Possibly BEST TWS of 2025 🤔 Technics AZ100 Review (vs AZ80)
Possiby the best earbuds of 2025!
I think the Technics AZ100s are going to be one of the best earbuds of this year. Last year I rated the AZ80s quite well, but here are 6 ways the AZ100s are a substantial improvement.
6 new features of Technics AZ100
The Magnetic Fluid Drivers feature a ferrofluid component that improves the range and precision of driver excursion meaning more accuracy and lower noise floor.
These now support Dolby Atmos with Atmos content. Even if the content isn’t encoded in Atmos, these can still convert that into Spatial Audio with head tracking, making them one of only a few earbuds that can do that with any source of audio from any device.
The addition of Adaptive Noise Cancelling mode creates a more natural listening experience under various noise levels.
The new Voice Focus AI mode enhances noise reduction for phone calls, but unlike the AZ80’s JustMyVoice feature, the AZ100s can clean up the noise for both the caller and the called, something that can be turned on in the Technics Audio Connect app.
If you’re okay with giving up a few features, you can now switch it into LE Audio mode, which makes it stream over the new LC3 codec. This also opens up the option of having Auracast streaming in future, which wasn’t possible on the AZ80.
And finally, the AZ100s are smaller than the AZ80. Both the case and the earbuds are more petite, which even affects the way they fit. The AZ100 buds with their smaller size and tighter curves feel more snug and stable than the AZ80. And this also means they can fit smaller ears now. And they did that while cutting none of the features from the AZ80. They’re still Hi-Res certified like the AZ80, support 3-way multipoint… Basically everything’s the same, yet they still piled more stuff on top, THEN shrunk it down. Takes some really good engineering to achieve that.
But how does their actual performance compare to the AZ80 in terms of sound, noise cancelling, and mic pickup? We’re going to find out in this article!
Mic Quality Comparison
The AZ100’s mic pickup is a huge improvement over AZ80, even with thw AZ80’s JustMyVoice mode turned on. It filters background noise better and my voice is very well amplified. Voice Focus AI really works.
👉 Have a listen to the mic pickup samples.
(Comparison of their mic pickup to the AZ80 in both quiet and noisy conditions using really loud cafe noise and wind noise from a fan.)
Voice Focus AI Explanation
However, about Voice Focus AI, I do recommend not turning on noise filtering from the other side until you need to use it. Most phones would have already had some noise filtering applied. And if you also have noise filtering, the filtering can get so aggressive that it might cut into your friend’s voice. So use it only if the background noise on the other side sounds too noisy that you can’t hear your friend at all.
Active Noise Canceling Comparison
The AZ100’s active noise cancelling has an improvement over the AZ80. As it does cancel more noise in the mid-range spectrum, although the actual amount of noise it’s canceling is only a bit more. Probably because it’s applying a bit more noise masking, which I couldn’t actually hear with my ears, but the microphone could pick up.
👉 Have a listen to the ANC samples.
It has an Adaptive Noise Canceling mode, which does work because when I’m going through different noisy scenarios I could feel certain noises just fade away. And I didn’t feel it switch. That’s good, because the last thing I want is for the noise cancelling to suddenly switch in and out of stronger or weaker noise canceling like how some other products do it. Typically, I prefer to just leave them on max noise cancelling, but Adaptive mode this time is less annoying, more usable.
Is its Ambient Mode Good?
As for its Ambient mode, at the default 80% levels, the AZ100s are clearer in the sense that it’s passing through more ambient sounds in the upper registers. This makes the transparency mode feels more crisp and clear. But the degree of voice passthrough remains the same as the AZ80 which is fine, because enough of my voice is coming through to have verbal exchanges with people. On Attention mode, verbal exchanges are even better because it cuts background noise and focuses the transparency on human voices.
Sound quality comparison vs AZ80
The AZ100’s sound quality is a huge improvement over the AZ80. When comparing them side by side, the AZ80 still sounds good, but the AZ100s simply have cleaner track separation and wider soundstaging. The layering makes more 3D feel, and there’s more extension and texture in the bass range, even though its bass isn’t as loud as the AZ80 according to my frequency sweep.
The only area which I think the AZ80s sound better is in vocals. Vocals sound less bloated than AZ100. Apart from that, the AZ100 is a vast improvement, even on its default tuning. In fact, its spund quality is nearly on par with the B&W Pi8, which I ranked as the best sounding earbuds, which is something I’ll cover in my next review.
👉 Have a listen to the sound samples.
If you still want to tune its sound in certain ways, you can do it through the app’s presets, and it’s got quite a few to try. I’m also glad that these are quite responsive to the manual EQ which lets you customise them up to 12kHz in 8 bands with a 20dB range. But honestly, out of the box it already sounds awesome to me.
It's Not Perfect?
The AZ100 is very compelling. It sounds awesome, it’s smaller, has even more useful features than the last model, and much better mic pickup. In terms of Bluetooth connection, these are reliable, and while the 3-way multipoint pairing works pretty well, the switching can be a little slow sometimes. Also, the 3-way multipoint still doesn’t support streaming over LDAC.
Aside from that, what I like about these Technics is, you can tell they really try to make this as seamless to use as possible. They’ve even built in some redundancies that most people won’t really need. For example, there’re settings to improve latency for games, or more buffering if you’re experiencing jitter watching videos with certain phones, these settings are there to help, although so far from my personal use, I didn’t need to activate any of these settings at all.
There are some missed opportunities though. It would have been even more awesome if the touch pads could be used to turn on Spatial Audio without going into the app. You could already map Voice Focus AI to the touch pads, so perhaps they can consider letting us map Spatial Audio also. There’s also a weird situation with voice prompts. Sometimes it comes from one earbud, sometimes the other. Seldom does it come from both earbuds. Hopefully, it’s something Technics can fix in an update.
The app is good, but it’s still a bit slow in recognising the buds when I boot it, and when I toggle through different settings. Apart from that, I’m enjoying the Technics AZ100. It’s definitely an improvement over the AZ80 in some significant ways.
Links below if you want to check their latest price on Amazon.
Check latest price:
Technics EAH-AZ100 - https://amzn.to/4hcKrQD
Technics EAH-AZ80 - https://amzn.to/3JCNQcK
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