updating too, after all.

There's no indication of what this update does, and it doesn't really matter. It's all about what this update suggests.

A Beats 360 release date just around the corner?

Because of this recent software update, many now think that the Beats 360 are due to be unveiled at some point in September.

While Apple already has just had its big product unveiling event of the year (on September 9, around 14 hours ago at the time of writing), that doesn't rule out new Beats devices. Apple generally lets its Beats sub-brand operate independently.

In fact, it would've been pretty bizarre if we had seen the Beats 360 shown off at the Apple event, for this fact.

We know a lot about how the Beats 360 look, thanks to plenty of leaks (and, of course, the fact that they were literally on the necks, heads and bags of a few soccer players months ago). They sound like a big step up from what we've seen, but as the launch of a new range, it's hard to know how they'll stack up to existing models.

Beats' last product launch was in October 2025, when it showed off the Powerbeats Fit, so maybe we'll see the brand take the same late-September-early-October window for its new device. Or devices? We've only heard about the Beats 360, but that doesn't rule out siblings of other form factors.

Apple's hotly anticipated ‘Surprise and Shine’ event has been and gone, leaving a foldable iPhone Duo, the iPhone 18 Pro, AirPods 5, and many more new products in its wake.

The iPhone Duo is, of course, the biggest talking point — it's Apple's first foldable iPhone, and will "redefine what an iPhone can do, while still feeling natural and familiar," according to the Cupertino tech giant.

Elsewhere, Apple refreshed its wearable lineup with the Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4; the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max got a variable aperture feature; and AirPods 5 are bringing new Audio Intelligence features to the table.

We've picked out the key points of every new product announcement below.

iPhone Duo

It's finally official — Apple's first foldable phone is here. The iPhone Duo (yes, not the iPhone Ultra) is its answer to the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8, combining a 5.4-inch outer screen with a 7.6-inch Super Retina XDR inner display and lots of neat software tricks.

Powered by the "desktop-class" A20 Pro chip, the iPhone Duo has a titanium frame that's apparently been strengthened by ceramic fibers, and it'll be available in two colors: 'star white' and 'night sky' (a dark blue).

Interestingly, the iPhone Duo also lacks a few key iPhone features, including Face ID, but it was undoubtedly the star of Apple's iPhone 18 Pro launch — and we'll be bringing you our hands-on first impressions very soon.

• 5.4-inch cover display, 7.6-inch foldable display
• A20 Pro chipset with C2 modem
• 48MP Fusion main camera, 48MP ultra-wide
• Starts at $1,999 / £1,999 / AU$3,499

iPhone 18 Pro

The iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max are, of course, being billed as the best iPhones yet. They both use Apple's new A20 Pro chip, which boasts a 20% faster CPU and 40% faster GPU, but performance improvements are just the beginning.

For budding cinematographers, the biggest upgrade for both phones is the variable aperture in their 48MP main cameras. You'll be able to widen the lens to let in more light for nightography, or make the aperture smaller for greater depth of field to capture more details in a single shot.

The battery life has been upgraded on both phones, too. Apple says the iPhone 18 Pro has the same battery life as the iPhone 17 Pro Max — that’s 36 hours of video playback. The iPhone 18 Pro Max's endurance is up to 45 hours.

The only catch? Both phones will cost you a little more than last year. The base model starts at $1,199 / £1,199 / AU$2,099 rather than $1,099 / £1,099 / AU$1,999, while the Pro Max starts at $1,299 / £1,299 / AU$2,299 rather than $1,199 / £1,199 / AU$2,149.

The iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max launch on September 18, and you can snag them in Silver, Black, Glacier (a sort of lilac), or Burgundy.

For a breakdown of how the iPhone 18 Pro compares to the iPhone 17 Pro, check out our iPhone 18 Pro vs iPhone 17 Pro comparison.

• Variable aperture in 48MP fusion main camera
• iPhone 18 has a 36-hour battery life, the same as iPhone 17 Pro Max
• A20 Pro chipset: 20% faster CPU, 40% faster GPU
• Price starts at $1,199 / £1,199 / AU$2,099 for 256GB; launches September 18
• Comes in Silver, Black, Glacier, or Burgundy colors

Apple Watch Series 12

The Apple Watch Series 12 brings a few new design tweaks, including a new color — dark bronze — alongside space grey, black, and light gold, all in 100% recycled aluminum. A new Ceramic Shield 2 lens is 60% tougher than the previous generation, while the biggest performance change is in the sensor.

The new Health Sensing System offers better skin contact thanks to an increased electrode surface area. Heart rate readings are now being read up to every five seconds, with heart rate variability (a measure of recovery) being read up to every five minutes. All this enables features like the new Readiness Score (it's about time, as every other wearable has one), an improved Vitals app, and an incoming redesigned Health app on iPhone to match, which allows you to measure your VO2 Max using a guided workout on your iPhone's camera. Health Age behaves like similar features you'll find on a Whoop or Garmin, comparing your fitness to the averages in your age bracket.

However, it's Audio Intelligence that's proving the most interesting (and most controversial) feature, as Siri Recap and Live Rewind listen throughout the day to provide summaries of your day and instantly recall conversations, respectively.

• Aluminum / ceramic body, Ceramic Shield 2 lens
• 24-hour battery life
• Starts at $399 / £369 / AU$649
• S11 chipset
• Redesigned Health Sensing System, Readiness, Audio Intelligence

Apple Watch Ultra 4

Apple's big beast returns with all the upgrades of the Series 12 above: a redesigned Health Sensing System for better heart rate accuracy (the most accurate of any wearable, according to Apple), Readiness Score, improved Vitals app, Health Age, and so on. It also gets all the Audio Intelligence features previously mentioned, which, along with Live Rewind and Siri Recap, offer sound recognition (doorbells, sirens, and so on) and Shazam on-wrist.

Ultra-specific improvements are thin on the ground. The battery now stretches from last year's 42 hours to a full two days. In GPS mode, you get 18 hours, enough for all but the toughest ultramarathons. Very little else has changed, design-wise: there are no new colors or dramatic upsets. The Ultra 4 does, however, get the new Ceramic Shield 2 protection in addition to a super-hard titanium case.

• Titanium body,
• Ceramic Shield 2 lens
• 48-hour battery life
• Starts at $799 / £749 / AU$1,349
• S11 chipset
• Redesigned Health Sensing System, Readiness, Audio Intelligence

AirPods 5

You've got two new AirPods to choose from: the AirPods 5, and AirPods 5 with Wireless Charging Case and Volume Swipe.

Key upgrades for both models include Live Translation, next-generation Adaptive EQ, and 50% more noise reduction over the AirPods 4. Battery life is also up to 22 hours (if you carry the case with you).

And no, there are no cameras here, low-res or otherwise — even in the top-tier set. We didn't expect that particular feature in AirPods 'til 2027, and we were right to stay firm on it — it seems Apple eyes in your ears are still a way off.

As well as the Wireless Charging Case, the pricier AirPods 5 also boast the volume swipe feature of the latest AirPods Pro. They'll cost you $149 / £149 / AU$249 — so less than the original AirPods 4 with ANC, but more than the standard AirPods 5 at $129 / £129 / AU$219.

• 50% better ANC than the previous generation, plus Adaptive Audio
• $129 / £129 / AU$219 for the AirPods 5
• $149 / £149 / AU$249 for the AirPods 5 with Wireless Charging Case
• Personalized Spatial Audio, Live Translation, Adaptive EQ
• Volume swipe functionality, longer battery life (up to 22 hours using the case), plus wireless charging in the step-up model

Apple Event 2026 — reactions

• iPhone price hikes — here's the full list of every price increase from the iPhone 18 Pro to a 21% rise for one iPhone Air model
• 15 things we learned from Apple's big iPhone Duo and iPhone 18 Pro launch — from its first-ever foldable to new AirPods
• The iPhone Duo lacks Face ID, a telephoto camera, and the Action Button, but I still want it more than every Android foldable I've ever tested — here's why
• iPhone 18 Pro vs iPhone 17 Pro: 5 key differences between Apple's newest and previous best smartphones
• I'm a pro photographer — here’s why the iPhone 18 Pro’s variable aperture is its biggest camera upgrade
• Apple Watch Ultra 4 vs Apple Watch Ultra 3: what's changed, and should you upgrade?
• Apple Watch Series 12 vs Series 11 — new Ceramic model, Health Sensing System, Audio Intelligence and all the key upgrades
• Apple iPhone 18 Pro & Apple iPhone Duo preorders: everything you need to know, including start times, deals, and pricing
• Apple continually teased the idea of a 'personal hub' at its recent event, but then didn't launch a HomePod mini 2, and I'm mad about it
• Thanks to Siri Recaps, your Apple Watch is always listening as you go about your day — but Apple may be risking a Meta Glasses-style backlash
• Good news: Apple almost totally dodged inflation on the new iPhones, AirPods and Watches — bad news: the price of all other iPhones just got jacked up

Apple Event 2026 — how to rewatch

You can rewatch Apple's ‘Surprise and Shine’ keynote via Apple’s YouTube page or via the embedded video above.

Blog posts

If you're under the assumption that your small home or rental apartment means you can't enjoy an advanced hi-fi set-up, Marantz's new release might have you re-thinking things.

The beloved heritage hi-fi giant has released a new device: The Marantz MCR 60n — and no, despite the name, it's not solely designed to play My Chemical Romance or songs written in Manchester.

This combined streamer and amplifier has been devised as a "mini hi-fi player", according to the brand. While we weren't told its actual size, its footprint is noticeably smaller than a turntable's in the accompanying images.

It'll go on sale on September 15, 2026, and there are two models. For $1,000 in the US (about £740, AU$1,500) you can get the standard model, and there's one available in Europe and Australia with a DAB radio squirrelled in, for £800 / AU$1,700 (about $1,100).

So it's not cheap per se, but perhaps its range of features — and household name status — will make up for that.

Welcome to the Black Parade

The Beyerdynamic DT 30 IE have sprung into the affordable IEM arena. One that, as of late, has provided some incredible quality, with brands such as Sennheiser, Meze Audio, and Activo bringing some serious sound-for-pound value.

While the DT 30 IE don’t try anything outwardly fancy, they’re still a very attractive proposition. They have 11mm dynamic drivers intended to supply a “neutral and balanced tuning,” passive noise cancellation up to “-39dB,” and even have an IP54 dust and water resistance rating.

But can they compete with some of the best wired earbuds around? I spent a couple of weeks using them as one of my main listening devices — here’s what I thought.

Let’s start with the area that matters most: sound quality. As you may expect at this price-point, sound quality is good rather than excellent — though there are a lot of positives to discuss.

In Can’t Let Go by Earth, Wind & Fire, overall audio was clear and balanced relatively well. I felt that vocals in the mid-range were a bit lacking in texture and detail, but still had good presence in the mix. More subtle percussive elements came through nicely, though, and funky bass was well-weighted.

Although I felt that the DT 30 IE perhaps lacked the openness and nuance of pricier options, they still sound strong for the price.

And perhaps the main thing that grabs you about the DT 30 IE is their bass output. It’s meaty and dynamic, which is ideal for gigging situations or if you want to enjoy hard-hitting tunes to the max in a more casual capacity. In Kickin’ In The Beat by Lewis Taylor, I was struck by pumping low-end output, which didn’t obscure vocals or drums in the treble range — it's punchy and fairly agile, making for an exciting listen.

Treble is clear and fairly controlled, though it could be more articulate and expressive. In Sing To Me by Ned Doheny, percussion in the treble range didn’t have the precise, bright quality that I was listening out for, with a slightly muted take. This wasn’t the case when I switched over to the Sennheiser IE 200, which offered better top-end clarity, and also provided a more natural interpretation of lead vocals.

So, it’s certainly a positive start overall for the DT 30 IE, but how do they compete elsewhere? In terms of features, there’s not a lot to run through. There’s no in-line controller with volume controls, which is more of a nice-to-have rather than an expectation for IEMs in my view. They also skip on interchangeable connectors, as seen on models such as the Activo Volcano, so you’re stuck with a 3.5mm option unless you purchase an adapter of some kind. But what I did like was the range of ear tips packed in, allowing you to find the ideal seal, no matter your ear size.

And when I got the right seal, I found that the DT 30 IE offered pretty solid passive noise isolation. Is it the best I’ve experienced? No — models with foam ear tips, such as the Shure Aonic 3 take the prize there. But I did find that sounds like typing and office chatter were dulled to a pretty commendable degree, and that’s going to be key for gigging musicians, for example. I also found that, with the right seal, the DT 30 IE were supremely comfortable and secure, making them ideal for longer listening sessions. They’re also nice and small, which I prefer over the chunky approach some rivals go for.

It’s also worth noting that the cable for the DT 30 IE is detachable, so you can swap this out for an aftermarket MMCX cable if you’d prefer. The cable itself is built to a really nice standard, though, and it produced next to no cable noise when I tried taking the buds on the go.

The IEMs themselves, however, don’t quite exude the same sense of premium build quality. They have a translucent look, enabling you to make out the drivers inside, but the casing feels a bit overly plasticky. I’m not expecting ultra-premium materials at this price point, but I do think some rivals in this price-range look a bit more luxurious — the Meze Audio Alba spring to mind.

So are the Beyerdynamic DT 30 IE worth the money? Overall, I’d say yes. They provide good sound quality with impressive bass and solid clarity across the frequency range, as well as a lightweight and comfortable build, and decent passive noise isolation. All of that for $149.99 / £99 / AU$199 isn’t half bad.

What I would argue, however, is that you can get slightly more detailed, nuanced sound — and slightly better build quality — in this general price range. The Sennheiser IE 200 and Meze Audio Alba, in my opinion, offer superior performance at a very similar cost, and I’d suggest checking those out before pulling the trigger on the DT 30 IE, as good as they are.

Beyerdynamic DT 30 IE review: price & release date

• List price of $149.99 / £99 / AU$199
• Released in June 2026

The Beyerdynamic DT 30 IE are priced at $149.99 / £99 / AU$199, meaning they’re certainly sitting in the affordable domain within the IEMs world.

I’ve personally reviewed a number of competitors in this range, including the Sennheiser IE 200, Meze Audio Alba, Activo Scoop, and Shure SE215.

The DT 30 IE were released in June 2026, and are available in a single white colorway.

Beyerdynamic DT 30 IE review: specs

Should I buy the Beyerdynamic DT 30 IE?

Buy them if…

Don’t buy them if…

Beyerdynamic DT 30 IE review: also consider

How I tested the Beyerdynamic DT 30 IE

• Tested over the course of two weeks
• Mainly tested using Tidal
• Paired with Astell & Kern A&ultima SP4000

I spent a couple of weeks using the Beyerdynamic DT 30 IE, and hours upon hours listening to music. Typically, I had the DT 30 IE hooked up to the Astell & Kern A&ultima SP4000 media player, though I did also try them out with my Windows laptop.

To begin with, I sifted through tracks in the TechRadar reference playlist, which features tunes from a wide variety of genres, but I also bumped a bunch of songs from my personal library. I also made sure to compare the DT 30 IE to affordable IEM rivals like the Sennheiser IE 200.

More generally, I’ve spent years testing audio gear here at TechRadar, where I serve as an in-house Senior Reviews Writer. I’ve covered everything from portable DACs through to premium wireless headphones such as the Sony WH-1000XM6, and have reviewed a number of IEMs, meaning I know exactly what it takes for a model to stand out in a competitive market.

• Read TechRadar’s reviews guarantee
• First reviewed: September 2026

While the Sennheiser HD 660S2 aren't the most expensive headphones I've ever owned, I'd argue they are the most premium, sonically speaking. Compared to wireless headphones where a decent chunk of your spend is going on Bluetooth chipsets, ANC and fancy features, wired headphones such as the HD 660S2 are a pure audio play. Pretty much every cent you spend goes towards their engineering for sound quality.

As a result, it's not surprising that my initial response to these cans has been positive. They don't have the most strongly flavored sound profile — for example, there wasn't throbbing bass pounding my ear drums like Neil Peart trying to slaughter a fleet-footed fly crawling across his skins. But their frequency balance is as judicious as any of the best headphones, neglecting no part of the spectrum.

Another huge factor is their open-backed design. As they let in near enough every perceivable external sound, the idea of using them on the subway brings me out in a cold sweat — ain't nobody there to hear fellow passengers discuss nasty medical ailments in graphic detail before breakfast. But that same transparency gives them a seriously spacious sound that allows each element a decent amount of room to breathe, already making them a great upgrade over their closed-back cousins.

Perhaps the biggest win in their corner is the very fact that they're wired. As they don't have to contend with the limited bit- and sample rates of Bluetooth headphones, they're free from lossy compression (in themselves at least — they can't help your source material if it's not up to the job), meaning they can maintain the original source's resolution and detail. While that might matter less when you're using a flimsy $30 / £20 / AU$40 pair of cans, in more premium headphones, you can absolutely hear lossless formats the way they're meant to be heard.

This all comes with a pretty serious asterisk though. As alluded to above, unlike their wireless rivals, wired headphones aren't packing their own DAC, meaning those digital files you're listening to need to be converted to analog audio before passing along that wire. And while laptops — and the few phones that still have 3.5mm jacks — have their own built-in DACs, these usually lack the power to drive heavy duty cans like the HD 660S2.

Don't get me wrong: while I knew the Sennheisers wouldn't necessarily be giving me their A-game without a DAC, their sound has still been impressive, which is no mean feat. But it has started me wondering: what am I missing? Could one of the best DACs help me unlock the loftiest realms of audio quality?

I resolved to find out.

DAC-seat driver

Given iFi created many of our picks for our best DACs guide, it seemed a sensible place to start and I eventually settled on the iFi Zen DAC 3. Not only is this portable DAC capable of audio resolutions of up to 32-bit/768kHz, its 390mW amplifier should have plenty of power to drive the 300-ohm resistance of the Sennheiser HD 660S2.

Setting it up is simplicity itself. All I had to do was hook it up to my laptop with a USB-C cable, plug the HD 660S2's chonky 6.3mm jack in its front port and I was all set to start comparing the quality of some tunes.

Mid-range frequencies fared surprisingly well, even without a DAC. During Diamonds On the Soles of Her Shoes by Paul Simon, I felt like I was sat right at the heart of Ladysmith Black Mambazo's choir and there was some really tasty detail to the low toms in the percussion. Once I'd plugged in the iFi, there was some improvement, with a little more dynamism to those vocals and a bit more spaciousness in the mix, but the changes were very subtle.

Treble is a similar story. Before I plugged the DAC in, Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac sounded bright and crisp — the strumming of the guitars felt suitably tight and had a decent amount of bite, without feeling brittle. Hooking the the HD 660S up to the DAC didn't substantially transform the treble, but the iFi did allow for even more low-end heft to the track without overshadowing the pinpoint definition of those guitars. Honestly, this is probably the first time I've ever felt like this track actually sounded bassy.

In light of this, you won't be surprised to hear that low-end performance is where iFi's DAC made the biggest difference, making Otomo by Bonobo sound truly ridiculous. Even without the DAC, the HD 660S2 made the bass sound warm and punchy, without harming the clarity of the percussion or those tribal choral vocals. But when using Zen DAC 3, the impact bass during the drop was unreal — the sub bass is so strong it feels like it hits you right in the brain stem.

This increased low-end clarity and dynamism also helps when it comes to precision and separation too. Deprived of DAC, the HD 660S2 did an excellent job of rendering I Need the Night by London Grammar — those reverberant vocals sounded wonderfully detailed and gorgeously expressed, even when the beat kicked in. But with a DAC picking up the slack, the sustained guitars and bass were able to shine more without encroaching on the vocals, while the beat still felt suitably punchy.

So the iFi Zen DAC 3 definitely added some spit and polish to my tunes.

DAC to reality

Still, all of the improvements I've noted above feel incremental at best. Attempting to jack up my listening experience with a DAC resulted in what I'd class more as a 5% improvement, rather than the revolutionary experience I was expecting. So what gives?

Turns out, some sacred cows need to be put out to pasture. While there are plenty of people who will swear blind that you need a discrete DAC for a pair of high-impedance headphones like the HD 660S2 (which come with a rating of 300 ohms), that's not actually always true. Because, if you're lucky, you may find that your gear's built-in DAC is plenty powerful enough on its own.

I should have dug into the specs of my hardware a little more. Both the MacBook Air M5 I use at home and the MacBook Pro M4 I use at work have a pretty sophisticated DAC built-in — if you're driving some low-impedance wired earbuds, it'll deliver a far lower voltage but when you pop in a pair of audiophile-grade headphones like the Sennheiser HD 660S2, it'll deliver substantially more power. That's why these cans sounded so great out of the box to me.

While that's great news for me — and for anyone else who's happy to drop $1,299 / £1,299 / AU$2,099 on a MacBook just as an expensive network audio player — it's not that illuminating on whether your more humble devices will benefit from the help of an external device.

So I guess it's DAC to the drawing board.

To hell and DAC

Like all great technologists, I know every catastrophic failure is just a fantastic opportunity to pivot. So I redesigned my experiment on the fly. I grabbed one of our testing smartphones — the skilled yet affordable OnePlus Nord CE5 — plugged in a USB-C to 3.5mm adapter and jacked in the Sennheiser HD 660S2. And boy, was it a... whatever the opposite of a revelation is.

When drip-fed on the meager power a phone outputs, the HD 660S2 sound like a completely different pair of headphones. As you'd expect, their output is much quieter and mids lack impact. On Painted Wolf by O’Flynn, the Rhodes-style keyboard and strings sounded far more hollowed out than when listening with the DAC, which gave that fiddle part real body and texture.

Without the Zen DAC, the phone struggled to deliver much treble either. Thanks to its bright presentation, Crash into Me by Dave Matthews Band quickly shows up any glassiness or sibilance in a pair of headphones high-end, yet here it sounded rolled off and lacking in confidence. Conversely, once hooked up to iFi Zen DAC 3, the HD 660S2 made each of those densely layered guitar parts feel distinct and detailed — I could practically hear the vibration of the plectrum as it scrapes over the strings.

One area I'll give the Sennheisers their due though is when it comes to bass. Even without a lot of power behind them, the low end of Listen by Pola & Bryson and Goddard. still sounded pretty tasty — those snarling D&B bass warps still felt deep and beautifully detailed and there was a soupçon of sub beneath it all. The DAC still delivered here too though, swaddling you in lush pads, while that bassline genuinely sounds like you’re being hit full-force in the chest by a Funktion One rig.

It isn't just the frequency balance that felt off either: the lack of DAC limited the HD 660S2's to present its soundstage with quite as much dynamism or distinction. Playing Breathe This Air by Jon Hopkins with the Zen DAC 3 plugged in, I found the wonderful interplay of piano strikes across the stereo field to be genuinely breathtaking. Thanks to the Sennheisers' open-back design, they were still able to get a decent stereo spread without the iFi's help but the pinging of each element across the soundstage felt considerably less dynamic than before.

So a DAC absolutely makes a huge difference. If you're playing music off a cheaper or more portable device, any increased investment in higher-quality headphones may well be wiped out if you don't pair it with a discrete DAC. But don't assume you need one by default, as the days of all built-in DACs being dreadful are well behind us.

Ever wondered what life would be like if your earbuds had a touchscreen case? OK, you probably haven’t, but stick with me here. The JBL Live Buds 4 are the new generation of the audio specialist’s in-ears that pair with a smart charging case, enabling you to adjust sound settings, adapt ANC, and more — all without having to download a companion app.

They’re a standout model in a congested market. The Live Buds 4 also sit within JBL's wider Live range, which is itself fairly congested in that it also includes the stemmed JBL Live Beam, plus the open-fit JBL Live Flex. This specific model, though — the Live Buds 4 — comes with a number of claimed upgrades over its predecessor, including enhanced ANC, new “fidelity drivers,” and boosted call quality. But are they worth the money and can they compete with options in our best earbuds roundup? Here’s what I think after three weeks of testing.

We’ve got to start with the smart charging case, which has a revamped UI for a smoother, more complete user experience. The touchscreen is undoubtedly small, but it's highly responsive, and there are clear menus to access EQ tweaking, ANC modes, appearance options, and even tools like a flashlight and timer. I sometimes preferred using the JBL Headphones app for the ease of a larger screen, and the ability to set a custom wallpaper from my photo gallery, but for on-the-go tweaks, the charging case is a neat option — even if it is arguably a little bit gimmicky. But hey, I like a good gimmick now and then.

Beyond what I’ve already mentioned, the case features a lot of fun features, like a smart-talk option, which picks up voices if you want to have a conversation while keeping your buds in. There are also customizable touch controls for the buds themselves (which I found to be reactive and convenient), and settings for how your voice sounds on a call, including a bright, natural, and powerful option.

Speaking of calls, JBL has included 6 mics in these earbuds, as well as its new Perfect Calls 2.0 tech, which makes use of AI to keep your voice clear, even in noisier environments. As I mentioned in my JBL Live Beam 4 review (I know, it's easy to get confused with names), I did find my voice to be relatively clear on calls and when taking a recording, but unfortunately I didn’t get the premium clarity I was expecting. There was some noticeable sibilance in my recording, and I also found that some background noises remained more prominent than anticipated.

I also want to talk about active noise cancellation, which has been improved for the Live 4 series. Overall, ANC is decent, but it’s still not up to the standards offered by buds from Apple and Bose. When out and about or on public transport, I could still make out background chatter, and in the office, typing sounds and doors closing were still audible. Sounds are still dulled effectively, and ANC is by no means bad — but if you’re expecting a curtain of silence when using the Live Buds 4, you may be left wanting more.

One area that the Buds 4 totally excel in, though, is sound quality. For earbuds in this price-range, the Buds 4 are excellent, dishing out impactful bass, clean mids, and expressive highs, impressive handling of dynamics, and good attention to detail.

When tuning into Labor of Love by Ned Doheny, I was struck by the beautifully textured and weighted acoustic guitars, which were well separated from clear, tonally accurate vocals. Subtle percussive details also came through beautifully, and funky bass sounded impactful without drowning out other sounds across the frequency range. What’s more, by activating the higher-res Bluetooth codec, LDAC, I could make out some more intricacies in the mid-range, with almost life-like guitars taking the listening experience to the next level.

The Live Buds 4 proved to cope brilliantly with any genre, though. With a deeper, more energetic track, such as Don’t Compare Yourself by Kolter, the pumping deep bass hit phenomenally hard, and reached down to tremendous depths for this level. Bassy synths sounded textured and controlled, lively drums sounded articulate and precise, and emotive vocals, while impactful, never overwhelmed the mix.

I have very few complaints about the sound, and it’s super-simple to customize it to your liking with the EQ settings on the charging case or JBL headphones app. But one thing that could’ve been better was the spatial audio setting, which just lacked the clarity and openness of the standard tuning. I’d also argue that the soundstage is relatively broad on the Live Buds 4 anyway, so you should just keep this mode off if you ask me.

Let’s also talk design, as this is the main area where the Live Buds 4 differentiate themselves from the Beam and Flex. They take up a small, snug in-ear feel, which is ideal for those who prefer earbuds without the stems. I found the buds to be incredibly comfortable, and had no issue keeping them in for multiple hours at a time. They’re also highly secure, never feeling as if they’ll fall out of your ears.

The buds also have a good standard of build, the case has an attractive, textured finish, and the model can be purchased in a wide range of colors. The buds are also IP55-rated, making them splashproof. Some rivals offer superior IP57 protection, but IP55 is enough to keep your buds safe on a rainy day.

One more difference the Buds 4 have, is that they offer the least amount of battery life in the Live 4 lineup, with 8 hours of playtime with the buds when ANC is on, and up to 40 hours with the case. That’s still a good amount of playtime, and competes well with major rivals.

So, are the JBL Live Buds 4 worth their £179.99 / AU$269.95 (about $240) asking price? For me, it’s an emphatic yes. Of course, they’re not the cheapest buds on the market, but they’re also a fair bit cheaper than big-name rivals like the AirPods Pro 3 and Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds Gen 2. They also sound fantastic for the money, with the nifty charging case only adding more value. Sure, they could do better in the call quality and ANC department, but ultimately, they still offer decent enough quality in those areas.

JBL Live Buds 4 review: price & release date

• List price of £179.99 / AU$269.95 (about $240)
• Revealed in May 2026

The JBL Live Buds 4 were revealed in May 2026, alongside their siblings, the JBL Live Beam 4 and the JBL Live Flex 4. They released about two years after their predecessor, the JBL Live Buds 3.

They come in at £179.99 / AU$269.95 (about $240), which is the same as their predecessors cost at the point of launch (in the UK). We’re yet to catch wind of a release date and pricing for the US, but we’ll update this review accordingly if and when further details emerge.

These buds are available at a relatively affordable price for the quality on offer, coming in at a lower cost than rivals such as the Apple AirPods Pro 3 and the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds Gen 2.

Our top pick for wireless earbuds whatever your budget is the Technics EAH-AZ100, at $299 / £259 (around AU$478). So at quite a bit less than those figures, the JBL Live Buds 4 can be yours for a shade under flagship money — and that's a very good thing in terms of value.

That said, the Huawei Freebuds Pro 5 are our current 'best mid-range' pick in that detailed guide, and those excellent buds retail for the same £179.99 fee as the JBL option. They don't have a smart charging case, but still, food for thought…

JBL Live Buds 4 review: specs

Should I buy the JBL Live Buds 4?

Buy them if…

Don’t buy them if…

JBL Live Buds 4 review: also consider

How I tested the JBL Live Buds 4

• Tested over the course of three weeks
• Used in the office, on walks, and on public transport
• Mainly streamed tunes over Tidal, but tapped into Spotify too

I spent three weeks putting the JBL Live Buds 4 through their paces. During this time, I listened to countless hours of music, messed around with everything the smart charging case had to offer, and exhausted their various features.

As always, I made sure to use these buds in a range of environments — including at home or at the office, but also when out on walks near busy roads, and when on public transport like buses and trains. When listening to tunes, I predominantly streamed music over Tidal on my Xiaomi 17 phone, but I also jumped into Spotify now and then. I made sure to soft through the multi-genre TechRadar reference playlist, but also bumped a bunch of tunes from my personal library.

More generally, I’ve spent years testing audio gear here at TechRadar, where I serve as a Senior Reviews Writer. I’ve reviewed everything from premium wireless headphones like the Sony 1000X The Collexion to hulking party speakers like the Marshall Bromley 750. Of course, I’ve also tested many pairs of wireless earbuds, so I know exactly what it takes for a model to stand out in a highly competitive market.

• Read TechRadar’s reviews guarantee
• First reviewed: August 2026

These clip-on buds are a first for Noise in the open ear segment, but join its existing Master series lineup, that includes over-ear headphones and in-ear buds — which were also built alongside Bose.

And lucky me — I’ve already tried the Master Buds Open for myself. I got hands on with the brand new open earbuds at IFA Berlin 2026, and spoke with Noise about its collaboration with Bose and the fancy features crammed into its latest creation.

Bose sound at an affordable price… kinda

Allow me to start with something of a disclaimer. The Master Buds Open aren’t a fully fledged Bose product, they simply feature ‘Sound by Bose’ technology. This means that the audio giant helped to tune the sound on the Master Buds Open, and there’s a specific Sound by Bose EQ option for the model.

We’ve seen other brands use Sound by Bose tech in the last year or so, with Baseus making use of a partnership in its Inspire line (including the XH1 headphones), and Skullcandy teaming up with the ANC giant for products including the Method 360 ANC (which we rated very highly).

However, Noise has a closer relationship with Bose than most, as the latter has invested in the Indian company across recent years, and the pair have already developed a number of audio products together, including the Noise Master Buds 2 and Master Buds Max.

Although the new Master Buds Open don’t quite offer the exceptional build and sound quality we’ve come to expect from products like the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds Gen 2, this collaboration certainly heightens the perceived value of Noise’s affordable audio gear, and helps it to stand out as a relatively recent entrant in competitive markets like the US, UK, and EU.

Getting hands on

Anyway, let’s talk about my time getting hands-on with the Noise Master Buds Open.

I have to say, when the buds were brought over to me, they made an excellent first impression. They come in a beautiful case with appealing metallic details, and the buds themselves look incredibly sleek and almost futuristic — especially in the slick Silver colorway.

In use, the Master Buds Open also felt supremely comfortable. I find that some clip-on earbuds have the tendency to either feel a bit tight, or almost too loose, but in my short time with the Master Buds Open they seemed to master the clip-on feel, with a secure yet comfortable fit and almost weightless on-ear sensation.

Sonically, the Master Buds Open performed about as well as I expected, although I should preface my thoughts by noting that the unit I tried was a prototype, and so the Master Buds Open may sound a little different at launch.

Naturally, I made use of the Sound by Bose EQ option, and I’d say the earbuds performed decently overall. A representative played me a bit of I’m Alive by Céline Dion, and I was treated to clear vocals, with fairly prominent bass (as far as open ears go), and well-separated guitars in the mid-range.

I also had the chance to play some songs of my choosing, and switched over to Can’t Resist by Jamback. In this house track, I realized that treble was pretty forward, meaning that drums higher in the frequency range were particularly prominent. Bass was also decently weighted, although you won’t get the pounding low-end that some of the best wireless earbuds can provide.

Was I blown away by the audio on offer from the Master Buds Open? Perhaps not — at least not at this stage. But they did perform pretty well overall, especially when you consider their price. I was told that the Master Buds Open will release for about €119 (around $140 / £100), which is relatively affordable — especially when you consider that Bose’s Ultra Open Earbuds have a list price of $299 / £299 / AU$449.95.

A surprising highlight

While the Master Buds Open will undoubtedly face stiff competition from similarly priced rivals like the Anker Soundcore AeroClip, they did impress me with their comfort and looks.

But one thing struck me more than any other: their surprisingly feature-rich companion app. Not only did I find Noise’s app to be incredibly easy to use and navigate, but I also couldn’t believe how much functionality it had to offer.

There’s a spatial audio setting, designed to offer “dynamic and realistic” audio, as well as a Gaming Mode if you need low-latency audio — a nice touch for keen mobile gamers.

On top of this, the Master Buds Open have customizable touch controls, multi-point, Find My Device capabilities, and a Focus Mode, which locks the buds’ controls when you just want to zone in on your tunes and avoid accidental touch commands. Of course, there are also EQ settings, including a fully customizable equalizer, and mics built in for taking calls on the go.

Noise was also keen to show me that the Master Buds have a built-in AI assistant. This enables you to ask questions with your voice, read chat history, and transcribe meetings or discussions. That’s quite a lot of functionality for buds in this price-range.

While there’s no specific launch date for the Master Buds Open just yet, Noise has said that they’re set to launch on their website and with some major online retailers from late September 2026.

IFA is a great place to find fascinating new gadgets and devices, ranging from next-gen AR glasses to self-driving personal mobility vehicles, and from weird new kitchen appliances to armies of humanoid robots.

We've chosen the top products from those that were nominated for our IFA 2026 'Best in Show' awards to produce this list of our 25 winners, based on how innovative they are, how well they serve their intended use, and the degree to which we think they'll influence their area of the tech market.

There were many more products that we really liked, of course, but we had to be ruthless — here are our top picks from IFA 2026.

Anker Soundcore Sleep Earbuds 4 Pro

The best technology delivers real-world benefits, and what could be more beneficial than a good night's sleep? The Soundcore Sleep Earbuds 4 Pro use in-ear PPG optical sensors to monitor your heartrate, which is more accurate than other optical tracking methods thanks to the rich capillaries and stable position of your ear canal. That monitoring delivers data to the smart-screen, phone-free SleepHub charging case.

The Sleep Earbuds Pro feature passive isolation as well as 30dB active noise cancelling, and the case-based snore monitoring system detects and masks the sound of your partner snoring using its built-in sounds. Despite the addition of multiple new components the housing is thinner than previous generations, and even more comfortable for side sleepers.

Anker's BioSync dynamic audio system monitors relaxation in real time, dynamically adjusting the audio content and structure to help you find the most effective sleep sounds. Sleep earbuds are something that can truly improve your health and happiness by improving your sleep, and these look like a really smart upgrade.

Agibot A3

Agibot is doing some amazing things with humanoid robots, and the full-sized Agibot A3 combines multiple capabilities in a lightweight, extremely dynamic model: if you're assembling a robot dance troupe or planning a big exhibition, the A3's the bot to buy.

The A3 weighs just 55kg, has a power-to-weight ratio of 0.218kW/kg, and delivers up to 12kW of instant peak power, enabling it to somersault. Its battery runs for up to 10 hours and is hot-swappable in seconds, so it's great for applications where it needs to last all day. It'll happily fit in an SUV for travel, too.

In addition to voice and app control, the A3 delivers industry-first touch sensing that adds physical interaction to its controls. It also has a 360-degree multi-array mic system for accurate voice recognition, even in noisy environments.

One of the most exciting features of the A3 is its large-scale swarm co-ordination, which uses precise UWB positioning to enable performances by up to 100 individual robots. That makes it possible to create very complex, high-impact performances for big events, as well as enabling multiple units to work smartly in environments such as factories or warehouses. The awareness and the uptime make this a great new approach to robotics.

Hypershell X Ultra S

The Hypershell X Ultra S exoskeleton helped mountaineer Adriana Brownlee in -30C temperatures on Mount Everest, supported athlete Aurélien Fontenoy's 4,037km Route 66 journey while recovering from injury, and is currently being trialed by search and rescue organizations worldwide.

Before Hypershell, exoskeletons cost $100,000 and above; the same capabilities are now available to consumers for less than $2,000, in a device weighing under 2kg.

The X Ultra S is an end-to-end AI motion-control system that uses an AI model to transform raw sensor data directly into motor torque, enabling faster response, smoother adaptation, and more natural human-machine synchronization.

There are 12 active modes, including walking, cycling and running, and a new Gentle Assist mode for older adults and users with short or shuffling strides. Fitness Mode adds resistance, turning a walk into a workout.

But it's the price that won us over here — this could be a game changer for getting people with limited mobility out and doing more things that they love, from hiking to just visiting the local stores.

JMGO IRIS Ultra Max

The IRIS Ultra Max is one of the world’s first true 4K 120Hz flagship smart projectors, delivering native 4K (rather than pixel-shifted) at 120Hz from input to output, all from its very compact case.

The Ultra Max's dual iris system has 6+9 blades, the highest count in its class, which promises to improve stray light suppression by 11.34% for a more accurate picture, while delivering class-leading contrast, with a quoted ration of 10,000:1. The MALC 6.0 Triple-Laser Engine delivers an impressive 6,500 ISO lumens of brightness, making it more visible in more lighting conditions, and with a promised ability to recreate 110% of the BT.2020 color space, with an astounding color accuracy of delta-E of 0.7, meaning it's truly capable of pro-level color range and accuracy.

The IRIS Ultra Max also introduces an industry-first 3-in-1 Optical System that integrates 0.88–1.7:1 Optical Zoom, Four-Way Lens Shift (V ±130%, H ±53%), and an AI-Powered Gimbal (360° H, 150° V) into a unified projection architecture. This makes it more more flexible than traditional projectors to positioning, because it has so many different options for correcting its picture. It gives small home theater setups top-tier performance without compromise.

DJI Osmo Pocket 4P

Designed for vloggers and movie-makers alike, the Osmo Pocket 4P is the world’s first dual-lens pocket gimbal camera. It delivers cinema-grade imaging in a pocket-friendly form, and features DJI's Academy Award-winning Ronin stabilization.

The main lens is a wide-angle 20mm equivalent with an f/2.0 aperture, and a new 1-inch CMOS sensor that offers 17 stops of dynamic range and over one billion colors via DJI's new 10-bit D-Log 2 color profile.

That's supplemented with a 60mm medium-tele portrait lens, which gives you 3x optical zoom and up to 12x digital zoom. Its f/1.8 aperture is particularly good for creating bokeh effects by compressing the background and pulling it closer to the subject.

The Osmo Pocket 4P also features the latest version of DJI's ActiveTrack, which uses AI algorithms to maintain tracking lock at up to 12x zoom. It can actively track up to eight people, framing groups and centering anyone new who steps into the field of view.

RayNeo GT Max AR Glasses

The RayNeo GT Max AR Glasses are the world's first AR glasses to support Dolby Vision playback as part of creating a virtual cinema experience. They deliver up to 1,200 nits of perceived brightness, a 120Hz refresh rate, and real-time SDR to HDR conversion for super-clear images, too. Their optical system is 29% thinner and lighter than traditional designs, and delivers an industry-leading 59-degree field of view.

One of our favorite features is the adjustable virtual screen sizes, with a choice of 227 inches, 267 inches or 307 inches. That's clever: the tighter size is ideal for spreadsheets and productivity apps if you're using them as a display for a phone or laptop, while the larger sizes deliver immersive gaming and video.

Steady, Pinned and Follow modes enable you to anchor the screen or have it move with you, and 3DoF spatial tracking maintains the screen position without straining your eyes, and keeps subtitles, taskbars and image edges within the viewing area as you move. These look like the most advanced way to take a screen with you everywhere, and they could be indispensable for long flights.

TCL P80 Ultra

If you spend as much time on your phone as we do, you'll be blown away by the screen of the TCL P80 Ultra. It's the first phone to integrate NXTPAPER eye-comfort technology, with a 1.5K sharp AMOLED display for reflection-free reading even in bright sunlight, and a button that instantly turns your P80 Ultra into an e-reader with paper-like viewing.

The P80 Ultra has nano-etched anti-glare glass, eliminating surface reflections without reducing brightness. It also features circular polarized light technology, which changes the light output to more closely replicate the characteristics of natural light, and flicker-free dimming.

The camera's pretty special too. It's a 50MP 3x periscope telephoto lens with a 50MP 1/1.56-inch large-format sensor, capturing more light per pixel than smaller sensors and enabling 6x lossless zoom. Image stabilization eliminates motion blur in photos and video, and TCL's MuseFilm filters promise cinematic-quality images. But it's the groundbreaking display that really won us over — a lot of people will find it much kinder on the eyes.

Lenovo ThinkBook 14x Gen 2

Lenovo's ultra-light laptop makes even ultraportables look positively porky: at just 2.18lbs / 990g and just 12.9mm thick it's one of the lightest and thinnest laptops around, making it ideal for business travelers and students alike — especially if you opt for the backlit keyboard, which is really helpful in dimly lit rooms and airplanes.

Lenovo has somehow managed to give the ThinkBook 14x the super-thin treatment without sacrificing connectivity, so in addition to its Wi-Fi 7 it features two 10Gbps USB-C ports, two 5Gbps USB-A ports and an HDMI 2.1 port, so there's no need to haul a hub around with you. It also has a spare M.2 slot that enables you to expand its storage, which makes this a solid long-term investment.

The ThinkBook 14x Gen 2 is also one of the most customizable ultraportables, powered by Intel Core 7 (Series 3) processors and with display options including vivid OLED and touchscreen LCD. It's good-looking too, with a choice of metallic finishes including Luna Gray, Celestial White, Mystic Violet and Veil Blue.

EarFun Wave Pro X

EarFun's headphones consistently deliver premium performance without the premium price tag, and the Wave Pro X are the brand's best yet. They feature a patented dual-driver system that places a 40mm diamond-like carbon driver and a 10mm liquid crystal polymer driver on a precisely aligned axis, creating a more natural and detailed sound than you typically get from multi-driver designs.

The Wave Pro X feature an 8-mic AI system that continuously optimizes the hybrid ANC system, even in wired AUX mode, and the Qualcomm QCC3095 chipset delivers Bluetooth 6.0, aptX Lossless, LDAC, USB Audio and Auracast. Add AI translation and up to 90 hours of battery life to the mix and you've got a truly excellent pair of headphones — EarFun has been working on these for a long time, and even delayed them in order to get the tuning just right.

Urevo CyberPad 3

The CyberPad 3 is a home/office treadmill that's designed differently to traditional models. Its WalkFree Adaptive Speed Control uses pressure sensors built into the running board, which detect your stepping motion to automatically start and stop operation; when you're walking or running it takes data from the motor to calculate speed adjustments in real time.

Its multi-user support is smart too, capturing raw weight and stride-rate data to generate a structured user profile that's directly linked to the speed-control algorithm.

The support structure is made from Q235 steel with a side frame of die-cast aluminum, and it utilizes a redesigned transmission path to deliver an exceptionally compact construction: the ultra-slim body is under 11cm thick. Despite its small size it features a 15% incline-lift mechanism and a 42cm running belt, with its size based on analysis of human shoulder widths.

Plaud One

Plaud One is a wearable AI companion that combines three key features that are usually separate: wearable conversation capture, context that builds across day-to-day conversations, and AI that can analyze data and take appropriate action. It can capture online meetings, and face-to-face discussions and phone calls, and it has built-in eSIM and 4G LTE for phone-free operation.

What makes Plaud One different is that it understands context. Instead of treating each recording as a standalone transcript, it can retain context across multiple discussions — so a conversation from one meeting can be connected to a later conversation or call.

That understanding enables the Plaud Agent to help you take action, identifying next steps and completing tasks across tools such as Gmail, Google Calendar, Notion, and Slack.

Minisforum MS-S1 Max-P495

The MS-S1 Max-P495 delivers large-model AI computing from an exceptionally small footprint with a very high specification. It combines AMD Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 495 with up to 192GB of unified memory to run 128B+ LLMs locally, delivering up to 126 TOPS, and its unified memory architecture eliminates VRAM bottlenecks while also reducing latency.

That power is cooled by a high-performance thermal solution featuring a copper base, six heat pipes, dual fans and phase-change cooling, and it's encased in a fully scalable design, with a slide-out chassis for easy upgrading and a rack-ready form factor.

With 4x PCIe expansion, dual 10Gb Ethernet, dual 40Gbps USB4 v2, Wi-Fi 7, and a built-in 320W PSU, the MS-S1 Max-P495 delivers future-proof power for desktop systems and scalable AI clusters alike — it's a mind-blowing beast made to meet a new kind of research and development need.

XPPen Magic Pro 13

XPPen's Magic Pro 13 is a mobile drawing pad designed for creative pros, featuring an industry-first hardware-level drawing display mode that delivers low latency, native color output and higher bandwidth video transmission over a simple one-cable connection, giving you a paper-like experience with 16K pressure sensitivity and cursor hover support.

It's the first drawing pad in its category to come with dual-USB support, enabling you to benefit from a high-speed data connection while charging your Magic Pro 13.

The Magic Pro 13 features the new Shelf digital asset management system and XPPen's Canvas software, designed to deliver a simple and intuitive sketching experience for capturing ideas when inspiration strikes. And for creatives on the move it offers two thermal management modes, balancing performance and energy efficiency based on different creative scenarios.

Strutt ev1c

Strutt's ev1c reimagines the power chair with three major advancements: Strutt's evSense sensing array, a quad-drive drivetrain, and a modular, connected design.

eVSense uses two LiDARs, 10 time-of-flight sensors, six ultrasonics and two cameras to create 3D maps in real time, powering the Co-Pilot collision avoidance for people, pets, and edges, and the Auto-Pilot, which enables you to select on-screen destinations, or use LLM-powered voice commands such as "Take me to the kitchen" — basically it's a self-driving personal mobility vehicle.

The drivetrain features four-wheel independent suspension, ABS, active steering, and an integrated electronic stability program (ESP), safely managing 13-degree slopes, cobblestones and rough terrain without slippage or tipping. And when it's time to travel, it breaks down into five modules for easy trunk storage. It looks like a genuine move forward for this kind of mobility device.

xTool M2 Color Craft Laser

The xTool M2 is the first desktop machine to combine full-color CMYK printing, laser engraving and laser cutting into one enclosed Class 1 system, delivering a full print-then-cut workflow. Simply print your full-color design onto a piece of wood, leather or acrylic, and the xTool M2 Color Craft Laser cuts or engraves the exact contour with camera-guided precision. And there's a built-in air-assist pump, an industry first for a semiconductor laser, that keeps cut edges clean by reducing carbonization and yellowing.

Having these three capabilities in a single device is a huge power-up: instead of having to print on one machine and engrave or cut on another, you can turn your raw idea into a finished, professional-looking product in a single operation. It's ideal for stickers, labels, signage, personalized gifts, and small-batch products — you could start a whole business with this one device. And because it's an enclosed system, it's also very safe.

Perlegear AX1 Smart Adaptive Mount

The Perlegear AX1 Smart Adaptive Mount answers an interesting question: what if your TV mount was as smart as your TV? The AX1 is an AI-powered, motorized TV mount that can automatically adjust the height of your TV to different viewing positions, so for example you might have it low for solo TV watching, but raised for watching sports with friends, or for following an on-screen fitness app or motion-based game.

The AX1 is controllable via gesture commands, its mobile app, via remote control, or via Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri. It can distinguish between single- and multi-person viewing, with the latter calculating the best screen height for the group, and it's capable of moving a 200-pound / 90kg TV up to 15.7 inches / 400mm vertically, with real-time obstacle detection that stops and reverses the move if the path is blocked.

Speediance Gym Monster 3

The brilliantly named Gym Monster 3 delivers serious strength training for home workouts, combining the experience of a Smith machine, barbell, dumbbells, cable machine, rowing machine, pulley system, and squat rack into one streamlined setup with up to 200lbs / 90kg of intelligent digital resistance.

Twin 800W direct-drive motors deliver smooth, consistent resistance through every rep, and it's adjustable in one-pound / 0.45kg increments, so you can progress at your own pace, rather than make big jumps you might not be ready for.

The Gym Monster 3 is controlled via a clever Bluetooth Ring Control that enables you to make adjustments without stepping away or breaking your flow, and it features four dedicated training modes: Standard, Chain, Eccentric, and Fixed Speed. It also features a built-in AI coach that can guide you from your first session onwards.

Midea GreenApex Dishwasher

The humble dishwasher hasn't changed much since Josephine Cochrane's 1886 invention went electric in the late 1920s and gained spray arms in the 1950s. But the Midea GreenApex is very different from traditional grease-busters. It's a dual heat-pump system that uses a single coordinated heat pump platform to deliver washing, rapid drying, and dry storage in a single appliance.

The GreenApex is 50% more energy efficient than conventional dishwashers, delivers 30-minute rapid drying and 168 hours of dry storage without continued system operation, and offers gentle heat-pump drying at around 45°C, so you don't need to worry about high temperatures damaging more delicate items. It feels like a major leap forward for an appliance type that doesn't often have the phrase 'cutting-edge' associated with it.

Reolink OMVI 2i Ultra

The Reolink OMVI 2i Ultra Security Camera features an innovative, decoupled dual-lens tracking system in which the individual lenses operate fully independently of one another. Unlike in other dual-lens or hybrid zoom security cameras, the two lenses here are not mechanically linked, so the fixed 130-degree 4K wide-angle lens never moves, while the telephoto camera is free to rotate anywhere, including to cover areas outside the field of view of the main lens.

This means that when the 4K camera's on-device AI spots a person, vehicle or animal, it triggers the pan-tilt camera to lock onto and follow that subject even after they exit the wide camera's field of view — but you don't lose any recording from the wide camera's view during that time.

You can also use the wide-angle view to redirect the pan-tilt camera to a particular location by simply tapping that point in the live camera view, or have the wide camera and the pan-tilt camera monitoring two distinct locations, such as your driveway and a side gate.

Navimow H510 Pro

The Navimow H510 Pro features four key innovations: precise edge finishing, zero-turn steering, adaptive mowing intelligence, and 3D modelling.

Rather than edging with a trimmer line, which can be noisy and cause minor damage, the H510 Pro has an extendable robot arm that performs zero-gap edging quietly and safely — it's the most interesting and smart version of this technology that we've seen.

The all-wheel-drive system protects your turf too, with a zero-steering system that avoids dragging the wheels across the grass during lateral turns. And the Adaptive Mowing Intelligence feature analyzes grass growth patterns to determine the optimal mowing frequency, using the 1/3 cutting rule to preserve lawn health.

With 3D terrain modeling rather than the industry-standard 2D, and a sensor array including infrared as well as LiDAR and vision for low-light reliability, and triple-sensor avoidance to protect wildlife, the H510 is a smart solution for even the most challenging lawns.

DJI Romo 2 Series

The Romo 2 Series is a robot vacuum that won't be defeated by obstacles such as deep rugs, sliding door tracks and other barriers. That's because it has robotic legs that can step over obstacles as high as 4cm, and double-step thresholds up to an impressive 8.5cm.

It also features a built-in LiDAR-guided ultra-wide-swing robotic arm to extend the mop's reach, and its powerful suction system features an automatically lowering plate that forms a semi-seal on carpet for better extraction of dust and allergens.

The Romo 2 Series also benefits from the tech of DJI's flagship drones, with a Structured Light-Speckle projector and dual fish-eye vision sensors for full 3D depth perception. It can detect items such as cables and training pads as thin as 2mm, and its AI can distinguish between debris and liquid, as well as deal with transparent obstacles such as glass doors and mirrors.

Acer Vero 16

With so many laptops sacrificing easy maintenance and repairability for super-skinny styling, the Acer Vero 16 is a breath of fresh air. While it doesn't skimp on style or power — it's highly portable, delivers up to 180 platform TOPS with an Intel Core Ultra X9 processor 388H, and can be configured with a stunning 16-inch 3K OLED display — it's made with longevity in mind.

A tool-free latch provides easy access to the Vero's innards, and the battery and SSD are replaceable, while the system is designed to support the next two generations of processors if you want to upgrade. Fully 70% of the chassis consists of a blend of PCR (post-consumer recycled) and bio-based oyster shell material, and it meets US military standards for toughness. This is a laptop that's built to last, in a way that's rare to see — and very welcome.

Asus ProArt GR1X

The Asus ProArt GR1X is tiny, measuring just 150 x 150 x 51mm. But there's nothing small about its specification. Designed for advanced content creation and local AI workflows, it delivers data center-class compute inside a mini PC, removing the need to run LLMs remotely while eliminating cloud latency, cost, and IP protection concerns for pro creators.

The ProArt GR1X features the groundbreaking Nvidia RTX Spark 'superchip', which means you get a 20-core Grace CPU and a 6,144-core Blackwell GPU, delivering up to one petaflop of FP4 AI inference performance. With up to 128GB of LPDDR5X unified memory at 9,400MHz, it enables you to run up to 120B-parameter LLMs locally, and render entire 3D scenes on-device in Windows 11.

That kind of power demands highly efficient cooling, and Asus has developed an advanced precision-cooling system that delivers 1.6x more efficient thermal coverage than standard compact systems. Asus also solved the challenge of metal-enclosure signal attenuation by embedding the Wi-Fi 7 antennas behind a glass-like signal-transparent material. It's quite the design coup, and an impressive showcase for Nvidia's new elite chip.

EcoFlow STREAM 5000 / STREAM AC 5000

The EcoFlow Stream series is a plug-and-play modular system for residential solar energy generation and storage that's designed to be renter- and apartment-friendly. It can add battery storage and smart power-management to existing solar PV installations, as well as being employed to create a new home system from scratch.

The Stream Series features EcoFlow's Oasis 3.0 home energy management system, which understands dynamic energy tariffs, keeps an eye on the weather forecast, and continuously analyzes your home energy needs to optimize generation, storage and consumption.

That means you can give the EcoBot AI agent instructions such as "I need my car charged by 7am tomorrow at the lowest possible cost" and it will implement the necessary steps, or have your energy schedules reconfigured automatically when you have visitors or other instances of increased demand.

From October the EcoFlow Stream series will also get a new feature: Local Mode, which gives you uninterrupted operation and local app control even if there are cloud or connectivity outages. It's a very powerful (no pun intended) system that's been designed with the real world in mind.

Tapo D260

The Tapo D260 wired/wireless security camera is a video doorbell that delivers all the benefits of high-spec security without the potential downsides: it stores facial recognition data locally to protect privacy, and no features are locked behind a subscription. It's advanced, yet totally cost-free once you buy it.

It has 4K resolution, a wide 180-degree field of view to cover the entire doorway, and delivers sharp detail in subjects up to 30 feet away.

The D260 features multiple intelligent detection and recognition features, including radar as well as the obligatory infrared motion sensor. These enable it to discount false alerts from things such as moving branches or passing headlights, while on-device AI can recognize people, packages, vehicles, and animals.

If you wish, you can opt in to build a library of family and friends using facial recognition, and there's even a voice changer to disguise your voice when speaking to unfamiliar callers. In a world where people are sick of subscriptions, this offers a great security upgrade without the monthly fee.

As part of the IFA 2026 proceedings, affordable earbuds brand JLab has unveiled a few new offerings — but the highlight is a product we already knew about, that we're seeing in a new way.

Back when they were first unveiled in January, we gave the super-small JLab JBuds Mini ANC a whirl and found them so bijou that they could fit on your keychain (and with a price to match most keychains, too).

But now, these affordable earbuds officially work with Apple's Find My for the first time (a feat not easy to achieve outside of Apple's AirPods and Beats products), so you can use your iPhone to locate the lost buds. Given that you're likely chaining them to your keys, this effectively lets the JBuds case replace your AirTag 2. All without a price hike: you're paying $42.99 / £39.99 (about AU$80) for them.

Feature-wise, that's the highlight. Design-wise, you could argue that it's the brand's new 'Jelle' style which takes the spotlight. This is a new range of color options is based on gel nail colors and is launching for the Mini ANC, as well as the JBuds Luxe, which will sell for $84.99 / £79.99 (around AU$160) in these new finishes.

While most earbuds and headphones aren't that shiny, with their matte plastic, Jelle is very shiny. The products come in five different color ways, each of which is very shiny, like a jelly. It looks like your earbuds were ripped straight from the Simpsons.

Two real new earbuds

There are also two all-new, never seen 'til now pairs of earbuds JLab's showing off at IFA.

Firstly, we have the JBuds Open Sport 2, which are new hook-style open earbuds that act as an update to the JBuds Open Sport (surprise surprise), and will cost $52.99 / £49.99 (about AU$100) when it goes on sale later this year.

These bring several key spec upgrades over their predecessors. The headliners are a much better battery life, jumping up to 45 hours when you include the case, and new audio tools to better close the open-ear gap.

Then we have the JBuds Go Sport ANC, which are due to sell in mid-September for $42.99 / £39.99 (about AU$80).

The Go Sport ANC are hook-style sports earbuds with a tip, unlike the Open, which offer a key upgrade over the pre-existing Go Sport; the addition of noise cancellation. It'll let you enjoy a rigid fit and drown out some of your surrounding sounds.

While the JBuds Mini ANC and Jelle-fied devices are on sale now, you'll have to wait for these sports earbuds. I can see them being very popular in the end-of-year sales though.

It seems like only yesterday I was reviewing the Baseus Bowie MC2 cuff-style earbuds, which I thoroughly believe are some of the best open earbuds for people on a budget.

It was actually about two weeks ago, but the brand is already back with a follow-up to the buds.

At annual tech conference IFA 2026, the wraps have been pulled off the Baseus Bowie MC2 NC, which have one main change over the existing earbuds: the addition of noise cancellation. (You got it from the title didn't you?)

The Bowie MC2 NC are due to go on sale at some point this month, for a slightly-higher price of $99.99 (likely about £99.99, based on the non-NC buds' price). The previous pair sell for $79.99 / £89.99 (about AU$180), so you're paying a little more for noise cancellation. As you'd imagine.

Mostly, these are the same earbuds, with an identical feature set, sound profile and charging case. The latter's stamina is stated to be slightly better, with a 60-hour battery life, but given how much of a power drain noise cancellation is, the resulting battery life will likely be less.

Noise cancellation in a noise uncancelling bud

Noise cancellation is an odd feature for open earbuds — and it's very rare to see it in this ear cuff-style design. ANC typically removes background sound, but the entire point of open earbuds is to allow you to hear what's going on around you. Very few open-earbuds makers have offered any degree of noise cancellation; Honor's Earbuds Open and Shokz' OpenFit Pro are two of the few examples that do, but both sport a more 'traditional' open-ear shell design, rather than the Baseus Bowie's cuff shape.

In practice, though, I get it. You might want to hear what's going on around you while you're stood beside a busy, dangerous road, but not when you're on loud public transport. Some degree of versatility is welcome.

Cancelling sound on these buds is a technical challenge, though. It's hard to remove background noise from music, when these sounds are coming around the bud too. It's like trying to block a river, with a dam that only covers half of it.

To solve this problem, Baseus has redesigned the 'air cushion', or the comfy padded layer around the Bowie MC2's bud. This apparently now blocks up your ear better, to create an acoustic seal that can better block surrounding sounds.

Whether there's appetite for noise cancellation in noise uncancelling buds remains to be seen, but it's good that there are options; this is, as far as I can recall, the first clip-on pair I've heard of with the feature.

You may know Belkin as a company that typically sells power banks, phone cases and charging cables, but its range is diverse and now includes some potential winners in the audio sector.

At IFA 2026, the brand has expanded its fledgling audio family with two new super-affordable pairs of earbuds, each of which offers Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) at a price far below rivals.

There's the SoundForm Isolate Buds, which sell for a very palatable £39.99 (about $54, AU$80), and the SoundForm Dot Buds, going for £29.99 (around $40, AU$60). Those names are meaty, but hopefully the audio is too.

Don't confuse the SoundForm Isolate Buds for the SoundForm Isolate; rookie mistake. Those are existing over-ears. Add 'Buds' for the new products.

Also, when it comes to the Dot option, you can select a model with or without ANC, because Belkin wants to give customers the choice. And the set that can't cancel noise can be yours for just £19.99 (around $26 or AU$36). Dot Got it? Good.

As luck would have it, we've got feet on the ground in Berlin at IFA, and my colleague Harry Padoan got a quick listen in with the SoundForm Isolate (main image and below).

His early thoughts? "From my brief time using the earbuds, they sounded very bass-heavy out of the box. The low-end was powerful and fairly regimented too, which is ideal for more energetic tracks," Padoan said. "While this could sometimes mean that vocals and mid-range sounds weren't the clearest in the mix, the audio quality seems relatively solid overall for the price you pay."

These options have been released alongside the SoundForm Play, over-ear headphones which are intended for "older kids".

Dot's the deal?

Both of Belkin's new earbuds are sold on an important promise: ANC for a lot less than Bose, Sony or Apple. But these buds have a few other benefits.

The Isolate offer Multipoint connection, a clear call quality mode, and a 32-hour battery life. They come with a wing-style design, with a ridge that keeps them locked in your ear, which should make them suitable for workouts.

The slightly cheaper Dots miss out on the wings, and have a slightly lower battery life at 30 hours, but still get Multipoint and clear calling. They also come in both ANC and non-ANC versions. The non-ANC model costs £19.99 (about $25, AU$40), so they're super cheap, but do miss a pretty useful tool.

Conspicuously absent? Any mention of the buds' audio architecture. It seems, then, that the feature list is the real selling point here; don't expect incredible sound (perhaps you guessed that from the price).

You'd be forgiven for being apprehensive about buying earbuds from a charging bank company, even a well-known one such as Belkin. However, many similar companies have begun making the jump into audio: Anker's Soundcore now makes some of our favorite earbuds, and Baseus is following suit — and both are also showing products at IFA.

This is because, unlike some spaces within tech, the power bank and charging tech sector is growing quickly (maybe people are holding onto their phones longer in these challenging times?), affording these brands some extra cash to put towards designing new affordable wearables.

What I'm saying is, it's well worth paying attention to Belkin's offerings. I'll be very interested to see if the company's affordable buds can rival our go-to best budget earbuds recommendations.

Released in May, the Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro are my favorite earbuds of 2026 so far, leading to a glowing 4.5-star review... and now Soundcore has taken that DNA, and given it a little twist.

I'm talking about the Soundcore Aeroclip 2, which have just been unveiled at IFA 2026. On the surface, they seem like simple successors to the original Aeroclip, and an odd comparison for the aforementioned in-ear buds. But it's all about the feature set.

You see, the Aeroclip 2 come with Anker's Thus chip, the firm's very own internal AI chipset, used in the Liberty 5 Pro. This brings a suite of advantages that other earbuds of this design simply don't have, including clearer call quality, optimized battery life and a listening test. The new buds are due to cost $169.99 / £159.99 (about AU$320) and go on sale on September 22.

Another point of comparison is that both the Liberty 5 Pro and Aeroclip 2 also now have an advanced model: the 5 Pro Max and Aeroclip 2 Pro respectively. In the latter case, as in the former, the big upgrade is a control panel on the charging case, as well as a note-taking and transcription tool which uses the actual case to take notes. The advanced model is due to cost $229.99 (about £200, AU$400) but has no set release date just yet.

Not all of the Thus chip's features are present: I loved its noise cancellation capabilities, but since clip-style earbuds are designed to not cancel noise, naturally that won't show its face here. But if I want ANC, I have plenty of other options...

A busy IFA for Anker

Anker's Soundcore sub-brand had plenty of other devices at IFA.

First up, there's the Soundcore Space 2 Pro, over-ear headphones which build on the Space 2 we saw earlier this year. Again, the improvement is that they use the Thus chip, with noise cancellation that's apparently 1.5x better than on the original model. There's also a listening test, longer battery life and comfier build, with whatever an "optimized headband" is. These cans are set to cost $199 / £199 (about AU$400), and again go on sale on September 22.

Don't want over-ears? Well, Soundcore has standard earbuds too, in the form of the Liberty Buds 2. These are lightweight, without long stems, and weigh 4.7g each. They use 9.2mm wool paper diaphragms, and once again have the Thus chip, for the listening test and clear calling.

You can buy the Liberty Buds 2 on the same day as these other gadgets: September 22. They'll sell for $129.99 / £129.99 (about AU$230).

Soundcore is continuing its line of sleep earbuds with the... Sleep Earbuds 4 (and 4 Pro). These follow on from the Sleep A30, so the brand is changing up its naming conventions here.

These have build-in photoplethysmography sensors to track your sleep stage, heart rate, heart rate variation and other metrics, with "snore masking" and a redesigned shape so they're even smaller. A neat tool is that they offer dynamic audio: if it notices you waking up, it'll start playing a sleep sound to lull you back to sleep.

The standard buds come in October, and I wasn't provided a price. The Pro models come later, in November, and their main upgrade is that they have a screen on the case, so you don't need to use your phone to manage or monitor them.

Finally, we have the Anker RIC Hearing Aids, which continue a growing trend among audio companies: using their tech to create over-the-counter hearing devices. These use the Thus chip, and therefore the clear-calling and Hear ID tools, to boost sounds you struggle to hear. No word on a price or release date for these.

Phew. Take a breath. That's only the tip of the iceberg for Anker at IFA, with charging devices and home security cameras and more, but luckily for this missive, none of them go on (or near) your ear.

I reached this conclusion on Tuesday as I sat in a darkened space and watched relatively new company CEO Tom Conrad dash from one demo living space setup to another, carrying a pair of Sonos Play speakers. He placed the pair of them on a credenza opposite the new Sonos Beam Ultra and then, without touching the Sonos app or even fiddling with the speakers, transformed the three audio sources into a unified surround sound system. And when he was done integrating the small speakers into the larger sound system, Conrad simply picked up the Sonos Play speakers and returned them to their original space. The speakers then reconnected to the standard Sonos Wi-fi network and resumed their regular roles.

This is Sonos 27 and Fabric at work, where Sonos products know when they're being lifted and moved and then can communicate ultrasonically with the Beam Ultra, which then makes a small mesh network connection to build a super-low-latency surround system.

It looked and sounded like magic and is exactly the kind of dream audio scenario I imagined when buying disparate speakers. Sonos, which has always allowed its speakers to communicate and create stereo sound systems, has long held the promise of this kind of automation, but it was never possible before Fabric.

It's a hardware and software feature that could excite existing customers and even inspire a legion of new ones.

Doing what makes sense

Where Sonos' software development once seemed sort of aimless and disconnected from consumer demands, Conrad's Sonos appears to be hyper-focused on doing only what makes sense for its customers.

Take its Sonos 27Voice, which manages to up the intelligence of the Sonos voice system while staying firmly in the audio lane.

Read our exclusive interview with Sonos CEO Tom Conrad

Instead of trying to transform your Sonos speaker into a voice-activated hub for all your smart home needs, Sonos decided to keep the 27Voice fixated on Sonos capabilities, but with a bit of a twist that I think people will appreciate. In Conrad's demo, he asked a sort of rambling question about a musician, and 27Voice quickly connected him to his desired music. Time and again, Conrad's vague queries resulted in sonic pleasure.

Sonos' other strategic gem, though, is openness. So, if you want to ask your Sonos tougher questions, like how to properly cook tenderloin, it'll happily pass only the prompt to another AI of your choice.

This open approach also carries through in reverse, with AI models like Claude, ChatGPT and, yes, Siri, able — via something Sonos calls Sopnos MCP — to control Sonos speakers through the new Sonos platform.

Sonos is also fixing past missteps by, for instance, making sure that new products joining the mix are complete and fully integrated members of the Sonos family.

Music to my ears

The new Ace Ultra ($449 / AU$699), which Conrad at one point wore around his neck as he presented the new products, platforms, and strategies, is a far more complete member of the Sonos family than the original Sonos Ace headphones. Those high-end headphones only connected to the Sonos Arc soundbar. The new Ace Ultra, which includes Sonos's Headphone Engine 2, uses Sonos Fabric and, with a press of a button, can pick up the audio from the Beam Ultra or any other member of the current Sonos audio family. I saw this in action, and it really is a one-button operation.

What has remained consistent in 25 years of operation is Sonos's audio quality (I have an aging pair of Play:1 speakers that I love and use to this day), and even in my brief time with the Beam Ultra soundbar and Ace Ultra headphones, I found impressive audio chops.

The Ace Ultra headphones, which promise 35 hours of battery life (3 hours on a 3-minute charge), feature a new driver and updated adaptive EQ that adjusts each time you put the headphones on. The headphones delivered a wide range of sonic experiences to my ears, which I selected from the new Sonos iPad app. I heard deep bass, sharp highs, and warm mids. I never wore the original Sonos Ace headset, but I can report that these are not only comfortable to wear, but the updated ear foams and greater yoke range and flexibility provide a near-perfect fit and seal.

The button placement, which was new to me, took a bit of getting used to, but I found I liked the volume slider that also doubles as a push-to-pause button. There's also a button that you can push to quickly sync up with the Beam Ultra. Onboard ANC also managed to cut out the thrum of a very noisy demo space.

Similarly, the Sonos Beam Ultra is a relatively compact soundbar capable of producing some very rich sound. There are now 9 drivers, including a pair of upfiring ones dedicated to bouncing dialogue off the walls and ceiling. Sonos says it provides 7.1.2 surround sound, and in my experience, it was loud, clear, and exciting. During the demo, they were playing Godzilla vs Kong, and I immediately wanted to grab some popcorn and park myself in front of the 4K TV and white Beam Ultra soundbar.

Overall, the $699 / AU$1,099 speaker bar seems well equipped to transform any audio-challenged TV.

Both the Ace Ultra and Beam Ultra are on pre-order now and start shipping on September 29.

Sonos appears to be taking some care with the rollouts, with some arriving as soon as next week and others more slowly as previews and early access builds. I'm sure Sonos would love to avoid another calamity where everyone's Sonos app changes at once, and they suddenly lose features or even gain ones that confuse them. I'd argue, however, that these alterations — Sonos 27, Fabric, and 27Voice — are some of the most thoughtful updates the company has produced in a generation, and could turn your disparate collection of Sonos hardware into a cohesive, useful, and sonically pleasing whole.

Sony has revealed three new party speakers and — hurrah! — I’ve had the chance to hear them for myself. The Sony ULT Tower 5, ULT Tower 7, and ULT Tower Max look to offer almighty audio output for parties, DJ sets, or even karaoke sessions, with various ways to play and connect.

These bass-conscious new speakers are built around newly developed large, circular woofers (a departure from Sony's almost rectangular X-Balanced woofer unit, typically seen across the ULT range), and according to Sony, the Max model specifically delivers the most powerful bass in the ULT Power series to date. Their bold designs — which also deviate a fair bit from previous ULT speakers — as well as their massive power outputs and broad connectivity options could make them a major rival for the likes of JBL’s PartyBox models, if the sound is right.

Just how good do Sony’s new ULT speakers sound? I attended an impressive demo and I’ll reveal what I thought shortly. First, let’s run through everything I learned about Sony’s Towers, from technical specifications to nifty new features.

Taking a closer look

Let’s look closer at each of the three new ULT Tower speakers, and go through the key technical details.

The ULT Tower 5 is the smallest in the new line-up, but it still packs quite the punch. It contains a 230mm woofer and two tweeters with a 300W maximum power output. Meanwhile, the ULT Tower 7 boasts a larger 280mm woofer, alongside two mid-range units, and four tweeters — two front-facing, and two rear-facing. The rear tweeters are also angled for a wider soundstage. The ULT Tower 7 has a 420W maximum power output.

Finally, the ULT Tower Max is a true beast of a speaker. It has three woofers, two front-facing, one rear-facing. But it also comes with two-midrange units, and four tweeters, two of which are rear-facing. Its high-power amplifier delivers 2,150W of output, making it one of the most powerful party speakers I’ve ever encountered.

I want to focus in on the woofers for a moment, because Sony were really keen to stress the changes made for the new ULT Tower models. Unlike some previous models, the new Towers have circular driver units for the woofers, rather than the ‘X-Balanced’ alternative.

Sony Product Manager Mike Somerset told me: “X-Balanced is fantastic for a smaller, compact system and maximizing the surface area inside — let’s say, for a rectangular speaker unit, you know. And it also delivers a really great, impressive ‘attack’ bass. But with these, we really wanted to emphasize deep bass — and to be able to do that we’ve moved to this circular driver unit”.

The speakers also have large capacity cabinets and ULT Duct tech, which is intended to help each model produce “deeper, more powerful bass with greater authority”.

Do it your way

As well as talking up the outrageous power of the ULT Towers, Sony was keen to share the impressive customizability of the speakers. That’s because there are a number of sound modes, all of which are designed for specific situations and genres.

There are two ULT modes. The first, Sony says, is intended to enhance deep bass for “a rich, low frequency sound that makes your heart tremble,” with the second made to ramp things up even further for “even greater power, delivering body-shaking bass and strong sound pressure”.

What’s perhaps more interesting, though, are the ‘Flat’ and ‘Live’ options. As you’d expect, Flat is designed to make a track sound as it was intended to at the mixing desk, with a more neutral, balanced approach. Live, however, is focused on delivering a more spacious sound, with a strong emphasis on vocal clarity.

The speakers were tuned with the help of a number of "Hip-Hop sound creators," including producer, songwriter, and DJ, Dready, who spoke with me about the EQ adjustment process. On the Flat tuning, he said, “That’s how I would have it on a DJ set, because obviously on the controller you have the lows, mids, and highs, and we just gave it a nice blend… so, you know, when people take it, they can express themselves how they want”.

Of course, if you want to personalize things even further, you can connect to the speaker with the Sony Sound Connect app and make use of the multi-band custom equalizer instead.

So…how good do they sound?

Do the ULT Tower speakers sound any good? Allow me to go through them one by one.

The ULT Tower 5 arguably impressed me the most, relative to its size and cost. Sure, it leaves out the 360-degree Party Sound feature that the larger models adopt (presumably due to its lack of rear-facing drivers), but its raw power and regimented sound were hard to ignore. When listening to Luther by Kendrick Lamar and SZA, the speaker showed its considerable versatility. The vocal sample in the intro sounded textured and resonant, but then the drive and power of deep bass hit with surprising impact. Bass, though the clear star of the show, sounded controlled yet powerful, and never shrouded vocals in the mids or drums up high.

We cycled between the various sound modes, and the switch between an ‘attack’ bass and deep bass mode was pretty striking. It was incredibly seamless to sift through the different modes using the ULT logo — which also happens to be a button. It’s too early to say if it’s a sure-fire hit, but for £349 (around $470 / AU$660, but these are guesstimates based on the UK pricing right now, since Sony hasn't disclosed official pricing for these regions at the time of writing), the ULT Tower 5 sounded far more impressive than some rivals I’ve tested in its price and size class.

Things got even louder when we switched to the ULT Tower 7. We tried listening to Don’t Start Now by Dua Lipa, and low-frequency sounds were full-bodied, agile, and striking. Treble sounded pretty forward to me, with higher-pitched percussion seeming highly prominent, while vocals sounded clear and well-weighted in the mix.

We also tried out Money by Pink Floyd, which is a great testing track for any speaker. The 360-degree sound seemed pretty effective here, and when pairing two ULT Tower 7s together in stereo mode, the spaciousness of the track was brilliantly recreated. Vocals and guitars sounded tonally accurate and well-separated, but that low-end still came through with immense drive.

Finally, we hopped over to try out the behemoth that is the Sony ULT Tower Max. I’m no stranger to a rave, and the Max made me feel like I was listening to a set at my local venue. I was able to pick a track of my choosing, so I threw on Breather by Chris Stassy. And this perfectly showed off the huge sound of the ULT Tower Max.

The pumping, deep bass was genuinely earth-shaking, and I could almost feel it vibrating through my soul. But spacey sounds in the mid-range still came through cleanly, and were provided plenty of room to express themselves. If you want truly mesmerizing power at a relatively moderate cost (all things considered), then the ULT Tower Max could be one to keep an eye on.

We also tried pairing ten of the ULT models together, and… as you can probably imagine, the results were palpable. Auracast technology allows multiple models to chain together, and even the LED lighting syncs up across each speaker, making for an especially immersive listening experience.

Final thoughts: enticing new designs and competitive pricing

The new ULT Towers feel like Sony’s attempt to genuinely take on JBL in the party speaker arena, with the latter being particularly dominant in this field. The party speaker segment has increased in popularity as of late, and we’ve even seen new entrants like Marshall releasing its Bromley 450 and Bromley 750 speakers.

But could the ULT Towers rival the likes of JBL’s Partybox models? Well, at a glance, I think they could. They offer incredible power, more than a lot of mainstream competitors, they have a new design with attractive lighting, refined sound with rounded woofers, and plenty of ways to make them sound right for you. And that’s not to mention the wide connectivity options, including Bluetooth, RCA, XLR, and USB-C.

For the power and features on offer, they’re also priced relatively modestly, with the Tower 5 coming in at $449.99 / £349 AU$549, the Tower 7 at $649.99 / £499 / AU$799, and the ULT Max at $1,499.99 / £1,299 / AU$1,999.

I was also impressed to see the battery life of the speakers, with 30 hours on the ULT Tower 7 and 20 hours on the Tower 5 — that’s quite a lot of playtime given the power demands. And although features such as 360-degree audio and sound modes are exciting, Sound Field Optimization (which analyzes speaker placement and surround noise levels to offer the best sound possible) are even better. That’s something that could really set this model apart.

We’ll have to test the ULT Tower models out for a bit longer to determine whether they can compete with the best, but so far, it’s fair to say that they’ve impressed me.

I spoke to Sonos' CEO Tom Conrad about the new launches — especially the new software, since any new software changes that Sonos makes will be met with caution from the community, as Conrad and I discussed last time we spoke.

First, here's a rundown of the details of what Sonos is launching, starting with the Ace Ultra. These new headphones will launch at $449 / £399 / AU$699, and bring a new 40mm driver promising improved sound — but more interestingly they're powered by a new chip called the Headphone Engine 2 that means they'll be able to do what people expected the original Sonos Ace to do: they'll be able to work as a standard part of the Sonos ecosystem.

The Beam Ultra, meanwhile, sits between the Sonos Beam (Gen 2) and the Sonos Arc Ultra — it's a compact soundbar, but it delivers 7.1.2 channels of Dolby Atmos sound, using nine drivers (including two upfiring drivers, which is a first for the Beam range). It launches at $699 / £699 / AU$1,099.

Both of the new products are available to pre-order on September 1, 2026, and will launch on September 29, 2026.

When it comes to software, Sonos has given its platform a name for the first time: Sonos 27. Part of the launch of Sonos 27 is the reveal of Sonos Fabric, which is the name Sonos has given to "the system capability that enables Sonos products to sense each other and adapt to the moment" — and immediately, Fabric is being used to enable smart music switching on the Ace Ultra, and the ability to have portable surround speakers in Sonos home theater setups. Conrad will explain both of those in our interview.

There are two other new elements to Sonos 27, though. Sonos 27voice is a new voice assistant that's based on AI tech, and Sonos 27mcp is a new way for AI agents to connect to Sonos systems and control them.

In our conversation, Conrad dug into why the company is doing all of this and what the company is offering for AI skeptics — so let's get into it, starting with Conrad's explanation of why they wanted to give the software a name at last.

Tom Conrad: When I got the nod to become permanent CEO about a year ago, one of my observations about the company's recent history was that while we had started as a system company, we had spent the last almost decade being really focused on getting great at shipping individual products, filling out the product line with every shape and form that our customers were interested in. Small, medium, and large soundbars; a couple sizes of subwoofer; big amplifiers, small amplifiers; portables… you get the point. And Patrick [Spence, former Sonos CEO] and the team became a really well-oiled machine with respect to hardware execution.

But in doing that, I think the unintended consequence was that at times we took our eye off the ball [regarding] what it meant to bring those products together into a cohesive whole. And someone shortly after I arrived said that the thing about Sonos is it's really 100% hardware and 100% software. And I love that framing, because it's so right. We have these two really hard problems to solve, and if either one of them doesn't get complete dedicated focus from exactly the right people, we don't deliver what our customers expect.

And so, we've done all kinds of things to elevate the software expertise in the company over the course of the last year. And at the same time, we've really invested in the idea that the software is what makes the system. And as you look at how we've taken our products to market through the years, we've always given the hardware a name — Arc and Ace and Beam and Move — but the software has never had a name.

So one of the big announcements this week is that we're giving the software a name. And what we make is really an operating system for audio experiences in the home — and ‘OS’ has always been there in our name! And so we're simply calling the software Sonos 27 because, really, it is that ‘systemness’ that the software provides that makes Sonos. And we're attaching the year moniker to it, because Sonos does get better year after year. There'll be a Sonos28 and a Sonos29 and so on.

Matt Bolton: As soon as I saw the name, my first thought was whether this means we're talking about a planned update cadence, and that feels like it would probably be a different approach than Sonos would have necessarily taken in the past?

Tom Conrad: Yeah, I think one of the things about the company for the last many years is that because we only talked about the hardware, anything we wanted to do in software had to kind of ‘ride along’ on the hardware itself. And so we'd add Atmos, or we'd add voice assistants, or we'd add new surround experiences, but they would always be tied to the fact that we're making a new soundbar, so we can work on home theater experiences. We're making a product with a microphone so we can work on voice products. By separating out the idea of the operating system, we're giving it its own identity, its own road map, its own cadence of release, which we think is a really exciting change for the company.

And our customers can expect that the software doesn't get better only when we release new hardware. And it doesn't even get better just once a year. It gets better all the time through the year, which I think fits a new, modern way that people talk about their software platforms.

Matt Bolton: What we've been seeing more recently is you guys rolling out improvements and features on a pretty regular basis. The question I have as a user is: does this mean that I'm going to be waiting for a once-a-year Sonos 27 update to get new features?

Tom Conrad: I understand that feeling. But I think if you look at even what Apple does now, they once a year talk about their new operating system, and then the features roll out through the year, some of which they've sort of talked about in their big moments and some of which are a surprise and delight along the way, and our model will be exactly the same.

Matt Bolton: I assume this means that you've got a road map already in mind that covers Sonos 28 and Sonos 29. How far in advance are you thinking?

Tom Conrad: We do, for sure. Certainly, the list of things that I want to accomplish in software runs to many years. But one of the unique opportunities in software — unlike hardware, where you have to make these bets that go out, two or three years after you start programs — is that in software, even a big program might be six months of effort.

And so, while I like to have a two- or three-year road map for software, I like to be constantly replanning so that we can react to what's happening in our customers' lives. If you think back three years ago, for example, we hadn’t even had the ChatGPT moment yet. And so, to have a locked three-year roadmap and be resolutely dedicated to that path, not understanding how the world has changed in the last three years, would be foolish. And so we have a plan, but also the wisdom to be constantly reevaluating and reprioritizing as our customers' needs evolve.

Matt Bolton: How far ahead do you plan to communicate to customers what is coming? Like you say, Apple will announce at WWDC things it doesn't expect to necessarily launch until quite a bit later in the year.

Tom Conrad: I think it's likely that we'll do a couple of events or moments a year where we talk about what's coming and what's newly available. And so I think you can expect, in many years, there'll be kind of a fall event, like this one, where we talk about our big plans for the year, and then there'll be kind of a midyear check-in where we'll add to the story.

Matt Bolton: So let’s talk about AI integration. Generally, people have gotten to the point where they're now pretty skeptical of AI features being added to everything, but it sounds like you're taking a practical approach. So how do you assess what you should build and integrate — what you can do with, as you say, the three years of the ChatGPT ‘moment’?

Tom Conrad: I guess we'll start with what we do for skeptics. The things that we do with conversational AI are completely opt-in experiences, to the point that our speakers all have a hard microphone button on them, so you press it, and it literally breaks the electrical connection between the microphone and the rest of the device. So for those who are uninterested in this moment, we provide a platform that I think has incredible utility, even absent modern AI-powered capabilities.

But I think in some ways, the more exciting dimension of what we're doing is that we're really not starting from, ‘Oh, there is this incredible new technology in large language model, generative conversational AI infrastructure, what can we build with that?’ Instead, we're starting from really spending time with our customers and understanding what they might want to do with voice in the context of Sonos in their home. And we have the room to do that because we've been shipping voice assistants on Sonos for nearly a decade, including our own.

And when I talk to customers, they say, ‘I love the idea that I can engage with the Sonos system in my home without taking my phone out of my pocket. It takes a long time for me to get to the app, my partner looks at me sideways. Like, why are you on your phone when we're having a conversation?’ I mean, I think broadly you'd be hard-pressed to find somebody who's like, ‘I wish that the people I share my home with were on their phone more.’ Instead, they're looking for ways to put the phones in a drawer and enjoy being together.

I think voice is intuitively a great way to solve that, and that's why Sonos One, our first product that had a voice assistant, was such a smash hit 10 years ago. I think people understood that this is a great way to engage. But, unfortunately, the [voice] agents themselves really didn't meet the expectations of the customer.

When I go out and talk to people, the first thing they say is not crazily complex scenarios about how to control my smart home in nine different ways — all this stuff that you hear about from other players in the industry. They say, ‘I just want to be able to talk to the assistant about what I want the same way I would talk to a human being.’ I wanna be able to say, ‘Play that album that I loved in college, with the one with the singer from the Cocteau Twins. I think the band did the theme song to that Fox show. What's it called? It's about a doctor who's really grumpy all the time. Oh, yeah. It's called House.’

And, certainly, with first-generation voice assistants, even if they knew the name of the song, they would have to remember that you have to say ‘Play this song by this artist’ and not say the album and not say the artist first — and [we had to] guess what the agent is thinking. So job one, two, three, four, five, and six is: speak to this thing naturally.

The second thing that they say is they don't really care about all of these seemingly made-up examples of things that tech companies seem to think that we want to do. ‘I looked at your calendar and noticed that you have people coming for brunch tomorrow, and the refrigerator says you're out of eggs. So I'm gonna text your wife to tell her that you've gone to the store to get-’… I mean, no one wants the system in your walls to do that stuff in the real world, I don't think.

But they do want to be able to quickly control ‘atmosphere’, I would call it — which means music, means a soundtrack, and often means lighting. And yeah, they wanna be able to set timers. They wanna be able to ask about the weather. Everything else is really far down the list from there.

So we built [Sonos 27voice] to do exactly those things. It's really fast. It's really reliable. It's really resilient to anything you throw at it linguistically. And I think people are gonna be really delighted with just the fact that it just works. One benefit to narrowing the problem domain to exactly what customers are asking for is that we're also able to deliver this with modern infrastructure that is affordable to run, which means that we can make it a standard part of the Sonos system without having a secondary subscription on top — which is another dimension that people, I think, really want. They don't want another line item on their credit card just to be able to control the ambiance in their home.

Matt Bolton: What is the technology in the background? Are you using a particular language model? Are you running on your own servers or tying into someone else's systems?

Tom Conrad: Let me give you the one last piece of the puzzle that we hear from customers, because it will help me explain the architecture. They do also say that they want access to comprehensive world knowledge. I'm in the kitchen. I'm cooking a pork tenderloin. I wanna know what the temperature should be for it to be safe to eat. My wife and I are having a debate about the name of the actor from Ted Lasso. And people want the voice assistants to be able to talk to them about the world.

So you need something that is everything that I described, but also has the wisdom to reach out to a more sophisticated general-purpose model when the query is outside of the domain of ambiance and timers and weather and the stuff that makes up 95% of what people ask. So we've built our own core model that is a purpose-built, fine-tuned, kind of mid-scale large language model, if you like, that we run on our own infrastructure and answers that 95%, and then reliably routes to an external frontier model for the general knowledge or complex questions.

And we'll even do fun things, like if the frontier model can help in the task of figuring out the music, it will do that too. So you can say things like, ‘Find some music that's breaking through on TikTok and filter it through that shoegaze music that I liked when I was in college in the nineties and make a playlist for me.’ And it will use the frontier model to understand what's being talked about on TikTok. It'll use our infrastructure to understand my musical taste, and then it'll build a playlist and go. So that's what we're doing with Sonos 27voice.

Matt Bolton: I assume the frontier model will change over time, but which one are you using for launch?

Tom Conrad: We're not talking about the infrastructure at launch, but you're right to assume that part of the flexibility here is to be able to trade in and out frontier models to optimize costs, et cetera.

Matt Bolton: The other side of the AI features you announced that I'm really interested in is the MCP integration. Sonos has this long history of being relatively developer-friendly and open, which you guys emphasized a lot in the announcement of this OS. So the MCP integration feels like you’re re-embracing the element of wanting people to be making stuff that works with your system.

Tom Conrad: I think one of the exciting things that's happened in the last, not even two years, but in the last six months, is that suddenly we see ordinary people are able to make software, right? And I know we see it all over the company, and we see it all around the world with our customers. Already, unofficial hacked API access to Sonos is a very common, vibe-coded use case, and you hear people, lots of very high-profile people, talking about controlling their system. And then I meet customers all the time who are experimenting with these things.

And so, we're launching Sonos 27mcp, which makes a supported, full surface-area set of actions in the Sonos system available to our customers, to interact with music through any agent that they choose. Sonos will show up in the Claude connector directory — and the ChatGPT connector directory, and the Grok connector directory, and the Gemini connector directory — alongside Slack and Calendar and Figma, all the other things that you might interact with in Claude on any given day.

And you can do pedestrian things like turn the music down in Claude or whatever you’re using on your phone, in their app, in their desktop app, in a web browser. It will have enough context to understand that the music is on your Sonos system, and it will find the music that's playing and turn it down.

And it will also chain tools together, so you could say things like, ‘Look at my calendar and see the party that's coming up, look at who's coming, help me figure out what would be a great set of music to play based on what we know about these people from my email history with them.’ It's a terrible made-up example. But it's really good at chaining together a bunch of tools and its own native inference and doing these things.

And then as you point out, in the sort of hobbyist community, there's this tremendous opportunity to make bespoke control experiences, both software and hardware, using this infrastructure to integrate Sonos into the emerging agentic frameworks like OpenClaw and Hermes. There's going to be dozens of these things that take over, over the course of the next year, and we'll be able to participate in that.

I think it's just gonna be really fun to see what our customers do with this. And I think it's a really unique capability, because to do it well, you have to have both the technical infrastructure — which is to say access to the nouns and verbs of your system through the internet — which very few people have.

And then you also have to have the, like, philosophical perspective that says openness is good, and allowing integration and access from these third-party systems doesn't disintermediate us. It elevates us, and not every company — maybe no other company — has that perspective.

Matt Bolton: It feels like it must be part of building a future-proof system as well, because MCP seems like quite an agnostic approach, and it means that if, say, Apple adds good MCP support to Siri, you don't have to do anything to support it. But at the same time, does it make it any harder for you to develop on your end knowing that you're going to have this really open-ended way for agents to come in and interact with the system? Does that complicate building and planning features in any way?

Tom Conrad: First, just as a footnote, I should say that it may turn out that Apple's answer to all of this integration is not MCP, but what they call App Intents. And we're also, in this moment, shipping App Intent support on Apple's platform, so we have that piece as well. It's kind of a semantically one-to-one mapping — where the connector lives is different, but what you can do with it is very similar.

How do I say this… Maybe the worst of all worlds is to have all of the third-party engagement with your product be done through hacks and unsupported APIs… I have a friend who has a newborn, and he gets up early to work. He wants to be notified when his wife wakes up, so that he could put the coffee on. And so he basically just set [Claude] Fable about the task of, like, ‘Figure out when my wife wakes up’. And so the agent hacked his smart bed. And then he's like, ‘And start the coffee maker [at that point]’. And it hacked the API for his coffee maker.

I don't know that I wanna be on the receiving end of that universe, because now when I change an implementation detail, it breaks these experiences. And I think the customer blames the coffee maker company and the smart bed brand. They don't blame the fact that they essentially had hacked themselves on top of some infrastructure that was never meant to be built upon.

And so I think the new world sort of demands a certain amount of willingness to participate in this, and I'm really excited at the idea that the MCP infrastructure gives us a really nice structured way to not just do it once and have it applied to multiple platforms, but to do it in a way that allows for a layer of compatibility as we evolve the back-end services.

Matt Bolton: The other thing I wanted to ask regarding so much talk of this being an open platform is just how open are we talking? Would we see Sonos 27 on other devices, on non-Sonos hardware?

Tom Conrad: I think, for now, the magic of Sonos really is the marrying up of what we do in hardware and then what we do with software. And so you'd never say never, but at least as it relates to the core audio business that we're in, I think we're focused on making our own exceptional experiences for the home.

I will put a tiny asterisk on that. We have a great partnership with Peloton that started with us tuning the audio experience in their newest equipment, but is extending over time to allow the Sonos system in their customers' homes to become the audio destination for [their products’ audio output]. It's not quite us bringing the operating system into other people's audio hardware, but it’s a good example of continuing the work that we've all already done to integrate everywhere where our customers wanna be.

Matt Bolton: In the Sonos Ace Ultra, obviously the big headline hook for the hardcore Sonos fans is going to be the Sonos system connectivity that people had hoped the first Ace would have. Why is the new Headphone Engine 2 hardware necessary to make that happen?

Tom Conrad: There were two pieces to unlocking the headphone connectivity for the system. The first is that we needed Wi-Fi performance and secure storage transport of [security] credentials, which is deeply embedded into the actual silicon that goes into the headphone. Unfortunately, Ace doesn't have that platform, so we couldn't responsibly bring the feature to Ace without putting your Wi-Fi password, for example, at risk on an open network during configuration. And without the improved Wi-Fi capability of the headset itself, we couldn't get the kind of ‘walk around your home’ networking performance that we wanted for the product.

But to your point, I'm really proud of the original Ace. They're super comfortable. They've got great battery life. They've got best-in-class noise cancellation performance. They're great headphones.

But it is the best example of how, in that chapter, the company had forgotten how important it is to make sure that the products we make are really part of the system, and not just an exceptional pair of headphones. Because let's be honest, there are lots of exceptional headphones in the world.

And so from the jump on Ace Ultra, we knew that we had to do the thing that our customers most wanted, which was to make the headphones an intuitive part of the [Sonos] system.

There are two mechanisms for engaging with this feature. The first is really kind of magical: you can walk up to any speaker that's playing in your home, press a button on the headset, and the music just jumps from the speaker into the headphone. You can then walk to some other part of your house, press the button again as you stand in front of [another speaker], and the music or content jumps from the headphone to the speaker. No app, no delay, no Bluetooth; it's really just the Sonos ‘Fabric’ tech facilitating this effortless, seamless experience around the home.

I said there were two things that unlock this capability. The first is the hardware that lives in the new headphones. The second is something that happens in the operating system itself, which is that — with the launch of Amp Multi — we built a virtualization technology that allows a single instance of the Sonos OS to host multiple instances of the runtime. And what that's for in Amp Multi is that you’ve got one box running four rooms.

We've taken that capability and extended it to the whole modern speaker family, so that this Sonos Play that's sitting on my desk with me can run more than one instance of the runtime. And so the headphones, which don’t have the CPU horsepower to run the full Sonos stack, doesn't have to — because it can nominate a speaker on your network to be its proxy.

And so when you when the music jumps from the speaker [to the headphones], we spin up a virtual instance of Sonos [software] in one of the speakers — it might be the one you're standing in front of, it might be another one that's less utilized — and send audio over the network as a stream to the headphones, rather than running the full stack in the headset.

And what's cool about this is whatever speaker is doing that work still has the performance overhead to run as a speaker to play music for someone else in the home. So it's a deceptively simple feature that has a lot...underneath it.

Sonos Fabric is the moniker that we've given to the fundamental technology of Sonos that bonds, and groups, and links headphones. And the other exciting thing that we're doing with Fabric in this release is that we're enabling what we call portable surrounds, which is the ability to take a Sonos Play or a Move and to use them as surrounds in a home theater setup.

So the idea is you've got Sonos Play or a couple of Moves in the kitchen, the backyard, whatever — for movie night, you can bring them in, set them down [behind you], and use them for the surround Atmos experience in your family room. And then when you're done, put them back to work in other places in your house.

What's so cool about this technologically is that the way a speaker becomes part of your home theater is fundamentally technically different than the way that a speaker joins the grouping architecture of Sonos [for multi-room], because the latency requirements between the soundbar and the surround speakers are much higher.

So when a speaker joins a home theater configuration, it actually, from a networking standpoint, connects directly to the soundbar. It doesn't go through your home network. And so when you take a speaker that was in the kitchen as part of the grouping architecture, and move it into a [home theater] satellite position, a whole bunch of magic stuff has to happen.

First of all, the soundbar and the speaker have to recognize one another. And so we use the accelerometer in the portable speaker to understand that it's been picked up and set down. And when it's set down, we send an ultrasonic signal. If there's a soundbar in the room that can hear it, it sends a signal back, and they do a handshake to figure out left-to-right distance, to automatically tune, and spin up to the home theater networking connection — all without you doing anything. No app involved at all.

It’s another one you kinda have to experience to really appreciate, but I’m super excited to begin to ship these much more flexible home theater configurations. It's unlike anything that the rest of the industry is delivering today.

Matt Bolton: Can you tell me about the new driver design in the Ace Ultra? What did you want to change compared to the previous one?

Tom Conrad: We have just some of the most sophisticated audio engineers in the world working on these products, and they wanted to deliver deeper bass, clearer details, and a clearer soundstage with less distortion. We had the opportunity to go in and build a custom driver for Ace Ultra to tune it in the studio with some of the best, and award-winning audio engineers in the world.

You have to hear it and compare it side by side with Ace, but I think you'll find that it has a deeper bass response, clearer detail, [better] balance across the audio spectrum.

Matt Bolton: I thought it was really interesting that the Beam Ultra comes in kind of as a replacement for where the original Arc ended up in the product range following the launch of the Amp Ultra. Why did you go down the route of squeezing more channels into the smaller Beam body, instead of sticking with the bigger and more flexible Arc shape to fill that role?

Tom Conrad: Our goal was to deliver truly the best midsize soundbar in the world. There are still plenty of people around the world that want a smaller form factor. They want something that can tuck underneath the television when it's sitting on a credenza, or for a smaller television. Or, frankly, they just want an object that doesn't call as much attention to itself as a larger soundbar.

And yet they want full true 7.1.2 Dolby Atmos. They want a height experience that puts them really inside the action. And so with Beam Ultra, we built a system that has nine drivers, including two upfiring drivers, that bounce audio off the ceiling and the walls to create that immersion.

If you spend time with any home theater customer, you understand that they really want a pristine dialogue experience where the dialogue always cuts through the busy scenes. And so the center soundstage of Beam Ultra is dramatically improved.

They also want bass that lands with a tremendous weight without having to put a subwoofer into the room. They want music that's expansive and has a clear soundstage. And the creators want products that recreate their intention in the family room with great accuracy.

It's so hard to talk about these products that deliver these sound experiences before people have the chance to experience them in person. But everyone we're sharing Beam Ultra with just can't believe the amount of sound experience and presence you get out of such a small soundbar.

Matt Bolton: So was it the case that when you were speaking to customers, you figured out that if people are buying at this kind of midrange price, they more often want the smaller size rather than the bigger size — even if that adds complication on your end?

Tom Conrad: That's right. I mean, we already have the best-in-the-world large soundbar in Arc Ultra. And so the question really was for the rest of the market: what can we do to make a huge generational leap in capability here? And that's the place that Beam Ultra comes from.

Matt Bolton: It feels like you could have gone with 5.1.2 channels on the Beam Ultra, and that probably would have made people happy if delivered with higher quality. What was there in the development that meant that you settled on 7.1.2 as necessary, or the right option?

Tom Conrad: Well, I think part of it is that we deliver in Beam itself such an exceptional experience around the 5.1.2 experience. We really wanted to find a way to expand the product portfolio rather than just refreshing Beam. And so, in this moment, Beam will stay in the market as our solution for the customer that is more price-conscious and who wants that 5.1.2 experience, and Beam Ultra sits above it to deliver a more immersive Atmos surround experience.

When you think of JBL speakers, your mind probably goes to the likes of the JBL Go 5 or JBL Xtreme 5: portable party devices which you take on the go. However, the brand's new offerings are totally different.

JBL has unveiled its Cove range, consisting of three speakers that are designed to stay at home. That's not to say they're not portable, but you're not meant to take them camping or to the beach.

The family is made up of the smaller Cove M1, larger (but portable) Cove P1, and even larger (and not quite portable) X1. All three models are set to sell from October 2026.

All three models have a range of useful features: they can self-tune depending on the room they're in, automatically apply balances to avoid distortion, and pair together to create multi-room noise. They don't just pair with each other: they can also connect with the JBL Bar Mk2 to add real surround sound to your movies and TV.

These are all Wi-Fi enabled speakers, though they can connect via Bluetooth. This means they support Google Cast, AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, Roon Ready, Tidal Connect and Qobuz Connect, and they'll apparently also support Alexa+ at some point after launch.

Their design makes us think about two things. Firstly, they'll be able to fight for a spot in our best wireless speakers guide, and second, their resemblance to the Denon 200, 400 and 600 range is hard to overlook — and given our glowing review of the Denon Home 400, JBL's Cove X1 (main image) is up against some stiff competition. That's not to say the new range can't wow us, just that it's tough at the top.

Music at home? Head to the Cove

The cheapest model of the family is the JBL Cove M1, which is due to sell for €229.99 (about $260, £200, AU$400). This has 2x 30mm and 1x 20mm silk dome tweeters, and a 4" woofer.

It's the only model to lack Dolby Atmos support, and it's designed to be compact so it can fit in various nooks of your home.

Next up, the Cove P1 will sell for €449.99 (about $520, £380, AU$760), and it has all the same drivers as the M1.

So why the higher price? Well, it's the only model with a built-in battery, letting you bring the sound into your garden. It'll last for 14 hours, with a recharging dock included to power it up. IT also has an IP56 rating, unlike the other models, in case it gets caught in a spell of rain.

For a little more, you can buy the Cove X1, which will go for €499.99 (about $580, £430, AU$860). It has 4x 30mm tweeters and 2x 4" woofers, so it'll offer a much more advanced sound than its siblings.

It's designed to offer "3D room-filling" sound, and for that price you'd hope so.

Dali has a habit of making five-star speakers, including the Dali Kupid and Dali Sonik 1, both of which got full marks from us. And now there's a colorful compact subwoofer to give these two speakers even more oomph, if you find bookshelves to be light on low-end.

The new Basik Sub turns your stereo setup into a 2.1 system and solves a problem that applies to any compact bookshelf speakers: there's a limit to how low you can go without putting in bigger drivers. By adding an eight-inch downfiring subwoofer to your setup, the Basik Sub is designed to add the low-end punch that makes music and movies even more entertaining.

Dali Basik Sub: key features and pricing

The Basik Sub features Dali's own 8-inch long throw woofer, which is teamed with an oversized ferrite magnet and a high-flux motor system that Dali says delivers precise control. It also features a long, vented voice coil designed to maintain cooling and minimize compression as you turn the levels up.

Dali went with a down-firing rather than front-firing subwoofer for two key reasons: to deliver more even bass distribution, and to give you more options when it comes to positioning your subwoofer in your room.

Power comes from a 170W RMS / 220W peak Class D amplifier, and there's a built-in dual-stage limiter. Gain, crossover and phase controls are adjustable to make the Basik compatible with a wide range of speaker setups.

Of course, it's not just limited to being used in a 2.1 system — the Dali Sonik range is also designed to be used as surround sounds as well as for stereo setups, so the Basik is a good fit for a budget home theater system too.

The enclosure is made of MDF, features four decoupled feet to reduce vibration and comes in a choice of Solid Black, Solid White, Caramel White, Golden Yellow and Chilly Blue.

The Dali Basik Sub will go on sale in October 2026 with a recommended price of $800 / £429 / €500 (about AU$815).

With the iFi iDSD GR 2, a seemingly arduous task was at hand. British hi-fi brand iFi had to produce a portable DAC/amp that could improve on the spectacular xDSD Gryphon, which we handed a rave five-star review. But boy, did they pull it off.

The iDSD GR 2 provides upgrades that feel meaningful, practical, and tangible. It delivers around 50% more amplification power than its predecessor, making it easier to drive more demanding headphones, all while providing enhanced dynamic range and lower distortion. What’s more, it adds K2HD tech, licensed from JVC Kenwood, which helps to restore warmth and musicality that digital recordings sometimes lose.

Oh, and it fixes our only major gripe with its predecessor, by adding a vivid OLED touchscreen display, making it feel intuitive and easy to use when switching sources, toggling XBass and XSpace processing, or accessing settings. As a result, it easily competes with the best headphone DACs that money can buy.

It's a fantastic performer, delivering articulate, layered, and balanced sound. I paired the DAC/amp with the Astell & Kern A&ultima SP4000 music player and a range of headphones/IEMs, including the Sennheiser HD 600, and the results blew me away. The GR 2 supplied intricate instrument separation, punchy bass, phenomenal mid-range clarity, and expressive treble, making for a captivating listen, no matter what genre I threw at it.

What’s more, the DAC/amp has higher battery capacity (4,900mAh) with adaptive power, meaning I could indulge in long listening sessions without interruption. Combine that with a neat companion app, numerous connectivity modes, and a lightweight feel, and the GR 2 is the ideal device for audiophiles to carry while on the move.

At launch, the iFi iDSD GR 2 is cheaper than its predecessor was at the point of release, despite making a whole host of improvements. And while it would’ve been nice to see a case bundled in at this price-point, and while there are cheaper options on the market, I still think this model offers impeccable value for money when considering the sheer volume of tech crammed into this little device. As a result, it’s all too easy for me to recommend the GR 2.

iFi iDSD GR 2 review: price & release date

• List price of $529 / £529 / AU$849
• Released in June 2026

The iFi iDSD GR 2 released in June 2026, and is the spiritual successor to the brand’s popular portable DAC/amp, the iFi xDSD Gryphon — a model that hit the market back in 2021. Despite offering a number of upgrades over its predecessor, the GR 2 is cheaper at launch, coming in at $529 / £529 / AU$849.

iFi iDSD GR 2 review: features

• Brilliant OLED touchscreen display
• 4,900mAh battery capacity with adaptive power
• K2HD tech opens up even more textured, subtle playback

The iFi iDSD GR 2 is rammed with features, and improves significantly on its already impressive predecessor.

Some of the most captivating options are back, including XBass and XSpace filters, which you can use in tandem or individually. XBass provides a tasteful bump to low-end sounds, while XSpace aims to deliver a more expansive soundstage — both work brilliantly, and I found myself using them often for more hard-hitting hip-hop and dance tracks.