Podcast #1029: Technics True Wireless Headphones

Technics True Wireless Headphones A few weeks ago we read an email from one of our listeners who works for Technics announcing a slew of new products. Two of which were the AZ40 (Street Price $150) and AZ60 (Street Price $230) Wireless Headphones. We expressed interest in reviewing them and were sent two pairs for review.  There are two types of people who will benefit from these earbuds, professionals who are on phone calls and zoom meetings all day and the music lover who wants to escape the noise of the world. We'll talk about each separately.  Setup But first let's discuss pairing and setting up the earbuds. Prior to pairing we suggest you try the different size ear tips to assure a proper fit. This will aid in the comfort, quality of the audio, and noise cancelation/isolation. To pair you take the fully charged earbuds and place them in your ear. A voice tells you they are in pairing mode. Go to your device's bluetooth settings and select the AZ40/60 and wait for the voice to tell you they are paired. Now you are ready to start listening. But if you want more control, Technics has an app that will let you dial the earbuds in to exactly how you like, Go to your app store and download and launch the Technics Audio Connect App. It will automatically search for your earbuds. Once found you can rename them if you wish.  Here you can turn on and off noise canceling for the AZ60 and activate Ambient Sound which allows audio from outside to be passed through the headphones. You can also set the sound enhancement with some presets or you can customize it to your liking. I found "off" to be the best for me.  On the AZ60 you can configure the Active noise Cancellation (ANC) to the level that sounds best for you. To do this I turned on white noise on my stereo and cranked it up. I adjusted the setting until the sound was the least detectable. Once that is done you have the ability to set the level of your noise canceling from 0 to 100%. Of course I took the headphones down to the wood shop to see how well they canceled the noise. The AZ40, without noise cancellation, did a good job at blocking the noise and allowed me to work while listening to music. The AZ60 worked so well that when I turned on the dust collection I had to remove the headphones to verify that it was actually on! Quite remarkable. The app allows you to customize touch sensor settings like which ear activates your voice assistant and which gestures are play/pause for music and which ones answer calls.  Performance - Professional Working from Home This use case has a different threshold for performance based mostly on how good the human voice sounds and how good the microphone picks up your voice when talking. Multiple calls were placed while driving, from noisy rooms, and a typical home office setting.  Technics has a technology that they call "Just My Voice" which cancels out the ambient sounds around you while amplifying the spoken word. In our tests all calls were perceived clearly on the other end. I made calls to two separate customer service reps and was not asked to repeat myself once. Then I had my wife use the headphones to call me from a room that had music playing at a loud level. I had no issue hearing her talk. The music in the background was squashed. This was done with both the AZ60 and AZ40. I could not detect any difference between them on phone call performance.  From a confort point of view both the AZ40 and AZ60 can be worn for hours without fatigue. If you are on the phone or video calls for work, these headphones are easy to wear for hours at a time.  Performance - Listening to Music This is where these headphones excel! I listened to my standards (SRV - Tin Pan Alley, Snoop Dog - California Roll, Pearl Jam - Yellow Ledbetter, Diana Krall - Fly Me to the Moon). I also added Walker Hayes Fancy Like because first, it's a fun song and second it has a great bass line during the hook!  The AZ60 supports Hi-Res LDAC sound quality and for the test I put it into this mode which turns off Multipoint connections. No biggie as I am never connected to multiple devices simultaneously.  Both sound good. I would give the AZ60 an edge in music playback performance. I switched the earbuds in and out while listening to the same track and noticed improved sound in the AZ60 but if I didn't have both side by side'ish I would have found the AZ40s completely acceptable. The bass in both is outstanding!  In general these headphones present a realistic soundstage with the clarity to pick out elements of the music that may be hidden by other headphones.  There is a part in "Fly Me to the Moon" where there is a piano and guitar playing off each other with the standup bass backing both up that sounded like you were in the room with them. This is a live recording that puts you right on stage with them. I listened to it over and over picking out each instrument clearly. For fun I listened to some Christmas carols that were remixed with Spatial audio. To do this on non Apple Headphones you need to force Dolby Atmos to always be on in the Music app settings. As would be imagined there was no huge difference in the spatial aspect, but the songs did sound better than the originals.  One song stood out as sounding so large it gave me chills Hark! The Herald-Angels Sing sung by the Choir of the King's College. And then just for fun I went back to my B&W I7 (MSRP $399)  headphones and listened to the same music and came away thinking the bass was sloppy sounding. The rest of the audio was on par with the Technics but I couldn't get over how boomy the bass was vs the tight controlled bass of both the AZ40 and AZ60.  Odds and Ends The AZ40 is smaller than the AZ60. Both were comfortable and can be worn all day without issues. If you have small ears you may want to consider the AZ40. The charging cases are small and light. Can easily fit in your pocket or purse. You can use either earbud one at a time if you wish.  There is a mode called attention mode that enhances voices while canceling background noises. Technics claims that this may help hearing announcements in an airport setting. We did not test this setting. Battery life is 7 hours for the AZ60 and 7.5 hours for the AZ40. Our testing confirmed this while working in the shop all day listening to music and podcasts. Both are IPX4 Water Resistance. Conclusion The AZ40 and AZ60 will give headphone manufacturers a new target to aim for. The ANC on the AZ60 is remarkable at canceling out a woodshop full of noise. Office workers can wear these headphones all day without issue while coworkers on the other end of the call will have no problems hearing you even if you are working at a coffee shop. But the best thing about these headphones is how good they sound while listening to music.