While the brand doesn’t enjoy the same name recognition as Bose or Sony when it comes to wireless buds, Technics has been steadily catching its competition. The Technics AZ100 is the company’s new set of flagship earbuds, and if you haven’t been paying attention, it’s time to start.

Technics AZ100

The Technics AZ100 sound superb thanks to 10mm magnetic fluid drivers, complete with features like Dolby Atmos, effective ANC, and three-device multipoint Bluetooth.

Pros & Cons

• Sound quality is fantastic
• Effective ANC
• Most people should find a great fit
• Comfortable to wear for hours
• Software offers plenty of customization

• Controls can be touchy
• Battery life is nothing special

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Price and Availability

The Technics AZ100 is the top of the company’s line of earbuds, and retails for $299. That puts these into the same price range as top-tier competition from Bose, Sony, Apple, and others. On the one hand, this shows Technics is serious, but on the other, it shows how tough this category can be.

You have two options for the finish of the AZ100: the standard black, and a silver option, which is the model I was sent to test for this review.

Sleek Design and a Focus on Finding the Right Fit

While a gram here or there may not sound like much, it adds up when you’re carrying that weight in your ears. That goes to say that the AZ100 weighing in at 5.9g per earbud compared to 7g on the AZ80, is more substantial than it sounds. These earbuds are also smaller, making for an easier time finding the right fit.

Technics has made getting the fit right a major part of the design of the AZ100, as we’ll look at even more later on. For now, the important part is the sheer number of ear tips: five different sets ranging from small to large. This is actually down from the seven sets included with the previous flagship, but still plenty to go around.

During testing, I ended up using the AZ100 with a few different sets of tips, and was equally comfortable with all of them. I ended up swapping tips for sound-related reasons, so it was a pleasant surprise to see the earbuds stay put despite changing sizes.

Superb Sound and Call Quality

Like many earbuds, the driver in the Technics AZ100 measures 10mm, but that’s where most similarities end. These earbuds use a “Magnetic Fluid Driver,” which uses magnetic particles suspended in a liquid—a technique borrowed from the company’s much higher-end in-ear monitors.

The earbuds support the standard SBC and AAC Bluetooth codecs, but that’s not all. Sony’s LDAC codec is supported as well, for higher-res wireless sound quality. You also get the LC3 codec, which still isn’t a common inclusion, even as price tags start pushing higher.

While listening to Fleetwood Mac’s I Walk a Thin Line, I noticed a surprising amount of heft to the low end that I don’t typically expect from in-ears. This song in particular will use whatever space it can in the stereo field, and it gets plenty out of the Technics.

That weighty low end returned in the chorus of Queens of the Stone Age’s The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret, but it didn’t get in the way of the multilayered guitars. Despite multiple layers of thick fuzz guitar, the end of the song never gets overly busy in terms of frequencies.

The Technics don’t always rely on sheer weight to deliver their sonic potential, either. The explosive ending of Wilson Pickett’s version of Hey Jude sounded a little thin here, as it almost always does, but that didn’t rob the song of its impact.

The AZ100 earbuds also support Dolby Atmos sound, and it’s treated with a shockingly steady hand. Rather than the full-on effect it sometimes comes across as, I found Atmos added a sweet but subtle stereo width to the right tracks.

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While you may still need to turn to Sony or Bose for the ultimate in active noise cancellation (ANC), it’s certainly not open-and-shut. In particular, the noise-canceling is excellent, whether you crank it to full or allow the Adaptive mode to take care of it for you.

The Ambient mode, which is the Technics take on the Transparent mode, is effective, but not particularly transparent sounding. You get the feeling that you’re hearing everything around you through headphones, which you are.

Call quality is great, and I had nearly identical results with test recordings from both indoors and outdoors.

AZ100 Microphone Sample: Indoors

AZ100 Microphone Sample: Outdoors

The Customizable Controls are Touchy

Touch controls are more or less a fact of life when it comes to earbuds. While I’m not a fan, personally, I realize the world has moved on. I may have to use touch controls, but I prefer when they’re easily customizable.

The Technics Audio Connect App (available for iPhone and iPad as well as Android) offers plenty of customization, but not everything is perfect. You can customize almost everything down to what a double-tap on each side does, but the earbuds themselves sometimes recognize single taps as doubles, etc.

One other area where the app was surprisingly finicky was the ear tip selection process, which is why I tried the AZ100 with so many tip sizes. I typically use the medium tips that ship on most earbuds, but here the Technics app eventually settled on medium-large after trying everything from small to large.

It was worth it once I heard the sound and the noise cancellation, but it was a bit of a journey getting there. You can also use the app to tune the earbuds’ EQ, but I was so happy with the default sound of the AZ100 that I mostly left this feature alone.

One more notable feature is Technics’ three-device multipoint Bluetooth support. This adds a device to the typical multipoint limit, and while it’s somewhat of a novelty, it definitely has its uses.

The battery life in the Technics AZ100 is improved over that of the AZ80, but the overall life isn’t especially impressive. You can expect up to 10 hours on a single charge, assuming you’re using either ANC or the Ambient Mode, with the case adding a few more charges for a total of 28 hours.

You get two methods of charging the case here: a USB-C port on the bottom of the case, or Qi-certified wireless charging. This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise in higher-end earbuds these days, but I’m always still happy to see wireless charging supported.

A full recharge of the case takes around two hours, but if you pop the earbuds in the case while it’s charging, a 15-minute charge gets you roughly 90 minutes of playback time. For full stats, you can use the Technics Audio Connect app, but there is a small LED on the case to give you a quick overview of charge status.

Should You Buy the Technics AZ100?

Over the years, I’ve tested plenty of headphones, IEMs, and earbuds, so I wasn’t expecting to be utterly blown away by the sound quality of the Technics AZ100. While I wasn’t jaw-on-the-floor astonished by the sound, I’m not sure that I’ve heard many earbuds that are better sounding in any objective way. Music playback is the strongest part of an altogether outstanding package.

Noise-canceling is where Bose and Sony still pull the biggest gains over the Technics, but even there, the lead is shrinking. I only emphasize this depending on how you use your earbuds: If your main use case is no music, ANC-only, there’s no point to the Technics. That said, if you’re playing music all day, the extra sonic oomph from the AZ100 is worth a minor tradeoff in ANC performance.

With fantastic-sounding drivers, a solid selection of wireless codecs, and surprisingly subtle Dolby Atmos support, the Technics AZ100 earbuds are clearly aimed at listeners who prioritize music. If that sounds like you, then you might have just found your perfect earbuds.

Technics AZ100

The Technics AZ100 sound superb thanks to 10mm magnetic fluid drivers, complete with features like Dolby Atmos, effective ANC, and three-device multipoint Bluetooth.