Last month, entertainment insights firm, Luminate, published its 2026 midyear trends report and one stat got a lot of attention: Sales of CDs in the U.S. are going up, not down, and it’s happening while vinyl sales continue to grow.

We’re not just talking about a small, statistically irrelevant increase. CD sales increased 16% to 16.3 million units during the first half of 2026.

When I saw this, my immediate reaction was to pat myself on the back. See, I’ve been cultivating a theory I call Music Sovereignty, and it rests on the notion that, after a decade of living with monthly music subscriptions, people now want more ownership and more control over their music. A big bump in CD sales — especially one that doesn’t cannibalize vinyl purchases — is exactly the kind of signal that would validate my theory.

And then I learned about K-pop.

K-pop loves the CD

That spike in sales, as it turns out, wasn’t caused by a sudden desire to stick it to the streaming services by leaning into physical media. When you look at the numbers at a more granular level, 58% of that growth was driven by one genre: K-pop. And within that genre, one album dominated: BTS’ ARIRANG. Of the 7 K-pop albums in Luminate’s top-10 list of CDs, ARIRANG was responsible for 32% of the total.

I knew that K-pop fans love BTS; I didn’t realize they were such dedicated CD listeners. But hey, a stat that helps is a stat that helps, so once again, I took this as a signal that K-pop fans were simply ahead of the curve when it comes to Music Sovereignty.

Except that they aren’t. Or at least, not in the way I was expecting.

Even in South Korea, the home of the K-pop phenomenon, only 8% use physical albums to listen to music, according to the Korea Creative Content Agency’s 2024 white paper on the music industry.

In the U.S., Luminate’s report claims that half of Gen Z and Millennial CD buyers don’t even own a CD player. So if they aren’t listening to CDs, why are they buying them?

Parasocial relationships

Being profoundly ignorant about K-pop, I turned to my former colleague, Andy Boxall, for answers. Andy and I both contributed to Digital Trends from 2018-2025. Over the course of many weekly editorial meetings, I discovered that in addition to being a top-notch tech writer, Andy is a huge J- and K-pop fan (J-pop being the Japanese-specific genre of pop).

Andy was more than happy to fill in the cavernous gaps in my K-pop knowledge.

“K-pop (and j-pop) are built on parasocial relationships,” he began — a concept that, as I discovered, is key to understanding a lot more about K-pop than just CD sales. “Buying a lightstick, attending a concert, taking part in a streaming push on YouTube, subscribing to the private messaging apps, and watching your favourite member’s livestreams,” are all ways that fans show their idols that they appreciate them. “Buying the CD is just one part of the fandom.”

For K-pop lovers, the CD is less about the musical ones and zeros embedded on a plastic disc, and often more about what comes packaged with the CD.

“Most k-pop releases are presented really well,” Andy explains. “They can come with photobooks, stickers, access to digital content, posters, and exclusive photocards. They’re genuinely cool for fans to buy.”

A culture of collecting and voting

The packaged content can become a strong motivation to buy the same CD multiple times, somewhat akin to buying packs of baseball or hockey cards in the hopes of scoring a rare item among the many duplicates. “It’s not uncommon for some fans to buy say 10 [of the same] CDs,” according to Reuters’ Minwoo Park and Daewoung Kim.

The other reason for buying CDs again and again reflects the parasocial relationships Andy describes. Some purchases enter the buyer into a lottery, with a chance to win a meet-and-greet with their favorite K-pop idol.

However, sales also determine whether artists get on music charts and increase their chances of winning prizes at awards shows, according to Areum Jeong, an assistant professor of Korean culture at Arizona State University.

This concept of CD-buying as a support mechanism is older than the current K-pop craze. It finds its roots in Japan’s music scene, where fans could influence the roles and opportunities of individual members of J-pop groups.

From 2009 to 2018, the all-female group AKB48 held so-called general elections, known as senbatsu sousenkyo. The stakes for the performers and the fans were high: The winner got to headline the group’s next single — a massive boost in profile, exposure, and marketability.

To vote in these elections, fans typically needed to buy an AKB48 single on CD, which contained a unique web code. That mechanism, as you’d expect, drove a lot of CD sales that had nothing to do with owning the music itself. In an unconfirmed report, one fan apparently spent US$6,700 to secure 2,700 votes during the 2012 election.

We’re still streaming … for now

So should we chalk up 2026’s surge in CD sales to little more than K-pop-induced collection behavior? And should I reconsider my Music Sovereignty theory?

Ian White, editor-in-chief of eCoustics.com puts some much-needed context around the numbers. “Nobody should mistake this for a revolt against streaming,” White points out, noting that while physical sales are doing well, streams are increasing too: The Luminate report shows that they rose by 4.8% to 732.7 billion in the U.S. during the same first half of 2026.

He also notes that although CDs are a far more affordable way than vinyl for people to physically collect music, the sales increase shouldn’t be seen as a buy-it-and-never-play-it phenomenon. As evidence, he points to the recent surge in the availability of new CD players, from ultra-affordable portable units like the $105 USD FIIO SNOWSKY Beatbox All-in-One CD Player, to the decidedly high-end, $1,399 USD NAD C 589 hi-fi component.

“Manufacturers do not make these products because three editors and someone’s uncle in Ohio refuse to discard their copies of Brothers in Arms,” he quips. “They see a market.”

That’s a solid argument that at least some of this demand is about playback, not just fandom support. It gets stronger still when you consider that even if you remove K-pop’s heavy influence, sales nonetheless saw a 6.7% growth.

Still small in the grander scheme, but it’s something I’ll be keeping an eye on as streaming music services continue to raise prices.

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There’s no such thing as the best-sounding wireless headphones. That’s like asking for the best-tasting burger or the most fashionable shoes. Instead, the goal is to find the cans that match your personal taste in tuning. In other words, the cans that are best for you.

For folks whose taste leans toward a balanced, neutral sound signature — one that doesn’t heavy-hand the lows or highs — the best wireless headphones have proven to be, year after year, Sennheiser’s Momentum series. The latest model, the Momentum 5 Wireless, keeps that sound intact.

But this generation’s biggest news isn’t sonic at all: it’s the first flagship wireless headphone I’ve tested with a battery you can swap yourself with a small screwdriver, no service center required. Sennheiser has also improved ANC, transparency, and call quality — the stuff that’s kept it a notch behind Sony, Bose, and Apple in years past.

The result is a great set of wireless cans and a no-brainer upgrade for Sennheiser fans.

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Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless
Product Score: 4/5

Pros:

• Excellent sound that doesn’t boost highs or lows

• User-replaceable battery with very high stamina

• Much improved ANC and transparency

Cons:

• Lackluster immersive audio feature

• Call quality isn’t as good as the competition

• No support for Auracast

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Easier on the wallet

Let’s start with the price, because I’m sure you’ve noticed that everything, particularly electronics, seems to be getting more expensive.

At $399.95 USD/$569 CAD, the fifth generation is $50 more than its predecessor, but still $50 less than Bose’s QuietComfort Ultra (2nd Gen) ($449 USD/$599 CAD), $60 less than Sony’s WH-1000XM6 ($459.99 USD/$599.99 CAD), and far more affordable than Apple’s AirPods Max 2 ($549 USD/$799 CAD).

I appreciate that Sennheiser has chosen to keep the Momentum 5 among the most affordable of the wireless headphone flagships.

Tried and true design

At first glance, it looks like Sennheiser has only made small cosmetic changes since the Momentum 4. A new circular logo treatment adorns the fabric-topped headband. There are two more microphones per side, which sit behind new metal grilles. The earcups are a tad deeper. They’re effectively the same weight (290 grams vs 293 for the fourth-gen).

Despite Bose returning to a fold-up hinge mechanism on the QuietComfort Ultra and Sony following suit with its XM6, Sennheiser has stuck with its fold-flat approach. To combat claims that this makes headphones harder to pack, the travel case has been aggressively trimmed down and is now smaller overall than Sony’s and just a little larger than Bose’s, yet it seems to offer just as much structure and protection.

The fifth-gen keeps the same touch controls for media, ANC, call, and volume (plus it adds a new gesture for spatial audio mode), with a single physical button for power and Bluetooth connections.

One of the biggest changes is on the inside: Remove the left ear cushion, grab a small Phillips screwdriver, and you’ll find that new user-replaceable battery. Just be careful — the driver assembly is connected via a ribbon cable and you definitely don’t want to damage it.

Quick side note: If you like the idea of highly repairable headphones, be sure to take a look at the Fender Audio Mix and the remarkably similar Fairphone Fairbuds XL.

For me, they’ve proven to be very comfortable headphones, whether I’m wearing eyeglasses or not. The headband creates just enough clamping force to keep them from moving about. I don’t recommend them for the gym or running -- I found their grip too gentle for those activities. If the gym is your thing, check out Sennheiser’s more budget-friendly Accentum Wireless or Accentum Plus Wireless. They’ve got an octopus-like clamping force and I guarantee they won’t budge under heavy use.

Even though there are now wear sensors inside each of the Momentum 5’s redesigned earcups (making music auto-pause/resume more accurate regardless of which side you remove), they feel a little roomier than before, which I prefer to the shallow earcups on Sony’s XM6. And I love that Sennheiser is one of the few headphone companies that gives you 180 degrees of earcup rotation, letting you decide if you want the cushions face-down or up, when worn around your neck. Another rarity: a five-segment LED battery meter, which takes the guesswork out of your charge status.

The only critique I’ll level at Sennheiser’s design is that it may feel a little too conservative for some buyers. For those who want their $400 headphones to look like $400 headphones, the Momentum aren’t as successful as Bose’s QuietComfort Ultra (2nd Gen), which use polished aluminum headband components for a decidedly luxe look.

Upgraded ANC

Active noise cancellation and transparency are at the heart of most wireless headphones these days, and thanks to an ANC arms race, they get a little better each year. I think Bose’s QuietComfort Ultra (2nd Gen) still offer the quietest experience for most daily routines like commuting to work, flying, or working in your local coffee shop, but it’s now a toss-up as to who I’d pick for second place. Probably Sony’s WH-1000XM6. But maybe the Momentum 5 Wireless? Honestly, without scientific testing gear, it’s too close to call.

You may find that ANC effectiveness can be compromised by some glasses styles. I recently switched to a frame with fairly thick limbs and noticed the difference immediately. This isn’t specific to the Momentum 5; the QuietComfort Ultra (2nd Gen) and XM6 both performed better without glasses, too.

Transparency is an even harder evaluation: Apple’s AirPods Max series were, for years, the leaders for the most natural-sounding, can’t-believe-I’m-wearing-headphones experience. Today, I think Bose, Sony, and Sennheiser all strike within 99% of Apple’s benchmark.

Where the Momentum 5 enjoy a slight edge is their ANC/transparency gesture control. Using the equivalent of a pinch-to-zoom move with your thumb and forefinger (or really, any two digits) you can increase and decrease the amount of noise canceling, from full transparency to full ANC, in increments. I’m an all-or-nothing kinda guy, so I didn’t use it much, but it works well.

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Still got that Sennheiser sound

As I foreshadowed in the intro, the Momentum 5 are in the goldilocks zone for tuning if you like your headphones to take a mostly hands-off approach to your tunes.

If you’re not sure, here’s what it means in practice: Superb clarity and detail. The Momentum 5 reward quiet-space critical listening. This is especially true when taking advantage of their advanced codec compatibility and USB Audio, which can deliver hi-res lossless audio from a smartphone or laptop at up to 24-bit/96kHz — the gold standard for very picky audiophiles (the previous gen was limited to 16-bit/48kHz).

That feature (wired USB Audio) can be enjoyed by just about everyone. The wireless equivalent (Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Sound with aptX Lossless), on the other hand, is something only a small handful of buyers will get to hear.

Even with the optional bass boost mode, these cans don’t get as low as Sony’s XM6. Which isn’t to say that bass is somehow underwhelming -- far from it. Tracks that depend on solid bass response, like Billie Eilish’s skull-thumping bad guy, are very well rendered. But if you like deep, powerful, and resonant lows, the Momentum 5 stop short of that experience.

Normally, I don’t get great results when using app-based personalized EQ schemes, but Sennheiser’s Sound Personalization accurately diagnosed my slight high-frequency hearing loss and gave me a boost in that part of the spectrum and significantly improved my enjoyment. So much so, that I ended up keeping it on for much of my listening.

I can’t say the same of the Momentum 5’s new Immersive Audio “Optimized for Dolby Atmos” feature.

If you’re listening to stereo, it gives you two options: Enhance that stereo sound through a virtual 3D effect, which makes the soundstage wider and deeper. Or enhance it further by adding head-tracking, which attempts to keep the main music elements (typically vocals) locked in front of you, even as you turn your head side-to-side. It sort of simulates a live music experience.

I’ll say this — it works, and I’m glad Sennheiser added it. However, it’s rare that I hit a stereo track that sounds better to me in this mode.

In theory, if you’re already listening to Dolby Atmos content, Immersive Audio won’t alter the sound (because adding an additional 3D effect to an already 3D format would be bad), so the only reason to use it is to turn on head-tracking. In reality, it does affect the sound, dropping perceived loudness a bit and pushing the center channel vocals backward in the soundstage.

Sennheiser says this is a necessary adjustment to let head-tracking do its thing without causing clipping (distortion) at high volumes. Again, I think it’s a nice-to-have add on, but not a reason to buy the Momentum 5.

Unfortunately, Sound Personalization and Immersive Audio are incompatible — you have to pick one or the other.

Not-quite-crisp calls

Call quality on the Momentum 5 is good, with a noticeable improvement in voice quality over the Momentum 4. However, Sennheiser still has some algorithm tuning to do if it wants to compete with leaders in headphone calling. Wind was audible when conditions went above a light breeze and while most background noises were eliminated, you could tell when the software was doing so — the louder the background noise, the more my voice would wobble and fade in and out.

Don’t be surprised if your callers ask if you’re a spot with bad cellphone reception when this happens.

In quiet, windless conditions, everything performs well, and I was especially happy with transparency mode on calls. To me, this is a must-have feature if you regularly take calls with your headphones. It makes for a more natural experience and reduces the fatigue of doing multiple, long calls. If you’re in a noisy environment, you can always engage the ANC if you need it.

The Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless boast an impressive number of features, but there’s one omission that’s particularly glaring: No Auracast support.

Auracast is a handy way to share your device’s audio with another person, but in the future, it will enable a host of additional scenarios — everything from being able to hear the TV at your gym, to getting vital terminal announcements while you’re waiting for your flight.

What’s strange is that Sennheiser added Auracast to its Momentum 4 True Wireless earbuds in 2024, and Accentum True Wireless in 2025.

Should you buy them?

Sennheiser’s Momentum 5 Wireless are the headphones Sennheiser needed and the ones that fans wanted: a set of cans that keeps the brand’s signature sound, closes most of the ANC and call-quality gap with Sony and Bose, and — thanks to that replaceable battery — might be the first flagship in this category actually built to outlast its warranty. If you’re already a Momentum fan, this is a no-brainer. And even if you’re not, they should be on your shortlist.

If you’re wondering if you should spend a bit more for the Sony WH-1000XM6 or Bose QuietComfort Ultra (2nd Gen), ask yourself these questions:

• Is a more-than-24-hour battery life important? Stick with Sennheiser. Same thing for repairability.

• Do you love bass? If so, Sony’s XM6 offers impressively resonant lows.

• Prefer physical controls to touch? Bose still uses touch for volume adjustments, but all other functions use a button. Sony and Sennheiser are both heavily geared toward touch controls.

• Do you find it hard to get a comfortable fit? In my experience, more people find Bose’s cans to be better for long-term comfort, myself included.

• Do you do a lot of calls? Both the XM6 and QuietComfort Ultra (2nd Gen) outperform the Momentum 5 Wireless for call quality.

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Hey, are you familiar with Qualcomm’s aptX Adaptive and aptX Lossless Bluetooth codecs?

My guess is that, for most of you, the answer is no, or maybe a shrugged “sorta?”

It’s OK, you’re not alone. But it’s a sad reality given that Sennheiser has not only added these codecs to its Momentum 5 Wireless headphones, but has also provided users an unusual level of control over how these codecs work inside the Smart Control Plus mobile app.

I’ll explain in a moment, but first, here’s the reason you’ve probably never heard of these codecs, and why you likely can’t take advantage of them.

The cavernous codec caveat

Codecs are the unsung heroes of the Bluetooth audio world. They’re responsible for compressing digital sound down to a size that can be reliably transmitted over Bluetooth links, which can be notoriously unstable at times.

The basic codecs that ship with nearly every Bluetooth device (SBC and AAC) do a decent job, but because they’re “lossy” codecs, they often strip away a lot of information.

Better codecs exist — much better in fact — but they suffer from an adoption and compatibility problem. You can only take advantage of a codec when both the source device, like a phone, and a receiving device, like headphones, support it. If either device doesn’t support the codec in question, they fall back on the ones they share in common, which is likely SBC or AAC.

And you may be surprised to learn that Apple iPhones only support SBC and AAC. Google Pixel phones add LDAC (a high-quality codec from Sony). Samsung phones also have LDAC as well as Samsung’s own proprietary SSC codec.

Those Qualcomm codecs I mentioned in the intro — aptX Adaptive and aptX Lossless? They’re two of the most advanced codecs so far, enabling both CD quality and hi-res audio over Bluetooth …

… and they aren’t supported on any iPhone, Pixel, or Samsung phone. In North America, that means a staggering 80% of in-use mobile phones aren’t compatible.

Wait. I can’t use these new codecs … ever?

Even though your phone or laptop doesn’t support Qualcomm’s codecs, you can still use them — it just isn’t free, and you’ll need to use an accessory.

There are two products that I’m aware of that give your device aptX Adaptive and aptX Lossless:

• Questyle QCC Dongle Pro

• Sennheiser BTD 700

Of these, I’ve only used the Questyle, which works very well. Just one word of caution before you buy any adapter: Double-check that it supports the codecs you need. Many models work with aptX Adaptive, but don’t support aptX Lossless.

What’s so great about aptX Adaptive and aptX Lossless?

In a word: More.

Our two default codecs, SBC and AAC could actually sound way better if they were allowed to use more bandwidth. Technically, they’re both capable of doing so, but they were introduced at a time when Bluetooth’s maximum bandwidth was smaller.

As a result, SBC typically runs at 192 kbps to 328 kbps while AAC hits its ceiling at 256 kbps on iPhones and up to 320 kbps on Android. When you consider that uncompressed CD quality requires 1,411 kbps, it’s easy to see how much info is lost.

aptX Adaptive is built on newer technology. It can, depending on the audio you’re playing, run as high as 860 kbps. It’s still a lossy codec (like SBC and AAC), but when you don’t throw away as much info, more detail is preserved.

aptX Adaptive, as its name suggests, can also respond to changing Bluetooth connection speeds. It can ramp its bandwidth up and down in 10 kbps increments so that it always provides you with the highest quality your connection allows. SBC and AAC can’t adjust to Bluetooth conditions at all.

aptX Lossless is the first lossless Bluetooth codec. Under specific conditions, it can compress and transmit audio at CD quality without losing any info.

It achieves its impressive sound quality by using far more data than a lossy codec. This is only possible when the Bluetooth connection is managed by two Qualcomm chip-equipped devices, which helps to explain why it won’t work on Apple and Google phones — they don’t use Qualcomm’s chips. Samsung does use Qualcomm chips, but it refuses to enable Snapdragon Sound, the licensed platform that’s required for aptX Lossless.

Cleverly, when aptX Lossless senses that the connection is no longer robust enough to support its massive appetite for bandwidth (1200 kbps), it can seamlessly convert over to aptX Adaptive’s lossy compression until things improve.

OK, that’s a lot of specs and numbers. Bottom line, do they sound better?

So, yes. But also, it depends.

You can think of codecs like aptX Adaptive and aptX Lossless as performance enhancers. If you’ve got access to lossless and/or hi-res audio, and if your Bluetooth connection is solid, and if your headphones or earbuds already offer really good sound, using either of these codecs can absolutely improve the sound versus SBC or AAC.

However, don’t expect an equally big difference between aptX Adaptive and aptX Lossless. As I proved to myself a few years ago, it can be a lot harder to tell them apart.

Here’s the “depends” part: These codecs will not take already heavily compressed audio and make it better. They also can’t magically make a budget set of wireless earbuds sound like ones that cost $399.

You should also consider how and where you listen. If you mostly use your wireless headphones walking to work, at the gym, on airplanes, or anywhere else that might have substantial background noise, I don’t think you’ll be able to appreciate the subtle improvements these codecs offer.

How can you tell if you’re using aptX Lossless (or Adaptive)?

The challenge with Qualcomm’s system is that it relies on phone and wireless accessory manufacturers to tell users what’s going on under the hood. If these companies decide not to do so, it’s impossible to know if your products are actually using aptX Lossless or aptX Adaptive — or maybe another codec.

Case in point: Bose’s QuietComfort Ultra 2 Headphones are aptX Lossless compatible. When I connect them to an aptX Lossless source device, like Questyle’s excellent QCC Dongle Pro adapter, I should get CD-quality sound if I’m listening to a lossless CD-quality song from say, Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon Music, or Spotify Premium.

The Dongle Pro isn’t very helpful. It sees aptX Lossless and aptX Adaptive as essentially a single codec. It doesn’t even have an aptX Lossless indicator.

The Bose app confirms the headphones are connected to (and streaming from) the Dongle Pro, but is silent on the nature of that connection. It doesn’t list any active codec. Am I getting aptX Lossless? Maybe. Could I figure it out just based on what I’m hearing? Possibly. But if you’re like me, you like a little confirmation that what you’re hearing is the best it can be.

Sennheiser’s smart control

Which brings us back to Sennheiser.

Its aptly named Smart Control Plus mobile app provides the missing aptX connection information, but perhaps more importantly, it gives you control over how the Sennheiser Momentum 5 Wireless work with these codecs.

As you can see in some of the screenshots, the Audio Mode Priority screen lets you toggle support for Hi-Res 24-bit/96kHz and Lossless 16-bit/44.1kHz independently. It doesn’t say so explicitly, but these refer to aptX Adaptive and aptX Lossless respectively.

I’ve seen companion apps that let you turn aptX Adaptive on and off, but Sennheiser is the first I’ve come across that add the extra granularity of aptX Lossless control.

Then, in the Device Setting screen, you get confirmation of what’s actually happening. The Codec section reveals the active aptX codec, along with the sampling frequency it’s processing.

This is the critical piece. If you’re streaming CD quality at 16/44.1, and the Sennheiser app confirms the headphones are streaming at 16/44.1 using aptX Lossless, that’s your reassurance that everything is working optimally.

Why switch between Lossless and Adaptive?

If you leave both the Hi-Res 24-bit/96kHz and Lossless 16-bit/44.1kHz toggles turned on, the Qualcomm chips will do their best to select the right codec based on your Bluetooth link and your source material.

If they see you’re playing lossless 16-bit and you’ve got a strong link, aptX Lossless will be used. If not, you’ll probably get aptX Adaptive. For most people, this is the best option and as I mentioned above, the app will tell you which codec is in use.

But there may be rare times when you want to specify. Someone with an extensive CD collection may reason that disabling Hi-Res 24-bit/96kHz prevents their 16-bit lossless tracks from undergoing lossy conversion.

The same could be true in reverse if you’re mostly streaming hi-res audio.

But in the end, because aptX Lossless will always switch to Adaptive if it can’t maintain a fast link, these toggles represent best-effort preferences, not forced behaviors.

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You can almost hear the collective held breath and the tentative, walking-on-eggshells approach that Sonos CEO Tom Conrad, and his team are taking at the moment. And well they should.

No one at the company has forgotten the “profound mistake” made in May 2024, when, under the leadership of Patrick Spence, Sonos launched a redesign of its mobile app.

That redesign was so poorly executed, and so poorly received by customers, that the company’s stock began a slide that shaved 50% of its value over the following 12 months. It also ended Spence’s eight-year run as CEO.

Since then, Sonos has been triaging the fixes. It started with the missing and broken features, moved on to performance bugs and now, more than two years after the launch, it’s giving some much-needed attention to the user interface.

However, unlike in 2024, the changes are being rolled out slowly and they can be turned on and off with a single tap. It’s a cautious, controlled, and considered approach, and who can blame Sonos for that?

In the current version of the app (v87), at the top of the Settings screen, is a switch labeled “Enable Improved Navigation.”

Turn it on, and you’ll see a new set of persistent tabs at the bottom of the app, for Home, System, and Search. Within the System tab, you can now pin your favorite speakers to the top of the list and choose their order. And tapping on the volume slider reveals +/- buttons on either end for more fine-grained control than swiping your finger.

Sonos says it’s using this polite opt-in period to gather feedback and won’t make the changes the default until “feedback settles.”

Here’s my feedback: The changes are good but they don’t go far enough.

Bringing back the tabs

This is the smartest part of the redesign. It acknowledges that some parts of the user interface must be persistent to avoid a lot of unnecessary tapping and overlapping screens.

I like that instead of just bringing back the original five tabs (favorites, music sources, speaker selection, search, and system settings), Sonos has found a way to use just three (Home, System, and Search). I also like that on the iOS version, these tabs reflect Apple’s new Liquid Glass look and feel.

Home needs more help

The Home screen is unchanged, and that’s a problem. It continues to rely on a horizontally banded set of carousels, with almost no customization.

Take the Music Services section. You can’t expand it to see all of your services as a grid, and you can’t reorder them. You can only pick one preferred service, which is listed first; all of the others are then presented alphabetically.

Sonos Favorites suffers from the same lack of personalization.

System is slick

If your Sonos ecosystem is modest — maybe two or three speakers — you may not have given a lot of thought to the System tab. It can display three components at once, with no scrolling.

Four or more, however, and you become aware of the app’s preference for alphabetical lists.

I’m delighted that there’s now a sort and a pin menu. You can change the sort from the default alphabetical to either Actively Playing or Frequently Used, but I suspect most folks will want to pin.

With pinning, you choose the speakers you want at the top of the list, and they can be reordered any time. Brilliant.

Still searching

I’ve always said that Sonos’ universal search is its single best feature. For those of us with massive personal music libraries and multiple streaming services, being able to enter a keyword and get matches from all of these sources is awesome.

And now that we can flip back and forth between the Search and System pages, we’re almost back to the level of convenience the original design provided.

I say “almost,” because Sonos’ interface experts and I still have a beef over how people search.

Maybe it’s just me (entirely possible), but when you search for, say, Buddy Guy, you’re probably not thinking “I need to see which services have matching content.”

My guess is that you actually want to play some Buddy Guy. The only question that matters is, “Do you want to play one of his songs, one of his albums, or are you looking for playlists that contain his music?”

The same is true if you’re going for something less specific like a mood, e.g., high energy. Are you really concerned about what Apple Music considers the top matches for high energy, or do you want to see everyone’s matches for artists, albums, songs, and playlists, so you can quickly get to what you want?

Only once you’ve identified the kind of content you want does it become relevant to see which services have matches.

Here’s the kicker: Sonos’ search used to work this way. It changed with the 2024 redesign.

Now, results are always filtered by music service first (and alphabetically, of course). You can drill down into any of these services to then find songs, albums, etc. But at that point, if you can’t find what you want, you’ll need to jump into one of your other sources.

Too little, too late?

I’m thrilled Sonos is finally addressing the user experience problems it introduced in 2024. I’m also dismayed at how long it took to get here, and how few actual changes have been made.

In fairness, Sonos has said we can expect more soon, like the desperately needed return of iOS lock screen controls. However, even that update feels underwhelming given that it’s simply bringing back a feature we used to have.

Sonos has spent the last two years making its customers wonder if they should switch to another system. Bose has positioned its new Lifestyle Ultra speakers and soundbars as an app-free Sonos alternative*, and Wiim continues to make the case that its ecosystem is superior to Sonos, at least as far as its software is concerned.

The navigation improvements may slow the rate of customer defections but they’re hardly cause for celebration. And they do nothing to prove that Sonos is still capable of innovation.

Sonos has always bet its identity — for better or worse — on its software chops over its hardware-building pedigree. Until 2024, I’d argue that was a smart bet.

Now, however, that identity is bloodied and bruised. If the company wants to return to growth and profitability, and if it wants to put a smile on its customers’ faces, it needs to prove once again, that no one does audio software as well as Sonos.

It’s time for Sonos to step up.

*Almost app-free. You still need to use the Bose app for setup and EQ tweaks, but all search, playback, and multi-speaker management is now done through third-party apps and protocols like Apple AirPlay and Google Cast.

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The audio world is full of buzzwords, specs, and branded features. Each year, the list gets longer, and companies compete with each other to see which one can offer the longest list.

You can see this play out on Amazon’s product pages. Even a budget-priced set of wireless earbuds can have an extensive list of specs.

Since so few of us have the chance to actually try these products, there’s a strong tendency to adopt a checklist approach to buying.

Hi-res audio certification? Check.

Support for advanced Bluetooth codecs? Check.

Spatial audio mode with head tracking? Check.

This tendency is even stronger in the hi-fi and audiophile communities, where obsessing over the composition of a cable, the total harmonic distortion (THD) of an amplifier, or the clock jitter timing of a digital-to-analog converter (DAC), can take on a religious zeal.

There’s nothing wrong with ensuring that a product delivers on a certain set of technical expectations. But before you realize it, the checklist has become a stand-in for what matters most: Does it sound good?

As a tech journalist and product reviewer, I’m more aware of this trap than most folks. It’s a professional hazard. The more you learn about how the sausage is made, the more you feel compelled to focus on the ingredients.

This week, as I began researching an upcoming series of articles on Dolby Atmos, I learned that even the people who create the music we adore wrestle with this issue.

It came up during my interview with Guy Fletcher, who, in addition to being an accomplished musician, composer, and audio engineer, is also the person who created the Dolby Atmos mix of Dire Straits’ famous album, Brothers In Arms.

I assumed that, given his facility with the technology of music making, he would be fanatical about achieving a specs-based perfection in his work.

But not only did Guy teach himself how to play by ear — remarkably, he never learned to read music — but he also relies on that hearing-first approach to guide his production process.

“I would much rather trust my ears than trust a scope or a reading or a measurement,” he told me during our chat. It’s not that Guy ignores technical elements. “Measurements are valid and we need measurements to align rooms and do everything that we need to set up a studio control room.” But he’s not ruled by them.

“The bottom line to me has always been, if it sounds good, then it is good.”

It’s a motto that he inherited from his late father, Ted Fletcher, the pioneering audio designer behind the Alice range of mixers and the JoeMeek range of preamps and compressors.

That struck a chord with me. If it’s true that we, as buyers of audio gear, can be lulled into thinking of a spec sheet as a substitute for what we would hear if we could actually try the product, then it’s also true that an audio engineer, staring at a scope instead of trusting what they’re hearing, is making the same trade. The Fletchers had every excuse to let the readout make the decision for them. They didn’t.

Specs matter, as do features, design, materials, etc., because they signify a product’s potential. But they’re not a guarantee of how a set of headphones or a full home theater will sound.

As you’ll see over the next few weeks as I dive into Dolby Atmos, it can be a rabbit hole of technical considerations. Multiple channels, lossy and lossless compression, discrete versus virtualized speakers, binaural rendering … it’s a long list.

I’m not going to shy away from that list — it’s essential to understanding how Atmos works. But the goal isn’t to arm you with a checklist.

The goal is to explain how these specs and features combine to deliver the sound you hear, and why, even when everything looks right on paper, what matters most is: if it sounds good, then it is good.

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No company has done more to champion the spatial audio era of music than Apple. Its AirPods family of wireless headphones add advanced support for the format, and Apple Music has been actively incentivizing record labels and independent artists to submit Dolby Atmos Music mixes to its catalog.

Unfortunately, in its enthusiasm for Dolby Atmos, Apple Music has made it hard — really hard — for people to switch between Dolby Atmos and standard stereo on their phones, when using non-Apple or Beats headphones.

I haven’t magically fixed this omission, but I’ve come really close and so can you.

Apple Music’s missing Atmos switch

There’s no Dolby Atmos < - > Stereo toggle in Apple Music itself. Instead, the setting is buried many layers deep inside the iPhone’s Settings app:

Settings > Apps > Music > Audio, Dolby Atmos > [Automatic | Always On | Off]

You’d think that Automatic would be the best option. Who doesn’t want things to be automatic? But that option only works when you’re using Apple or Beats wireless headphones.

When you’re using AirPods in Automatic mode, Apple Music will automatically play the Atmos version of a song when it exists, and stereo when it doesn’t. At any time, you can swipe down from the top of your iPhone screen, then long-press on the volume slider. You can then easily switch from Spatial Audio On (Fixed or Head Tracked) to stereo (Spatial Audio Off), or, if the track you’re listening to is only in stereo, you can turn on Fixed or Head Tracked spatialization (which makes stereo sound a little more like Atmos).

Without AirPods or Beats headphones, Automatic doesn’t do anything. You’ll only get stereo, even if the song your listening to has an Atmos version.

Instead, to hear Atmos (when available), you need to set Apple Music’s Atmos switch to Always On, at which point iOS will remind you that BAD THINGS MAY HAPPEN.

Ok, not really. But it is true that Apple Music will start to give you Atmos whenever it can. And on some connected speakers, including your car stereo, it could sound way worse than regular stereo (the version of Atmos that an iPhone generates is only intended for headphones and earbuds, not speakers).

So now you’re always getting Atmos when available, which is great, right up until the point where you decide you’d prefer to hear the stereo version of the song your listening to. Now you’re stuck.

With Apple Music, it’s really hard to simply search for and play the non-Atmos version of a song once you’re in Always On mode. You may get lucky and find a stereo-only version as part of someone else’s compilation album, but that’s only going to work for major hit songs.

The workaround is to dive back into your Settings app and switch the Dolby Atmos setting to Off, which works similarly to Automatic for non-Apple headphones. But this, as you’ll recall, turns Atmos off entirely.

Sigh.

In a perfect world, Apple Music would use the same superb interface shortcut as Amazon Music. When playing a song in Amazon Music, you can tap on the quality display and if the song is available in both Atmos and stereo, you can instantly flip between them.

In our decidedly less-than-perfect world, we need to get creative if we want Apple Music to give us more control over our spatial audio listening.

A shortcut to more control

Here’s the (sort of) fix: Use iOS’s Shortcuts app to reduce the process from a long, five-step sequence, to a much faster two-step system.

If you’re not familiar with Shortcuts, it’s like a mini app builder for the iPhone (or iPad). Old folks like me can think of it like a macro recorder. Shortcuts gives you a menu of objects, actions, and triggers, which can be combined to do a huge variety of tasks that would otherwise take much longer on your own.

Sadly, Apple doesn’t let you create a shortcut that turns Atmos on/off in AppIe Music — that would be too handy. But I was able to use it to worm my way into iOS’s Settings app, all the way down to the screen that does let you turn it on and off.

That’s it. That’s the band-aid solution that we shouldn’t need: A shortcut that can be saved to your iPhone home screen as its own icon, and will open the Settings page we need to toggle Atmos.

I’ll include the instructions below, or you know, you could just install mine.

Want an even faster way to get there?

If you have an iPhone with an Action Button, go to your main iPhone Settings > Action Button, swipe left until you get to Shortcut, and choose your new shortcut. After that, a long-press of the Action Button will instantly pull up your Atmos audio toggles.

Apple Music Dolby Atmos Toggle Shortcut recipe

To test your new Shortcut, tap the Play arrow at the bottom of the screen. It should take you directly to the Dolby Atmos toggle settings page.

Now your Shortcut has been created, you can give it a custom icon and add it to your home screen. Just tap the Shortcut name at the top of that screen and look for the relevant options.

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Every music streaming platform is grappling with AI.

Some, like Bandcamp, have banned it outright. Others are using a combination of technology and fierce penalties to keep 100% AI generated music from taking over their platforms, while still paying royalties to AI creators.

Tidal has taken a third path, and as far as I can tell, no other major service has gone this far: As long as the AI content doesn’t violate its rules, it can live alongside Tidal’s human-created catalog. But there’s no “monetization” mechanism. Tidal won’t pay any royalties to those who create and distribute AI generated content.

It’s a policy that exceeds even Deezer’s own AI rules, which until now were considered some of the strictest. Deezer tags fully AI-generated tracks, pulls them from its recommendations and playlists, and strips out the fraudulent streams that make up the bulk of AI listening. But on legitimate streams (when a real person deliberately chooses an AI track), Deezer still pays royalties.

Tidal’s message appears to be, we respect that AI is a legitimate way to create music, but we don’t think creators should be paid for doing so.

Don’t break the rules

Tidal, like the other major streaming platforms, has drawn a line in the sand regarding what kind of AI music is acceptable. It starts with a definition:

Tidal defines AI-generated music as music that is “wholly or substantially generated by generative artificial intelligence”.

So if you’ve used AI to generate a few effects or samples for use in an otherwise entirely human-created track, you’re not considered an AI music creator. You can breathe a sigh of relief.

Tidal then describes what’s off-limits …

“We will not tolerate AI-generated music that exploits an individual’s or group’s music, name or likeness, deceives listeners, or diminishes the quality of our service. Effective mid-July, AI-generated music associated with fraudulent activity will be blocked or removed from our platform. Fraudulent activity includes (but is not necessarily limited to) AI-generated music that aims to deceive listeners, interfere with authentic artists and their audience, or involves high-volume uploads or unusual streaming activity.”

… and explains its decision to deny revenue:

“Starting today, AI-generated music will not be monetizable. [...] Tidal’s priority is ensuring royalties go to original works directly produced, written, and performed by people. We will therefore not knowingly attribute royalties to music we identify as wholly AI-generated.”

Keeping AI out of the pool

It’s worth pausing here to understand how subscription services like Tidal pay artists, because it explains why it chose to draw the line where it did.

Most services, including Tidal, use a pro-rata / streamshare royalty model. This creates a single pool of money, which in Tidal’s case is exclusively funded through listener subscriptions, and paid out to artists based on their overall share of platform streams.

The danger in this system is the ease with which AI music can flood the platform. Since algorithms are often the way recommendations are processed, an unlabeled or inaccurately labeled AI song could end up with a ton of streams, thereby displacing songs by human musicians.

Since the pool is finite, human artists struggling to build an audience could find their small monthly royalties reduced to nothing, and even major stars like Drake and Taylor Swift might see a dip in payouts.

A new scarlet letter

The problem is, it’s getting harder to automatically identify AI music. As part of its effort to prevent AI music from passing itself off as human-created, Tidal is going to start a new tagging and display regimen that will eventually put the onus on the music distribution companies that supply Tidal (and others):

“Tidal will identify and tag AI-generated music. Listeners should know whether content they are listening to is AI-generated. To start, listeners will see an icon next to content we identify as 100% AI-generated. This feature will start appearing for listeners in mid-July. As AI-detection methods become more reliable, we will expand this tag to content that is substantially AI-generated. But the responsibility to identify and tag AI-generated content should not rest with Tidal alone. We expect — and will begin to enforce — that content distributors identify AI-generated content before it reaches our platform.”

In practice, the tagging is quite subtle. My Tidal contact kindly provided the screenshot below, as a demo of how AI tagging will appear on the platform.

The small “AI” block will appear next to all identified song titles, and on an album that has at least one identified AI music track.

Curiously, Tidal won’t apply the label to the creators themselves, regardless of how much of their catalog has been flagged as AI-generated.

Finally, Tidal makes it clear that AI music creators won’t be able to use the company’s Tidal Upload feature (which lets small artists share their music on Tidal and even do direct-to-fans sales in the U.S.) to do an end-run around these rules.

“If we have reason to believe that Upload content is wholly AI-generated, it will be tagged as such, and blocked from direct-to-fan monetization.”

An artistic contradiction?

Both Tidal’s tagging and no-revenue policies regarding AI music are consistent with its own description as “an artist-first, fan-centered music streaming platform”.

Where things get a little uncomfortable is Tidal’s additional marketing language around its support of creators.

On Tidal’s About page, the third pillar of its platform says:

“Commitment to the Art — We empower artists to create and deliver their art exactly as they intended.”

In its AI policy, it points out that sometimes that “art” will be the byproduct of AI:

“Artificial intelligence and machine learning are not new to music creation, they have just become more commonplace and advanced [...] Artists should have the freedom to create with AI tools, and listeners should have the autonomy to choose the type of content they consume.”

And yet, when it comes to AI-generated music (as Tidal defines it), its financial commitment to the art has strict limits.

Curiously, the company chose to leave the door open, just a crack, to the possibility of future monetization:

“We acknowledge the ongoing debate regarding whether certain AI-generated music (e.g. AI-generated music developed from fairly and properly licensed models) should be entitled to earn royalties. This debate will continue as the technology advances and rightsholders and AI music platforms develop licensing models.”

No matter how sophisticated AI music gets, I will continue to seek out human musicians. The music is, obviously, the most important thing, but it’s not the only thing. It’s the humans behind the music that I find so compelling.

Would Phil Collins’ In The Air Tonight hit with such raw emotion if I knew it had been prompted into existence? Would I enjoy Lenny Kravitz’s Cab Driver if it had been written by an AI, knowing that no robot has ever faced blatant discrimination while trying to hail a taxi in New York City? And will an AI song ever embed itself deeper in my soul through a live performance the way Won’t Get Fooled Again did when I finally saw The Who in Toronto in 2022?

I don’t think so.

Still, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that AI music has no value, or that those who create it shouldn’t be compensated in any way if the tracks they produce find an audience.

What’s your take on AI music? Let me know in the comments.

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A back-and-forth battle

​Before I jump into the full review, let me briefly set the table …

For years, Bose’s soundbars have competed with Sonos. Both companies offer the same fundamental promise: Great sound, elegant design, and a super-simple set up. But historically, Sonos had an edge.

The Sonos app gave its soundbars music streaming superpowers, while its ecosystem of wireless speakers and subwoofers, could add to the cinematic immersion, or be used independently in any other room, for a huge range of expansion options. Bose’s app wasn’t as powerful or as polished, and its limited set of accessory speakers and subs could only be used in tandem with its soundbars, not on their own.

Fast forward to 2026, and things look different. Sonos has continued to create amazing soundbars and speakers, but a disastrous app redesign in 2024 rendered a lot of customers’ systems unusable. The company fired its CEO and began the process of restoring features and stability, a task that is still not 100% complete.

With Sonos customer satisfaction at an all-time low, Bose made two small but important pivots: It introduced its new Lifestyle Ultra family of wireless speakers, starting with the Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar ($1,099) and Lifestyle Ultra Speaker ($299), and it made a conscious decision not to compete with Sonos’ app. In fact, it ran in the opposite direction. For daily TV and music listening, the Lifestyle family is almost app-less.

Though it has never said so, Bose is using these shifts to reposition itself from being just a Sonos competitor to the Sonos alternative. I’m just not sure it worked.

… OK, now for the review.

Bose Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar

Product Score: 3.5/5

Pros:

• Beautifully designed

• Very easy set up

• Robust bass, excellent dialogue clarity

Cons:

• You’ll need the app more than you think

• Stereo sounds a little constrained compared to other speakers at this price

• No Dolby Atmos Music without a TV or streaming device

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Bose Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar: Smarter and simpler

As soon as you open the box, it’s obvious that Bose wants the Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar to be super simple to set up and use. You get the soundbar itself, a power cord, and an HDMI cable. That’s it.

If all you want is better sound for your TV plus Bluetooth music streaming, simply plug the soundbar into your TV via HDMI, then plug it into the wall. As soon as you fire up your TV, it should automatically recognize the Lifestyle Ultra and you’re good to go.

However, if you want to make any changes to soundbar’s audio settings (like dialogue mode) the Bose app for iPhone/Android is essential, because the Lifestyle Ultra is one of the first Bose speakers to ship without a remote.

The Bose app also connects the soundbar to your home Wi-Fi for hi-res streaming and (optionally) Amazon Alexa, it provides an interface for adding surrounds and a subwoofer, plus, it’s the only way to do room calibration: the company also nixed its AdaptIQ room calibration microphone (a wired, head-worn device that no one will miss).

Without a remote, Bose took a page out of Sonos’ playbook: The Lifestyle Ultra has a full set of top-mounted touch controls for volume and playback, something its predecessors lacked. Bose’s original contribution is a circular shape that acts like a virtual volume knob. Swiping your finger clockwise or counterclockwise around the perimeter slowly raises or lowers volume.

Thankfully, Bose has kept one of its best soundbar design elements — the Lifestyle Ultra is topped with an elegant glass surface. Yes, it’s a fingerprint magnet and also highly reflective, but when it’s freshly wiped, it looks amazing. The new fabric grille is also a nice touch, adding a soft, rounded accent to a class of device that’s often made from a hard plastic shell.

The Bose app: almost unnecessary

The Bose Music app (which managed the company’s older models) was a kind of Sonos-lite experience, with a few integrated streaming music services and the ability to manage and group multiple Bose speakers. The new, unified Bose app, eliminates these features.

The goal is to give you a simple, one-app experience. Pick your preferred music app and then use either Apple AirPlay 2, Google Cast, or, worst-case scenario, Bluetooth, to connect to the soundbar and play your tunes.

If Bose hadn’t axed its physical remote, you might be able to completely avoid the Bose app after the initial setup. But that’s not quite the case.

In reality, you’ll need the app to manage important settings like EQ (treble, midrange, and bass), volume levels for center, height, and surround channels, turning dialogue enhancement on/off, and to validate the sound format the soundbar is receiving (a vital piece of info if you’re working with Dolby Atmos).

Movie and TV sound: much bigger bass, crisp dialogue

Soundbars often suffer from weak bass. It’s why a separate subwoofer is almost always a recommended add-on. Bose’s Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar definitely sounds more cinematic and impactful when paired with the Lifestyle Ultra Subwoofer ($899), but the good news is it also sounds pretty great on its own.

Cranking the bass level to +10 in the Bose app unleashes enough low-end punch to bring Hollywood action flicks to life. We’re not talking about window-shattering, heart attack-inducing bass by any means, but for a lot of folks, it’s going to be more than enough — especially if your neighbors are prone to complaining.

Dialogue is another gotcha area for many TV speakers. As more content gets mixed for multichannel audio, the all-important center channel (where dialogue lives) can get drowned out by the rest of the soundtrack. You may be able to get sufficiently clear speech just by tweaking the treble and center channel levels in the Bose app.

But for a true silver bullet, enable the SpeechClarity option (and then select one of three enhancement levels). After struggling through some seriously muddy dialogue at the start of The Fall Guy, I flipped SpeechClarity on and things were instantly clearer.

The Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar’s spatial audio capabilities are on-point too, with very good virtual surround sound and height effects. Playing through my usual Dolby Atmos test clips from titles like No Time To Die, Unbroken, Mad Max: Fury Road, and Dune, was a lot of fun; if you’ve never experienced a Dolby Atmos movie via a premium soundbar, you’re in for a treat.

Music: satisfying but conservative

Music playback has always been one of Bose’s strong points and the Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar continues that tradition.

Out of the box, you get what I’ve come to think of as the “Bose sound”, a balance of frequencies that favors the upper-midrange and highs, with a bright, sparkly feel. You notice it most with female vocalists and cymbal hits.

On Bose’s headphones, I like this tuning, but listening out loud in my TV room — a space that is far from acoustically perfect — I prefer to dial that brightness back a bit. Thankfully the Bose app makes this easy.

Soundbars are rarely fabulous speakers for stereo sound. The maximum separation for their left/right channels is defined by the width or the soundbar itself, which will be too narrow for most rooms.

However, with the careful application of digital processing, a soundbar can cheat its way to bigger, wider sound, using the same software tools that let it work with native spatial formats like Dolby Atmos. The Lifestyle Ultra does a decent job of this, but it can best be described as conservative.

Playback of Dolby Atmos Music is really enjoyable, but Bose makes you work for it. There’s currently no way to stream Atmos Music to the Lifestyle Ultra via AirPlay 2 or Google Cast. Tidal, which has a very good Atmos library, won’t stream Atmos to the Ultra over Tidal Connect. This isn’t a Tidal limitation — you can stream Atmos over Tidal Connect to other devices like the Denon Home 600.

This means you’ll need a Dolby Atmos TV with Atmos-compatible streaming apps, or a third-party streaming device. I used an Apple TV 4K connected to an LG C7 OLED, with Apple Music, Tidal, and Amazon Music.

If there’s one thing I’d add to the Lifestyle Ultra, it’s a source-based memory for EQ settings. I found that movies really benefitted from a maxed-out bass level, and yet this proved too boomy for music listening. Even the addition of user-defined presets would be a plus. Right now, however, you may find you need to keep your smartphone handy. I frequently hit the Bose app to make adjustments, which somewhat defeats the app-less anti-Sonos benefit to Bose’s approach.

Is it really a Sonos alternative?

At $1,099, the Bose Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar and Sonos Arc Ultra, cost the same. Both support Dolby Atmos and AirPlay 2. Both offer a simple set up procedure and easy, app-based adjustments for sound and room correction. Both work as Amazon Alexa smart speakers if you choose to enable it.

The Lifestyle Ultra’s inclusion of Google Cast gives it an edge for folks who want to do all of their music management from a third-party streaming app, especially those who have Android phones (the only way Android users can get hi-res or lossless audio on a Sonos Arc Ultra is to use the Sonos app).

And, I have to give Bose props for its design — the Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar looks pretty great.

However, when it comes to sound quality, the Arc Ultra is still better overall. Its internal subwoofer is nothing short of astonishing, creating a deeper, more visceral experience for movies. I find it so effective, I’ve taken to keeping my Sonos Sub switched off for much of our TV watching.

This also helps with music, lending both stereo and Atmos content an anchoring resonance the Lifestyle Ultra can’t quite match.

Bose gets the nod for dialogue clarity on the strength of its SpeechClarity setting. The Arc Ultra is very good for dialogue — no complaints at all — however, the Lifestyle Ultra can achieve a higher level of separation between voices and background, which some buyers will really appreciate.

In terms of flexibility, even if you decide to never use the Sonos app, the Arc Ultra is a better choice for those who want to expand over time. The Arc Ultra can be used with any matched set of Sonos’ non-portable speakers as surrounds, and you get a choice of two different subwoofers depending on your room size.

You can also share TV sound from Arc Ultra to any other Sonos speaker in your home, plus it’s compatible with Sonos’ Ace headphones.

Currently, only the Bose Lifestyle Ultra Speakers work as surrounds for the Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar, and your two sub choices (the Lifestyle Ultra Subwoofer and Bose Bass Module 700) are effectively identical, save for the fact that the Module 700 requires a wired connection to the Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar.

Sound from the Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar can’t be shared across your other wireless Bose products, and perhaps most surprising, given Bose’s history of supporting private listening via headphones, you can’t connect any Bluetooth headphones, and the Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar doesn’t currently work with Bose’s clever Personal Surround Sound feature.

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Apple is notorious for launching new technologies long after its competitors, and famous for turning those late-to-the-party efforts into smash successes. MP3 players. Smartphones. Wireless earbuds. Tablets, and smartwatches. Apple wasn’t first to make any of them, and yet today, Apple’s versions are so dominant, their product names have come to represent their respective categories.

The key to Apple’s slow-and-steady-wins-the-race approach is that it waits patiently on the sidelines until it can introduce a product that’s integrated with Apple’s entire ecosystem, thereby increasing value and often, simplicity.

Knowing that, I too have been patiently waiting on the sidelines — for Apple to introduce its first set of truly open-ear AirPods. When Tim Cook kicked off his WWDC 2026 keynote by introducing the next version of Siri, I thought for sure he’d use the opportunity to launch them. It didn’t happen, and I’m beginning to wonder if it ever will.

Why open-ear earbuds are the natural choice for ambient computing

The keynote debuted Siri’s long-awaited upgrade: Siri AI. It’s the personal component of Apple Intelligence; a much more powerful and conversational version of Apple’s 16-year-old voice assistant. Throughout the keynote, Apple execs interacted with Siri by speaking out loud, and then getting a mix of text and spoken responses from their iPhones.

That’s perfect for a demo, but realistically, no one is going to want Siri to respond through their phone’s speaker, especially when in public. Open-ear wireless earbuds are the obvious solution. They can be worn all day with almost no discomfort and they don’t rely on a battery-intensive transparency mode to let you hear your surroundings.

There’s been some debate about this. Some observers worry that open-ears leak too much sound, which could pose privacy concerns. Others say the mics can’t sufficiently differentiate between your voice and background noise.

My personal experience with the most recent generation of these devices (e.g. Shokz’s OpenFit 2/OpenDots 2, and Baseus Inspire XC1) suggests neither are serious challenges that can’t be overcome (especially when you’ve got Apple’s level of R&D budget).

And yet, Cook and company were silent on the AirPods front, save for a split-second mention of new EQ controls coming in iOS 27 this fall.

The cameras are coming

Instead of going open-ear, Apple appears to be doubling down on the existing AirPods Pro 3 design.

The next generation of AirPods Pro, which are set to be released in 2027, according to Bloomberg’s Apple expert, Mark Gurman, will be equipped with tiny cameras. Those cameras are expected to help with “Visual Intelligence” — one of the other core features of Apple’s AI platform.

It makes sense: the more Siri can understand about your environment, the better it will be able to answer your questions and provide help.

Gurman says the cameras will live in the AirPods’ stems, which will likely need to be elongated to accommodate them. If that’s the case, it’s potentially another nail in the open-ear coffin. Neither of the current dominant open-ear shapes (over-the-ear hook, and around-the-side clip) possess stem-like projections and it’s not clear if they could be easily added.

The comfort conundrum

Hard data on the comfort and fit of any wireless earbuds is hard to come by. However, thanks to the popularity of Apple’s AirPods Pro, discussion forums like Reddit and Apple’s own support site can provide a non-scientific snapshot.

Though most buyers find the AirPods Pro comfy, a significant minority of users experience discomfort. It’s not hard to find anecdotal statements like “they press too hard against the inside of the ear canal,” or “they seem just to not fit my ear, the problem doesn’t look to be in the tip, but in the shape of the earphone itself.”

To be clear, this is not an AirPods Pro-specific issue. Any earbuds that use silicone tips to create a seal against the ear canal will be less comfortable over time. Pressure, itchiness, and just the sheer amount of contact between your skin and the plastic housing creates fatigue and discomfort.

For many Apple fans, the more comfortable alternative has been the company’s non-pro AirPods lineup, now in its fourth generation. They don’t use silicone eartips, which gives them a gentler feel.

When “open-ear” isn’t truly open

Part of the reason Apple hasn’t introduced a set of open-ear earbuds is that, according to its own marketing language, it already has. Apple refers to the non-pro AirPods as an “open-ear design,” a description I strongly disagree with.

All regular AirPods, from the original in 2016 to the current AirPods 4 and AirPods 4 with ANC, partially block your ear canal. They don’t seal it like the AirPods Pro, but neither do they let outside sound pass through your ear unrestricted, and you can hear the difference that makes. When you’re wearing a true set of open-ear earbuds, it’s nearly impossible to tell based on how the outside world sounds. Your voice and those of others remain totally clear, as does your ability to determine the direction and proximity of other sounds.

Apple’s big opportunity: the best of both worlds

I firmly believe that open-ear earbuds are going to be a better solution for the always-on AI future that Apple’s new technologies will herald, but I also acknowledge open-ear’s traditional weakness: No ANC.

The reality is, as much as we want to maintain situational (and conversational) awareness throughout the day, there are also plenty of times when we want to shut the world out. Without a way to seal the ear canal, open-ears have made little progress on noise cancellation.

However, Apple has shown that more can likely be done. The AirPods 4 with ANC are the proof. They don’t seal the ear canal, yet their noise canceling mode is surprisingly effective. Can Apple accomplish a similar feat with a truly open design? I don’t know, but if anyone can, it will be Apple.

Former Wall Street Journal personal tech columnist, Joanna Stern, recently spent a week with the revamped Siri AI. There were still plenty of road bumps, but overall, she came away impressed, noting that, “For the first time it feels like Apple has the AI foundation it needs for its future.”

What it doesn’t have are the right earbuds for that future. Let’s hope Apple is open to a new type of AirPods.

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Canadian icon, PSB Speakers has two new wireless, powered stereo speaker models to lure would-be Sonos and Bose buyers. The iQ1 ($999 USD/$1,299 CAD) and iQ2 ($1,399 USD/$1,699 CAD) are direct descendants of the company’s Alpha iQ speakers. Just like that model, the IQ1 and IQ2 have a huge variety of analog and digital ports for direct connections to turntables, TVs, and computers, plus a full compliment of wireless options. They’re BluOS-powered, so they can be managed on their own or as part of a wireless multiroom system.

The iQ1 and iQ2 are very similar. Each sports a 4-inch polypropylene mid-bass driver with a steel basket and rubber surround, and a 0.75-inch aluminum dome tweeter with a neodymium magnet and ferrofluid damping.

Lots of ports

Around the back, you’ll find:

• HDMI eARC

• RCA (with a built-in MM phono preamp and ground connection) or line-in

• Optical

• USB-C

• USB-A

• Ethernet

• Subwoofer output

They both offer 270 watts of power, but they handle that power slightly differently. The iQ1 requires a wired connection between the left and right speakers. The primary speaker houses the power connection and contains two 90-watt woofer amps and a dual-channel 45-watt amp for the tweeters.

The iQ2, on the other hand, has a wireless link between left and right sides, so each has its own power supply and each speaker gets discrete woofer/tweeter amps, though the wattage in each is the same as the iQ1.

Wireless connections

With Apple AirPlay 2, Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect, and Qobuz Connect, wireless connections are bountiful, though the one obvious omission is Google Cast.

This means that if you want lossless, hi-res audio from Amazon Music, you’ll need to use the BluOS app. And if you want lossless fidelity from Apple Music, you’ll need a slightly awkward workaround that involves using a Mac computer with a specific AirPlay tweak.

The iQ speakers don’t ship with their own remote, but they have IR sensors for use with third-party remotes. You can also use the touch controls on top of the primary speaker, the BluOS app, or your TV’s remote when connected via HDMI eARC.

Conceptually, PSB’s iQ models are similar to KEF’s LSX II wireless speakers, which also come in both wired (LSX II LT) and wirelessly connected (LSX II) versions. Those models have the missing Google Cast option, but they don’t have as many analog/digital inputs and they don’t have the support of a multiroom ecosystem like BluOS. Instead, KEF owners must rely on either Apple Home or Google Home to manage more than one set of speakers.

Pricing & availability

The iQ2 ($1,399 USD/$1,699 CAD) will be available in Black, White, Ember Red, Boreal Green, Granite Grey, and Sandstone Beige, starting June 23, 2026. The premium Walnut finish will be available in November 2026 for a premium price: $1,499 USD/$1,849 CAD.

The iQ1 ($999 USD/$1,299 CAD) will be available in Black and White for $1,299 CAN and $999 USA starting August 10, 2026.

“You’ve got excellent hearing for your age,” my audiologist assures me at my annual hearing evaluation. That’s good news, though it leaves me with a nagging question: if my hearing is so good, why do I struggle to hear conversations in noisy environments?

The inconvenient answer falls into a broad clinical category called speech-in-noise processing. It describes me to a T: normal results on pure-tone hearing tests, but disproportionate difficulty in restaurants, bars, and group conversations.

Nuance Audio Hearing Glasses
Product Score: 3.5/5

Pros:

• Hidden hearing aid tech

• Easy to set up and use

• Improves your ability to zero in on voices in noisy settings

Cons:

• Tap gestures can be hit or miss

• Can’t be adjusted to your face by an optician

The equally inconvenient solution has traditionally been hearing aids. Over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids — aimed at people with mild-to-moderate loss — can help, but they come with drawbacks: I don’t love the idea of remembering to bring them, or wearing them. It’s funny how differently we treat hearing and seeing. I’ll suffer through a meal without perfect hearing, but my reading glasses always come with me. Reading a menu is non-negotiable.

An invisible fix for a common problem

I must be part of a bigger cohort than I realized, because Nuance Audio’s Hearing Glasses appear to be exactly what I need. They look like the thick-rimmed frames you’d buy from Tom Ford, but they hide an array of microphones and tiny speakers in the limbs, positioned just in front of your ears. In theory, they provide the same hearing enhancement as a traditional set of OTC hearing aids. The FDA recognizes them as an OTC device, and they’re eligible for coverage under many insurance plans. Nuance says they’re perfect for workplace meetings, family gatherings, and, as you’ve probably guessed, restaurants and crowded places.

They come in two styles, three colors, and can be ordered with regular ($699) or prescription lenses ($1,200 and up).

The build quality is good and they’re light. The hinges are sturdy and spring-loaded, flexing outward to accommodate larger heads. They feel a little plasticky, and the piano gloss finish is a fingerprint magnet, but they don’t look cheap — no one I met knew they weren’t regular glasses. I enjoyed the looks on people’s faces when I told them.

Unfortunately, the limbs house electronics, so your optician can’t apply heat to mold them to your head. Mine slid down my nose throughout the day.

The frames use Bluetooth to connect to your phone, but only for calibration and personalization through the Nuance Audio app — a process that takes under five minutes. You can’t stream music, take calls, or make recordings. All sound processing happens onboard in real time, so your phone is entirely optional.

Nuance claims 8 hours of continuous use, though I got closer to 7. In the box: a carry case, lens cloth, and a wireless charging pad. The pad is sleek and USB-C powered — place the glasses upside down and magnets do the rest — but it’s one more thing to pack when traveling. Charging is slow: 5-7 hours from empty. One important warning: don’t run them under water or hit them directly with glasses cleaner. The electronics have no protection from liquids. With only a one-year warranty from Nuance, you’ll want to treat them with care.

You power them on with a long press of the tiny button hidden under the right limb. Once on, that same button cycles volume between low, medium, and high. To power down, long-press again — or just fold the limbs. A double-tap on the right limb switches between two modes: Frontal and All Around.

Frontal mode is an audio spotlight: whatever you’re looking at, that’s what it tries to isolate and enhance. All Around takes a broader 360-degree sample, still targeted at voices. The lines blur in practice — Frontal will pick up surrounding voices, and All Around can lock onto an individual — so it’s up to you to figure out which works best where.

Switching modes can be hit or miss. The accelerometer is tuned to avoid accidental triggers, which means you need to tap the frames with real intent, or nothing happens.

At a recent birthday dinner in a noisy seafood restaurant, I sat at a large square table — eight of us, two per side (you need room for the oyster platter). The furthest person was 5-6 feet away. Normally I’d have missed half of what they said, but the glasses pulled their voice in clearly enough that I caught nearly every word.

I wouldn’t call it “natural.” Between the mics, the processing, and speakers too small to handle low frequencies, the sound is harsher and sharper than I’d like. Sibilance — that exaggerated ess-sound when people get too close to a mic — and a bit of echo are noticeable at times. It definitely takes some getting used to, but that’s true of all hearing enhancement products.

In restaurants, Frontal was usually the right call, especially across from a single companion. Groups were a toss-up — some voices are so hard to ignore, I wanted to turn them down, not up. What you can’t do, without opening the app, is control how much background noise gets amplified.

Some scenarios are more than the system can handle. In one especially loud restaurant, at a table of four, Frontal worked fine for the two people across from me — but to hear the person beside me, I had to twist a full 90 degrees toward him. All Around mode didn’t help; it just amplified the surrounding noise.

I’ve tried a few inexpensive OTC hearing aid products, including the Audien Atom X ($389), HP Hearing Pro ($499.99), and the hearing aid function in the Apple AirPods Pro 3 ($249.95). None of them worked as well or offered as much convenience as the Nuance Audio glasses. But their biggest drawback is that they’re earbuds, with all of the tradeoffs that earbuds require: they’re highly conspicuous, you need to remember to bring them with you, and they aren’t always the most comfortable devices to wear.

And here’s something that’s not so obvious about earbuds: pronounced jaw movements (like the kind we make while eating) have a tendency to dislodge them.

The Nuance Audio glasses aren’t a perfect solution, and at $699 to start, they’re not a casual buy. But for people who hear fine on paper and still struggle when the room gets loud, they offer an effective yet invisible helping hand.

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Searching for a portable Bluetooth speaker will turn up hundreds of options in every shape, size, and color. And I’ve been reviewing them for the better part of a decade — dozens have crossed my desk by now. Some, as you’d rightly suspect, are garbage, but there are also plenty of great products with prices starting from as little as $50.

If you don’t have to spend a fortune for decent sound, why would anyone spend $299 on Sonos’ new Play? It’s the Maglite Flashlight of Bluetooth speakers: powerful, versatile, and built to keep on ticking long after its peers are in the landfill.

Sonos Play (2026)
Product Score: 4/5

Pros:

• Great sound for its size

• Tons of connection choices

• It’s got a big, user-replaceable battery

Cons:

• Not as rugged as other portables

• Needs a powerful charger (not included)

• Pricey, if all you need is sound to go

Check price on Amazon

At home, on-the-go, or anything in between

Sonos is the company that put wireless audio on the map. Since 2005, it has been growing an ecosystem of top-notch speakers, soundbars, and subwoofers that all work together seamlessly and can be controlled from anywhere using the Sonos app on your smartphone.

The Play is Sonos’ third portable, and it sits right in the middle of its lineup. It’s half the weight of the Move 2, a powerful speaker that’s luggable from kitchen to patio, and not much farther. Despite its smaller size, it can run for 24 hours, same as its big brother.

Meanwhile, it boasts much better sound than the ultra-portable Roam 2, a less powerful unit that handily fits in a backpack. Like both its siblings, (and all the best portables on the market) the Play is waterproof, dustproof, and rugged enough to withstand the occasional bump or drop.

These features make it a very capable Bluetooth portable speaker, but they don’t let the Play stand out. The Play is all about the extras.

Wi-Fi connectivity means that when you’re at home, you can stream straight to the Play from apps like Spotify, Tidal, Pandora, and Amazon Music — and the audio won’t stutter or drop the moment you wander too far from your phone. It acts as an Apple AirPlay speaker, and gives you hands-free access to Amazon Alexa. Anyone on your Wi-Fi with the Sonos app can take control — no need to find the phone that started the playlist — and texts, phone calls, and other system sounds won’t interrupt your tunes. Music even sounds better on Wi-Fi, because it has more bandwidth than Bluetooth, and if you own two Plays, they can play together as a stereo pair.

Over Bluetooth, you can link as many as four Play or Move 2 speakers to play in lockstep — so a hang that starts with two friends can scale into a backyard blowout without you ever scrambling for more sound. A USB-C cradle tops it up at home, and for $19 Sonos sells a line-in adapter that wires the Play to a turntable — or any other analog source — an increasingly hard-to-find feature on portable Bluetooth speakers.

You may have heard Sonos customers bemoaning the launch of a major Sonos app update, which was so disastrous the CEO resigned. They weren’t exaggerating: the botched 2024 update rendered many systems unusable. Thankfully, things are now (mostly) back to normal and the Sonos app is still a Swiss Army knife for sound, giving you access to just about every streaming service on the planet in one place. Its universal search and playlist feature makes finding, playing, and favoriting tunes, artists, and albums a breeze. Plus the Play seamlessly integrates with any other Sonos products you own.

Sonos Play: Its best features

Every time I fire up a new Sonos speaker for the first time, I have a moment where I do a double-take. Whether I cued up delicate acoustic recordings, bass-heavy hip-hop, or vintage rock, the Play’s performance outstrips its size. To paraphrase John Mayer, it’s bigger than its body gives it credit for.

Like every Sonos speaker to come before it, it offers truly satisfying sound out of the box. But I’d encourage you to try the equalizer setting in the Sonos app, which can boost or lower both bass and treble if either aren’t quite to your liking.

The app also unlocks a trick I haven’t seen anyone else pull off: Auto Trueplay Tuning. A speaker’s position in a room — and the room’s acoustics — heavily affect what you hear. This is true for all speakers, but especially for smaller units that get moved around a lot. Auto Trueplay uses the Play’s built-in microphone to measure its environment and automatically adjust its tuning to compensate, every time you move it. The improvement isn’t night and day, but it’s audible (particularly if you move it from an open space to a small enclosure like a bookshelf) and you don’t need to do a thing.

Technically speaking, the Play is a stereo speaker, meaning it has two channels, but you’re not going to hear true left and right stereo separation. Instead, think of it as a mono speaker with a wide soundstage. A pair of Plays, however, gives you nearly unlimited options for creating a perfect stereo sweetspot.

While portable Bluetooth speakers often look like toys, the Play is a study in understated elegance, whether you get it in black or white. With its handy, detachable silicone carry loop rotated downward and out of sight, I guarantee no one will guess it’s actually dustproof, waterproof, and impact resistant. The Play is made from recycled plastics, and if you manage to wear down the battery you can replace it yourself -- another rarity in the Bluetooth speaker world.

Sonos Play: Areas for improvement

Given the Play’s killer combo of looks, sound, and practicality, there isn’t much shade to be thrown in its direction. Still, there are a few limitations you should know about.

Powering on the speaker isn’t instant like other portables. The Play seems to need anywhere from three to 10 seconds to “boot up,” depending on how long it’s been since it was last turned on. If you’re using it with Bluetooth (as opposed to Wi-Fi), you’ll need to switch modes each time using the button on the back.

It’s rugged — for a Sonos speaker — but for truly rough duty its wrap-around plastic grille may not survive as well as models built to take a beating.

While the Play includes a charging cradle, you’ll need your own USB-C charger to plug it into. Sonos reckons most folks already own one, so it opted to reduce e-waste. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t faze me, but the Play is fussy about what it’ll draw from: it wants an 18-watt USB-C source at a minimum, and 45 watts if you want fast charging. That bargain 10-watt cube you own won’t cut it and neither, annoyingly, will most laptop USB-C ports. Pack a proper charger if you’re heading out of town. Sonos’ promise of a 24-hour battery life is achievable, but only at 50% volume using Bluetooth. Wi-Fi will reduce this considerably, as will louder playback.

When away from home, it would be awesome to stereo pair a set of Plays (some competitors like the Beats Pill, JBL Charge 6, and Bose SoundLink Flex allow this), but Sonos only supports grouped play via Bluetooth.

For owners of Sonos soundbars like the Beam Gen 2, the Play would make an ideal surround speaker, but Sonos doesn’t let portable speakers fill that role, nor can you add a Sonos subwoofer for 2.1 sound. While it’s great that Sonos lets you connect analog sources to the USB-C port (via the optional adapter), the fact that you can’t connect it to lossless USB Audio sources, like a laptop, is a missed opportunity.

Finally, the powerful Sonos app you’ll come to love at home doesn’t work with the Play when you’re using a Bluetooth connection. You’ll have to rely on your own third-party music apps, just as you would when using wireless headphones.

Sonos Play: Should you buy it?

Sonos doesn’t have a monopoly on great sounding, rugged and portable Bluetooth speakers. If that’s your only requirement, you can find slightly cheaper products in the $180 to $250 range, like the JBL Charge 6, Sony ULT Field 3, or UE Everboom.

However, if you want a portable speaker that might truly be the last you’ll ever need to buy, the Play is unmatched. It works with everything from turntables to Alexa, brings its own best-in-class app, and sounds as good as anything in this size class.

As long as you don’t run over it with your car or drop it off the side of a boat, its rugged design means the internal battery will probably die before you break it – and when it does, you can replace it yourself for a new lease on life.

Check price on Amazon

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Last week, I covered the vintage iPod trend, with a reminder that these devices require you to do something you may not be familiar with (or may have forgotten about): acquiring your own music files. That’s step 1. Step 2 is transferring those tunes to your iPod. And Step 3? That’s about getting the most out of your library once you own it outright — your files, your rules, no subscription that can reprice or revoke them. It’s an idea I keep coming back to; call it music sovereignty. The best tool for that third step is Plex.

Most people who already know about Plex use it to organize and stream their TV shows, movies, and family videos. It can also manage your music, which kinda makes Plex an iTunes on steroids. One of Plex’s most powerful features is a paid upgrade called Plex Pass. It covers a lot of extras; the one that gets most of the attention is remote access.

Remote access lets you, or your friends and family browse and stream your library of content from anywhere. There’s been a lot of hand-wringing in the tech press over the cost of a lifetime Plex Pass membership. On July 1, it will increase to $750, three times more than the $250 it costs today (monthly and annual subscriptions aren’t changing). That’s a whopper of a price bump.

And if you mostly use Plex for music, you can ignore it: Remote access for music doesn’t need Plex Pass. It’s completely free.

Let me stop here for a moment for those who may be new to Plex. If you’re a Plex prodigy, feel free to skip to the “No Plex Pass, no problem — for music, that is” section.

What is Plex?

There are two parts to a Plex setup: the Plex Media Server and Plex clients. Once you’ve installed the free Plex Media Server (PMS) on a Mac, PC, or a variety of compatible network devices like network-attached storage (NAS) hard drives, it can automatically scan and organize all of your videos, photos, and music files. If it helps, you can think of it like Apple’s iTunes, but on steroids.

When you want to watch or listen to those files, you use a Plex client — another free app — which gets installed on your Mac, PC, smartphone, media streamer, smart TV … the list is huge. If you have a network-connected screen or speaker, there’s probably a version of the Plex client it can run.

If your Plex server and client are on the same network, say, in your home, the free features are probably all you need.

What is Plex Pass?

Plex Pass is a collection of upgraded features for your Plex setup that requires a one-time or recurring fee. It includes things like being able to skip the opening and closing credits on movies and shows, the ability to use your Plex server as a digital video recorder (DVR) with your free, over-the-air (OTA) TV tuner, and it turns on something called hardware transcoding — geek speak for turbo-charging your setup to ensure your movies and shows play back at the highest possible quality your gear can deliver.

And then there’s the remote access aspect I mentioned above. Your iTunes on steroids is now your own private Netflix.

No Plex Pass, no problem — for music, that is

Even Plex mavens may not realize that Plex servers treat music and photos differently from videos. To access videos remotely, a valid Plex Pass is required by at least one party (the server owner, or the person running the client). But you can share your photos and music collections without paying a dime — no Plex Pass required.

For music, you can use the general Plex client or the Plex web app, but the power move is to download the free Plexamp app for either Android or iOS. Because Plexamp can only access music (you won’t even see your photos or video libraries), it’s a way better experience for browsing and listening. You aren’t even limited to listening on your phone. On Android, Plexamp works with Google Cast and Android Auto. iOS users get Google Cast too, plus Apple AirPlay and CarPlay.

Power users and nomads may still want to pay

Plex’s free music features give you lots to work with. Gapless playback, loudness leveling, smart playlists and stations, and Siri compatibility are all included. Still, for some users, it may make sense to upgrade.

Plex Pass adds advanced features like artist and album mix builders, sonically similar artists/tracks/albums, related tracks, lyrics, a ten-band equalizer, and, perhaps the biggest draw for those who regularly find themselves beyond the reach of cell networks: downloads for offline playback. Here’s Plex’s full comparison of free vs. paid Plexamp features.

If Plex Pass sounds like what you need, but you don’t want to add another subscription to your wallet (after all, music on Plex should be about freeing yourself from forever payments), the imminent lifetime price increase means the time to decide is right now. $250 may be hard to rationalize, but $750 is much harder. Monthly or annual payments that go on forever and can increase in price at any time? No thanks.

A platform for people who hate platforms

Jumping on the vintage iPod trend is a great way to mindfully leave subscription streaming services and re-assert control over your music. But true music sovereignty means being able to enjoy your music on your terms on any device, not just a retro portable. That’s where Plex shines.

It keeps, organizes, and streams the music you own, from anywhere. It also integrates with products you might already own, like Sonos, Wiim, and Amazon Alexa (via the Plex Skill). And if you already own a machine that can run the Plex server, there’s no additional cost. That sounds like a lifetime commitment most people can live with.

Do you use Plex to manage your music? If so, what do you love/hate about it? Let me know in the comments.

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I love the whole open-ear earbuds category. They’re almost universally more comfortable than their closed, in-ear cousins, they let you hear your surroundings, and they’re perfect for calls. I was a big fan of the first-gen products that used an earhook shape, but since the introduction of the clip style, which wraps around the edge of your ears, I’ve become a convert. Especially for folks who wear glasses, this is the way.

Shokz OpenDots 2

Product Score: 4/5

Pros:

• Very comfy clip-style design

• Great sound quality

• Much improved control customization over first-gen OpenDots One

Cons:

• Still pricey

• No Auracast support

• Call quality not as good as Shokz’s earhook models e.g. OpenFit 2

Check price on Amazon

It was Shokz’s first clip style earbuds, the OpenDots One (introduced in 2025) that made me see the light. They appeared to offer almost every benefit of the earhook style, with improved audio quality, and, if possible, even more forget-that-you’re-wearing-them comfort, which earned them a solid 4/5 in my review.

What's new in the OpenDots 2

The new OpenDots 2, which keep the OpenDots One price of $199.95, continue all of the things I liked about the first-gen: impressive sound quality, wireless charging, two simultaneous connections to devices (Bluetooth Multipoint), strong battery life, wear sensors for auto-music-pause, and my favorite — swappable left/right earbuds (there is no official left or right earbud; just put ‘em on your ears and that’s it).

They’ve also added a feature I didn’t even know I wanted: Drop Alert. If either bud detects that it has fallen, its companion emits an unmistakable warning tone. I think I would probably know immediately if I’d dislodged a bud, but given how easy it is to forget you’re wearing them, it’s a really smart add-on. I did a bunch of sample drops to try it out and the companion bud alerted me every time.

What Shokz didn't fix

The OpenDots 2 don’t, however, fully address my critiques of the first-gen: the price, the controls, no Auracast support, and call quality that isn’t quite as good as the company’s similarly priced OpenFit 2.

Only the controls have been improved. Which is not to say this is the only thing Shokz changed. The second-gen get better dust and water protection (now IP57 vs IP54), and the case now gets its own IP54 rating, whereas the first-gen lacked any official protection for the case.

Fast charging is a teensy bit faster (you can now get an extra two hours after just five minutes of charging instead of 10 minutes). Bluetooth has been upped to 6.1 from 5.4, and Shokz has added both Google Fast Pair and Microsoft Swift Pair. All of these changes are nice-to-haves, but hardly must-haves.

Call quality: still a quiet-room tool

The unimproved call quality is the biggest surprise to me given that Shokz claims it gave the OpenDots 2 three “AI Noise-Canceling Microphones” (two regular mics plus one bone conduction unit), as opposed to the OpenDots One’s two regular AI noise-canceling mics. I couldn’t hear any improvement when I tested them against one another. I’ve embedded recordings from both below so you can decide for yourself.

They remain great for calls in quiet locations, but you’re not going to be fooling anyone if you claim to be sitting in your home office while walking along busy streets. Your callers will know.

Shokz OpenDots 2 (loud environment)

Shokz OpenDots 2 (quiet environment)

Shokz OpenDots Air (loud environment)

Shokz OpenDots Air (quiet environment)

Shokz OpenDots One (loud environment)

Shokz OpenDots One (quiet environment)

How they actually sound

Shokz claims the OpenDots 2 have better bass response and volume, plus significantly less distortion, with an enhanced Dolby Audio mode. But again, much like with call quality, I can’t really hear a difference.

That’s not a knock by any means. I think the OpenDots One/2 are among the best open-ears you can buy for audio quality so there’s an argument to be made that they didn’t need to improve it. They manage to overcome the one big problem with most open-ears: weak bass. And if you pump up the volume, you’ll be able to hear your music even in loud environments. I don’t recommend doing so for prolonged periods (it could lead to noise-induced hearing loss) but it’s nice knowing it’s an option. The optional Dolby Audio mode creates an artificially wider soundstage, which increases the sense of being surrounded, but does so at the expense of precision and detail. Definitely worth trying, but I don’t think it’s a reason to buy either of these models.

Voice-only content like podcasts or phone calls, will still get obliterated by heavy traffic or machinery sounds, however that’s true of all open-ear products, even Shokz’s top-of-the-line OpenFit Pro, which has a built-in active noise reduction feature.

The controls, finally improved

I’m thrilled that Shokz took my comments on the OpenDots One’s controls to heart. The OpenDots 2 are now far more configurable. There are five available gestures on each earbud, for a total of ten: single and double pinches on the barrel of the battery compartment, a pinch-and-hold, plus double and triple taps on the flexible connector. Except for pinch-and-hold, which is restricted to volume changes, each can be set to do any of the supported commands, like playback, volume, track skipping, call answering, and voice assistant access. Contrast that to the OpenDots One, where you only get three: double-tap, double-pinch, and a long pinch, and only the long pinch can be customized. And that’s three total, not per earbud. To be fair, Shokz has since added a fourth gesture via a firmware update — a triple tap — but it can only be used for track skipping.

As with the OpenDots One, I’ve found that the pinch gestures work way better than the taps. The taps require a fair amount of force, even with their sensitivity setting set to maximum in the Shokz app.

So the OpenDots 2 end up with the same rating and recommendation as their predecessor. They’re really good, but still pricey when you consider that neither audio nor call quality has been substantially improved.

Check price on Amazon

The cheaper alternative: OpenDots Air

The new Shokz OpenDots Air, on the other hand, deserve serious consideration if you like the OpenDots formula, but don’t want such a spendy price tag: they’re just $129.95.

The Air capture the key ingredients: super comfy, clip-style shape, great sound, solid battery life, Multipoint connections, swappable left/right earbuds, wear sensors, and multiple, customizable control gestures.

So what’s missing? No wireless charging (just USB-C), one less hour per charge (9 vs. 10), slightly slower fast charging (10 minutes for two extra hours vs. 5 minutes), less water and dust resistance on the buds (IP55 vs. IP57) and no protection for the case, and you get the same mic system as the OpenDots One, which I don’t think makes that much difference (check the samples above). Oh, also, no Dolby Audio.

This leaves buyers with three Shokz options:

• The flagship OpenDots 2, offering small but helpful improvements over the OpenDots One

• The OpenDots One themselves, but this one only makes sense once Shokz starts to discount them (hasn’t happened yet, but will soon, according to Shokz)

• The OpenDots Air, a much more affordable pick that preserves the essential clip-style experience while foregoing features that most people won’t miss

Are you an open-ear earbuds fan? Leave a comment below with which ones you’re using and what you think of the new Shokz models.

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First it was the vinyl resurgence. Then CDs. Lately, cassettes appear to be on the rebound (along with portables and boomboxes that play them). But I just learned of the latest nostalgia-inspired trend: buying vintage iPods, and I think it deserves a look.

There’s always been a strong argument for owning a dedicated Digital Audio Player, or DAP as the whole category is now referred to. Better audio quality, a separate battery that won’t drain your phone, and a built-in headphone jack (sometimes two of them) to replace the one that’s no longer on your phone. The retro iPod trend isn’t about any of this.

It’s part of a larger hunger for a different time. One in which our devices weren’t constantly pinging us with notifications, there were no algorithms deciding what we saw or listened to, and we actually owned the music we listened to. It was a time when we had to actively think about the music we wanted, because there were no on-demand music services and no magic play button that could spoon-feed us content 24/7, endlessly.

If these ideas are resonating with you right now — even if you’re too young to have lived through the golden era of the MP3 player — you may be on the prowl for a vintage Apple iPod.

I don’t want to talk you out of it, because vintage tech can be a blast (my son’s 2002 iMac G4 is like a walk down memory lane). But it does come with potential pitfalls, not to mention a workflow for getting music you may not be prepared for.

Vintage iPods: buyer beware

A non-exhaustive list of things you need to know:

Battery: Depending on the model you’re considering, the internal rechargeable battery could be up to 25 years old. Even if it still holds a charge, it won’t last anywhere close to its original spec.

It can be a real crap shoot: My wife’s 3rd gen Nano, which I bought for her in 2007, still takes a charge. My much more recent 3rd and 4th gen Shuffles won’t charge at all. Replacement is definitely an option, but with a major caveat: All Shuffle, Nano, and Touch iPods use batteries that are soldered into place. Even if you can crack open the case without causing damage, replacing these batteries requires skill and special tools.

Hard-drive: iPod Minis and Classics use tiny, spinning disks for storage, not the solid-state disk (SSD) flash memory used by other models. This gives them way more space for music, but, like any motorized part, it will eventually fail. When they do, most enthusiasts replace them with SSDs, but again, it’s not an easy swap if you aren’t technically inclined. How to know if a used iPod is close to failing.

Headphone jack: This is simultaneously the most likely part to fail (I’ve never owned a portable player that didn’t eventually end up with a janky jack) and the hardest part to verify. A seller can prove an iPod holds a charge, powers on, and lets you navigate using the buttons/wheel. It’s much harder to prove the headphone jack is reliable.

Plus, a few annoying but not deal-breaking realities:

Syncing on Windows: Windows 11 users may find that iTunes won’t let them sync their songs to their iPod.

You need to own your music: You need physical song files on your computer before you can transfer them to your portable and you can’t use the offline files provided by your streaming service. I have some suggestions on this below.

Old tech, old cables: pre-2012 iPods use the 30-pin dock connector. Post-2012 use Lightning. If the iPod you’re buying doesn’t come with one, it’s not a big deal (Amazon sells USB-C versions of both), but without one, your vintage iPod is just a fancy paperweight.

Oh, and a note on the gleaming little silver stick that is the 3rd gen iPod Shuffle: avoid it

Unless the seller includes the original Apple wired earbuds, this thing is a dead end. There are no physical controls for playback or volume (just three-way power switch that also controls playback modes). The only way to operate it is via the inline controls on the earbuds. Even worse, Apple created a special authentication chip just for those earbuds, so even other Apple wired earbuds with a similar looking inline control won’t work.

In theory, the 3rd gen Shuffle will start playing as soon as you plug in any standard wired buds or headphones, but there’s still no way to play/pause/skip tracks or control volume.

If the screenless simplicity of a Shuffle is what you’re after, go for the 4th gen Shuffle (2010–2015). It still needs a proprietary charger and it’s a bit bigger, but it has the same handy built-in clip and actual physical buttons that let it work with any headphones. Again, beware the battery problem.

The 5th gen iPod is the sweet spot

Also known as the Video iPod, It sports all of the features that made the iPod so popular in the first place, with a case and components that are among the easiest to replace when (not if) they die. It also uses a Wolfson digital-to-analog converter (DAC), which produces a warmer, smoother sound than non-Wolfson models, according to some iPod aficionados (take that highly subjective opinion with a grain of salt). Unfortunately, none of this is a secret and these iPods regularly fetch more than $400 on used marketplaces.

You’re going to need some music

If you’re still keen to explore vintage iPod land, don’t forget the one thing that makes an iPod different from a streaming service: you need to own all of the music you want to play (and then organize and transfer it to the iPod). For some folks, this part is actually the crux of why they want to go back to a dedicated music device.

There are two (legal) ways to acquire music files: Rip/convert music you already own on vinyl or CD, or buy and download tracks from online music stores. Unfortunately, you can’t use the offline music files provided by your streaming service. These only work inside their respective app (Spotify, Apple Music, etc.) and they become inaccessible if you ever let your subscription lapse.

Ripping/converting

If you still have a CD/DVD drive built into your computer, iTunes will let you rip your CDs (copy them) and convert the files to one of the three formats iPods support: MP3, AAC, or (if you have a third-gen or newer iPod), ALAC. If you don’t have a drive, external ones are available on Amazon for about $30.

For vinyl, a USB turntable is perfect — it comes with software that can do the same thing. Ordinary turntables work too, but they need to be connected to an analog-to-digital converter (also known as an audio capture device). Again, these are inexpensive purchases on Amazon.

Where to buy music

The key to downloading music from stores is that the files must be Digital Rights Management (DRM)-free. In other words, they aren’t copy-protected. These online stores all offer DRM-free downloads.

• The iTunes Store is the path of least resistance for the iPod. Purchases download as DRM-free AAC files that play natively on every iPod ever made — no conversion needed. Individual tracks run $1.29; most albums land between $9.99 and $11.99. It’s also the largest major label catalog online. Buying from the iTunes Store is not the same as an Apple Music subscription. As I mentioned above, subscription tracks are rentals that vanish when you stop paying; iTunes Store purchases are yours permanently.

• I didn’t even realize that Amazon Music’s digital store sells DRM-free MP3s when I began this article, and yet, it’s all right here. Three things worth knowing before you dive in: pricing is comparable to the iTunes Store; you buy through a desktop browser or an Android device; and Amazon’s shopping cart sucks (it doesn’t have one). You can still buy a full album in a single transaction, but picking up multiple individual tracks means a separate purchase for each one.

• Bandcamp is the one to use if you’re all about discovering and supporting indie artists. When you buy, you choose the download format — including MP3, FLAC, ALAC, and more. With Bandcamp more of your money goes directly to the artist than with the other options on this list. Pricing is set by the artist, with many offering a “name your price” option that lets you pay what you think it’s worth.

• Qobuz is where to go when you want a step up in quality. Alongside its streaming tier, it runs a download store selling DRM-free files all the way up to hi-res — better-than-CD versions of a surprisingly deep catalog, mainstream included. Pricing tends to be more expensive than with Amazon and Apple. Michael Jackson’s classic Thriller, for instance, is $10 on Amazon/Apple, but starts at $15 for the CD-quality version on Qobuz. Hi-res versions can cost $25 or more.

If you think you’ll buy a lot from Qobuz’s store, it may be worth buying the company’s top-tier Sublime plan subscription ($15 per month), which comes with a permanent 30-60% discount on hi-res purchases from the store.

• HDtracks plays in the same hi-res, audiophile-grade lane as Qobuz, and it’s the longest-running site of its kind. However, individual tracks are rarely available separately — it’s predominantly an album store, and priced accordingly at the premium end of the market (more than $25 for the hi-res version of Thriller). Qobuz and HDtracks catalogs don’t fully overlap. If a particular album in hi-res is what you’re after, check both — one will often have a title the other doesn’t.

A note on file formats

I don’t want to bog you down in details or jargon, but this could affect your listening experience on your iPod and beyond.

As I noted above, the iPod only supports MP3, AAC, and ALAC.

MP3 and AAC are “lossy” which means they trade some audio quality for massive savings in file size. ALAC, on the other hand is “lossless” – essentially CD-quality, with a correspondingly large file size (though still smaller than the files on a CD).

Unless you find a vintage iPod that has been modified with a huge amount of SSD storage, you’ll want to use MP3 and AAC on the iPod itself — Steve Jobs’ famous “a thousand songs in your pocket” slogan was based on AAC storage requirements, not ALAC.

However, if you think you may want to listen to these songs on other devices (like your home hi-fi system), consider acquiring your music in ALAC or FLAC (a more popular lossless format).

These preserve all of the sound quality for when storage isn’t an issue, and they can be easily converted into MP3/AAC for portability.

The same is not true in reverse. If you buy an AAC file from iTunes or an MP3 from Amazon, you’re stuck with the lower-quality version on all of your devices.

Try before you buy

At this point, you may be wondering if you’re actually cut out for the vintage iPod trend. Instead of committing dollars and time right away, consider simulating the iPod experience with gear you already own.

Airplane mode + no Wi-Fi + disable notifications = iPod

It sounds obvious, but it works. When you disconnect your phone from all sources of data, and shut off its notifications, you kill its ability to control you. It’s just you and your music. For the full experience, you can also do the wired earbud/headphone thing (I’ve got some advice on that lower down).

The one thing to keep in mind is that, without any data, you’ll need to decide what you want to listen to before you go full privacy mode.

If you subscribe to a streaming service, you can download as much music for offline listening as you want, up to the amount of storage that’s available on your device, with one exception: Spotify Premium imposes an arbitrary 10,000-track, per-device limit regardless of how much storage you have available.

This route has a lot of benefits. It avoids the inevitable panic when you find yourself away from home and realize that your whole life, including the way you pay for stuff, isn’t in your pocket. It requires almost no additional investment on your part. And because you can choose the music files, the playback app, and the digital-to-analog/amplification portion of the audio chain, it’s almost certainly going to sound better than a vintage iPod.

An old phone

Same concept as above, but this time, it’s a dedicated device.

If you have a retired smartphone kicking around that can still take a charge, it’s effectively an iPod Touch. With no active SIM card, (and if you disable Wi-Fi) you can’t use it to get online. If you wipe the phone clean before starting, you won’t have any unwanted apps either.

If it’s a really old phone — like my beat up iPhone 6 — it might even have a headphone jack!

The key to getting it working like an iPod is to figure out if you want to do the offline-mode for a music subscription service, or go truly old school by transferring songs from your computer.

Believe it or not, if you’re using a Mac/iPhone combo, Apple Music will still let you do this even if you don’t subscribe to the streaming service.

I don’t spend much time with Android, but there are plenty of decent dedicated music playing apps, and file transfers over a USB cable works from both Macs and PCs.

Other Digital Audio Players (DAPs)

Even though Apple nixed the original click-wheel iPod Classic in 2014, other companies in the digital audio player space kept going. Sony, Astell & Kern, Fiio, and iBasso have been churning out new models each year. Like the iPod, they’re dedicated to music listening. Unlike the iPod, some of these players can cost thousands of dollars and most go way beyond the iPod’s rudimentary feature set.

I’m not going to survey the whole category — there are far too many devices — but I do want to highlight three particular models that you can buy for under $100, a totally reasonable investment if you want to try the dedicated player thing before falling down the vintage iPod rabbit hole.

Since I have tried none of these devices personally, this section is purely to give you a sense of what’s out there. These are not recommendations.

Innioasis Y1

In a strange twist of fate, one of the most affordable budget players happens to be a dead-ringer for the iPod Classic: The Innioasis Y1. $70 for the 64GB model

The Y1 may not have the build or sound quality of the iPod (some buyers appear to be a bit disappointed by this), but it’s the closest you can come to Apple’s player in a new product. It also supports Bluetooth headphones, and like almost every modern DAP, it can play almost any audio file you load onto it.

Fiio Echo Mini

The Fiio Echo Mini is tiny, has a 15-hour battery life, 8GB of built-in storage, and is expandable to 256GB with optional SD cards. You can use wired or wireless earbuds, and it plays a vast number of file types. Price: around $60 USD.

The Shanling M0s ($90)

Shanling’s M0s (weird name) looks like another solid option, especially for those who liked the design of the 6th gen iPod Nano (the square, all-screen model with the built-in clip).

One more thing: Earbuds

I want to leave you with one more thing to think about and it’s those iconic, white wired earbuds that shipped with every iPod Apple ever sold. They’re mediocre at best.

The semi-open design, which just sits inside your ear, is comfy, but it lacks any kind of seal to keep outside sounds from messing with your music.

Obviously, if an authentic vintage iPod experience is your goal, these buds are non-negotiable. But if you want to hear just how good an iPod can sound, it’s worth looking into the wide world of wired in-ear monitors (IEMs).

These earbuds have silicone eartips (just like the AirPods Pro) and much better acoustic architectures. You don’t even have to spend a fortune.
Look for brands like Moondrop, Fiio, Final Audio, 1More, and Sennheiser — and don’t forget, you want models with 3.5mm jacks, not USB-C.

If you’ve taken the plunge on a vintage iPod, or maybe you found an old one in a drawer and decided to resuscitate it, let me know in the comments!

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I’ve known for more than a year that Wiim was going to expand its wireless streaming empire into home theater, but I wasn’t prepared for the Wiim Bar’s particular mix of price and features.

The sleek-looking speaker, which debuts in July for $479 USD, features 3.0.2-channel sound, dedicated up-firing height drivers, compatibility with both Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, and something you’ve probably never seen before on a soundbar: a 2.1-inch circular color touchscreen display.

I don’t think soundbars should call attention to themselves, but I’m also not a big fan of the current trend away from any front-facing displays. Scrolling alphanumeric displays have disappeared in favor of tiny LED indicators. Major soundbar brands like Sonos, Sony, and Bose have come to rely on mobile apps to show users things like volume level, playback format, bass and treble levels, or which source is in use.

This makes the Wiim Bar’s central display a welcome alternative, especially for folks who want a visual confirmation of what their ears are telling them.

The Wiim Bar is expandable to 3.1.2 with the addition of a Wiim Sub Pro ($449), or you can go full 5.1.2 for $1,386 by combining the Bar, the Sub Pro, and a pair of Wiim Sound Lites ($229 each). Wiim doesn’t offer bundles yet, but I’m told it’s looking at doing so in the future.

Familiar but unique

Under the glossy black plastic shell sits three front mid-woofers, three front tweeters, two top full-range height drivers, and four passive radiators. Like a lot of soundbars these days, Wiim includes automatic room correction tuning, and there’s a dedicated dialogue enhancement mode for help with speech.

Its collection of ports is fairly standard: One HDMI e-ARC, optical, 3.5mm analog, USB-A, and 10/100 Ethernet.

Where things start to get interesting are all of the Wiim-specific add-ons. The USB port will be configurable to support USB Audio-in, USB Audio-out, or USB mass storage. The Bar ships with a voice remote, which can turn the soundbar into an Amazon Alexa smart speaker. Like most Wiim devices, it has two-way Bluetooth, so you can stream to the Bar from your phone, or from the Bar to a set of wireless headphones.

And then there’s the touchscreen. As I said earlier, I really like the idea of a big, visible display on a soundbar. I’m a lot less convinced that it should also be a user interface.

Wiim introduced its first touchscreen on the Wiim Ultra, a great network music player add-on to any existing sound system. The rectangular shape and the fact that streaming gear tends to sit on top of other components like amps or receivers, made it accessible and easy to use.

The Wiim Sound wireless speaker incorporated the company’s first circular touchscreen, with a 1.8-inch diameter. Even though it served the same purpose — displaying vibrant album art when playing music, data readouts like volume and format, and access to playback controls, source switching, EQ, Smart Presets, and personalization — it was a little more awkward to use.

As you can see in the attached press photos from Wiim, the Wiim Bar is likely going to end up on a media console, in front of your TV, making it ergonomically awkward. Unless you’re one of those people who mounts their TV (and presumably their soundbar too) above a fireplace (a terrible idea), you’re going to have to crouch in front of the Bar to comfortably access the touchscreen.

If the speaker is placed near the back of the console, you’ll have no choice but to approach it like you would a mouse, with your palm facing down. But then you’ll have to raise a finger to do the swiping and tapping. I can’t see this being a popular activity.

Thankfully, Wiim seems to get this. In addition to the circular screen, the Bar has a set of top-mounted, proximity-sensing playback controls that light up when they’re within reach.

Sneaking up on Sonos

Ever since debuting its ultra-affordable wireless music streamers, the Wiim Mini and Wiim Pro, the company has received non-stop comparisons to Sonos, and for good reason. The Wiim ecosystem of products, which now includes streamers, streaming amplifiers, wireless speakers, a subwoofer, and now a soundbar, are all controlled via the Wiim Home app.

That app looks and works a lot like the Sonos app — prior to the disastrous redesign of 2024 — a fact that did not escape the attention of Sonos customers who began looking for an alternative.

With the addition of the Wiim Bar, that ecosystem now extends to every room in the house. In some ways, Wiim has always one-upped Sonos (and Bose, if we’re being inclusive) with its inclusion of hi-res audio up to 24-bit/192kHz, and its advanced equalization options for those who like to geek out while fiddling with frequencies. The Wiim Bar keeps with that tradition, while also pushing it forward with support for Google Cast, Tidal Connect, Spotify Connect, and Qobuz Connect, for direct control from dozens of popular streaming apps, plus DLNA and Roon for local network control.

However, one big omission continues to dog Wiim: No Apple AirPlay.

I remain baffled by this situation. Wiim’s first products, the Mini, Pro, Pro Plus, and Wiim Amp are all compatible with Apple’s wireless audio streaming protocol. Then, without explanation, support for AirPlay simply came to an end. Wiim products launched since the Wiim Amp don’t have it.

I expect to get hands- and ears-on with the Wiim Bar soon, and when I do, I’ll report back with a full set of impressions.

As its first soundbar, the Bar hints at Wiim’s ambitions. It ultimately wants to compete with flagships from Sonos, Bose, and Sony. But instead of jumping in the deep end, Wiim is repeating its music streamer strategy that proved so successful: it’s starting with an entry-level option before ramping up to something bigger and pricier.

Even with four passive radiators, with no built-in subwoofer, it’s unlikely the Wiim Bar will deliver the kind of cinematic low-end rumble needed for a strong sense of immersion. Likewise, without any kind of side-firing drivers, it will be tough for the Bar to produce virtualized surround sound from Dolby Atmos or DTS:X content.

My hunch is that by next year, Wiim will follow up with a step-up model that will almost certainly bear a “Pro” or “Ultra” as part of its name. It will be more expensive, and will include a full 5.1.2 or 5.1.4 system to be more of a match for the excellent Sonos Arc Ultra and Bose’s newly released Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar.

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In reply, I typically hedge. I say, “there’s really no such thing as the best wireless earbuds, there’s only the best wireless earbuds for you.” And I stand by that. Everyone has different needs, different budgets, and perhaps most importantly, different ears.

However, if someone were to ask me, “which wireless earbuds have the best sound?” My unequivocal answer as of May 2026, is Devialet’s Gemini II.

Devialet Gemini II
Product Score: 4.5/5

Pros:

• Fabulous sound quality

• Excellent active noise cancellation

Cons:

• Very expensive

• Battery life is shorter than most flagship wireless earbuds

Check price on Amazon

Before I go any further, let’s address the elephant in the room. The Gemini II are among the most expensive wireless earbuds you can buy. At $499 USD, they’re double the price of Apple’s AirPods Pro 3 ($249). They sell at a considerable premium over flagship models that have been universally praised for their performance, like Sony’s WF-1000XM6 ($330), Technics’ EAH-AZ100 ($300), and Bose’s QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds Gen 2 ($299).

A lot of reviewers think the Gemini II are overpriced. On paper, it’s hard to disagree. In terms of features, they offer nothing you can’t get elsewhere for less. Wireless charging, ANC, transparency mode, Bluetooth Multipoint, wear sensors, and app-based adjustments—these are all table stakes. In some cases, the Gemini II fall substantially under the bar: battery life, at five hours per charge and 22 hours total with the case, is at the lowest end of the market. The lack of advanced Bluetooth codecs like aptX Adaptive, LHDC, or LDAC, is a surprise considering that these are supposedly aimed at very discerning listeners.

The buds are IPX4 protected from splashes of water, and though I find them very comfy and stable, they’re nothing special in the fit department. In fact, I can see a lot of folks with small ears having trouble with their size and shape, which fills a lot more of my ear’s concha than say, the AirPods Pro 3 or QuietComfort Ultra Gen 2.

Devialet Gemini II call quality sample recording

In terms of call quality, I’d argue they’re in the lower tier of performance: Fine for casual conversations in relatively quiet spaces, but not the buds you want to use for mission critical calls while walking busy downtown streets.

However, the Gemini II’s noise cancellation is excellent. I’ve used them everywhere — at the gym, on buses and subways, on airplanes — and the amount of hush they can bring to these locations is every bit as good as you’ll get from Sony or Bose.

And then there’s the sound. Wow.

I’m not saying that if you pay 50% more ($170) than the price of the Sony WF-1000XM6, you’ll get 50% better sound quality. But I am saying that if you could swap back and forth between them (as I did) I think you’d hear the difference.

Of all the wireless earbuds I’ve tested, none can match the Gemini II’s sheer clarity and precision. When audiophiles use the term “transparent” they mean that the devices that generate your music (smartphone, DAC, amplifier, speakers, or headphones) seem to disappear, leaving you with just pure sound. It’s a statement about fidelity and realism, too. When new details begin to emerge from recordings you know like the back of your hand, or an instrument seems to occupy its own space — as though it were there in the room with you — that’s a transparent listening experience. It also happens to be what the Gemini II excel at.

The balance of frequencies using Devialet’s default EQ is damn near perfect in my opinion. “Articulate” is a word that’s sometimes used when assessing bass and it’s a fitting description for the Gemini II. They handily avoid the bass trap — where over exuberance leads to a smearing of details — with tightly rendered lows and superb resonance. Whether it’s the haunting groans of a grand piano’s deepest notes or the poetic chaos of Flea’s signature bass lines, you can get lost in the lows.

I know a lot of brands are leaning into spatial audio processing, both with and without head-tracking, but the Gemini II’s soundstage is proof that two-channel stereo can be dazzlingly immersive and even more satisfying when heard through a great set of speakers (or in this case, earbuds). I often joke that a truly precise soundstage — no matter how wide or tall you perceive it to be — makes you feel like you could take a measuring tape and determine the exact distance and direction between you and the musicians. When you want to reach out and touch the Fender Stratocaster that you’re convinced is floating a few feet above and to the right of your head, it’s no joke; it’s sublime.

I could go on to describe vocals, brass, snares, and any number of other elements, but I think that would just belabour the point. Instead, let me say this …

At any given time, I have between 75-100 sets of earbuds and headphones of both wired and wireless varieties in my collection. That’s not a brag, it’s the reality of being a reviewer. Most of the time, when a new product arrives, I use it for a week or two, write about my experience, and put it away. If it comes back out at all, it’s because I need to compare it to a new arrival.

But ever since the Devialet Gemini II showed up, they have become my go-to choice. If I’m not actively reviewing another model, I reach for the Gemini. Of all the wireless earbuds I’ve received for evaluation, few would be truly missed if I had to send them back or they got damaged. If Devialet asked me to return the Gemini II, which it absolutely could do (I offer to return all samples after my evaluation), I would feel a genuine loss, and that’s the biggest compliment I can pay any product that comes across my desk.

Would I like more battery life? Sure. Who has ever said, “no thanks,” to that question? But it’s not a deal-breaker. Am I disappointed (and maybe a little surprised) that Devialet didn’t include LDAC or AptX Adaptive/Lossless codecs? Definitely. These codecs can’t make an OK-sounding set of earbuds great, but they can take a great-sounding set and make them better. Still, the Gemini II demonstrate that even AAC, the lossy, bitrate-limited codec that’s on nearly every phone in the world, can sound awesome. Android users, you get a small bump in overall smoothness, thanks to aptX.

The Devialet Gemini II are pricey, no question. That means they’re not going to be the best wireless earbuds for a lot of people. But for those who are after the best possible sound — even if it’s only a small improvement over earbuds that cost less — the Gemini II are nothing short of spectacular.

Check price on Amazon

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