The crew at Audio-Technica is well known for making everything from audiophile headphones to entry-level turntables — all of which has a distinct retro flair. The company is no stranger to true wireless earbuds either — and its latest entry, the Audio-Technica ATH-CKS50TW ($200), have a unique feature making them different from pretty much every other wireless earbuds out there: truly killer battery life.
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Each of Audio-Technica’s newest earbuds has a 20-hour battery life, which means you can be listening to music or podcasts all day (assuming, of course, you sleep sometime) without ever returning the earbuds to their charging case. Add in the charging case, and Audio-Technica claims that the ATH-CKS50TW can deliver a total of 50 hours of juice.
For context, the AirPods (3rd generation), which are Apple’s newest and longest-lasting wireless earbuds, get up to six hours per earbud and a total of 30 hours with the charging case. When it comes to music-playing time, the battle between Apple and Audio-Technica is not even close.
Admittedly, this impressive battery life of Audio-Technica’s newest wireless earbuds is with active noise-cancellation turned off. But even with ANC turned on, the battery life of the ATH-CKS50TW is still pretty awesome: 15 hours per earbud.
The Audio-Technica TH-CKS50TW are packed with premium features other than battery, too, including support for Sony 360 Reality Audio (for immersive sound), multi-device Bluetooth pairing and a quick-hearing mode that automatically lowers the volume of the music if the earbuds detect that you’re in a conversation. The only real omission is that these wireless earbuds don’t support wireless charging.
Audio-Technica