Audio Technica ATH-ANC40BT review

 

What are the Audio Technica ATH-ANC40BT

The Audio Technica ATH-ANC40BT are the full package. As well as being wireless headphones, they’re in-ear ones that also offer active noise cancellation

You don’t often see in-ear sets with this amount of tech. Sure enough, they offer effective noise cancellation and pretty good wireless smarts

As is so often the case with tech-heavy headphones, though, the sound quality doesn't match similarly priced conventional competitors'. So, how much you do you want wireless? If the extras really appeal, these make great commuter and exercise earphones

Audio Technica ATH-ANC40BT – Design

The Audio Technica ATH-ANC40BT design's actually pretty good. To look at the pictures, you might not think that, though

They use a large but otherwise traditional traditional earpieces joined together by a neckband that is part chunky remote, part battery. I liked the two parts' placement as it stopped either pulling on my ears, or running down my chest, as they often do on competing headphones

As such, they’re great for runners or gym-goers. While they are a little bit eye-catching, a clear ‘gadget’, they probably aren’t any more embarrassing than the next person’s gym gear

The Audio Technica ATH-ANC40BT band is flexible and has an ever-so-slight tension and elevated friction thanks to a slightly rubbery finish. As such they stay almost still during exercise without feeling like they are gripping your neck, and leave nothing to pull down from your ear canals.

As I said at the beginning: pretty good design

All the controls sits on the left end of this band (as worn), letting you change the volume and switch the active noise cancellation on and off. It uses the same QuietPoint branding as other cancelling Audio Technica headphones, but the way any of these kind of earphones/headphones work is similar anyway

They use microphones on the outside to monitor ambient sound, then inject inverse waves to cancel out that sound. That’s why more intense ANC headphones cause a weird sensation of pressure in your ears. While they reduce noise, they actually increase sound pressure. The effect is only very minor here, though.

For the most part the ANC works very well. There’s a little switch on the outside of the band that turns it on and off, and it really takes the edge off the noise of public transport. The Audio Technica house sound isn’t exactly a thundering wall of sound, so having good ANC is very welcome and means the earpieces don’t need a too-invasive fit.

It works. But it is not perfect. In certain conditions it seems to create a distracting mid-range drone, as if a certain band isn’t touched by QuietPoint. I remember this happening in the hubbub of a busy pub, but I also heard it in a near-empty car park once. Go figure. It becoming obvious is a rarity, though.

Bluetooth performance is similar, in that it is good but not perfect. Range is perfectly fine, letting me move about through a couple of rooms without break-ups, but there are some less explicable glitches. It varies between phones

With the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge Plus+, each session seemed to begin with 30 seconds or so of serious glitchiness before settling down. With the Huawei Mate S Premium I experienced just a couple of brief glitches in several hours of listening spread over a few sessions. Clearly some Bluetooth chipsets just get on better with others, but it is only right to let you know my experiences (the Samsung phone worked perfect with Samsung’s Bluetooth headphones (no surprise) so it’s not as simple as blaming either party outright)

With just Bluetooth and no ANC, Audio Technica says you’ll get 13 hours of use, or eight hours with ANC plus Bluetooth. It has been a bit tricky to reliably assess stamina out in the real work because of one little thing: it’s devilishly easy to leave ANC switched on when you stop listening. There's no auto-off feature. And it’s worth using most of the time because it has, unusually, virtually no major effect on the sound. ANC generally has a significant effect, either altering the tone or volume level

No big effect is what you want, though, especially as you can also use the ANC40BT when the battery dies with the included USB-to-3.5mm cable. Most ANC sets have a little 3.5mm socket, but to save space the Audio Technica ATH-ANC40BT output audio from the charge socket, which is smart

Audio Technica ATH-ANC40BT – Sound Quality

You have a right to expect great sound in any £150 pair of earphones, even if they have Bluetooth wireless and noise cancellation. Do the Audio Technica ATH-ANC40BT provide it? For the most part, although there are some issues

Their greatest strength is something that doesn’t instantly hit you over the head, because these are not earphones with a focus on one part of the sound: no club-like banging bass or ultra-intense treble. There’s more of an even balance than that

So while the bass’s really quite excellent quality won’t strike you on first trying them on, it is certainly there. It is fast and intricate, a lot more disciplined and taut than the £50-70 earphones I had been testing beforehand. In wine critic nonsense-speak you might call it plummy

This restrained-quantity, top-quality bass gives the Audio Technica ATH-ANC40BT a clear signature. It’s often bass or mid-bass that ends up clouding sound

It’s the frequencies higher up that aren’t quite so perfect. For a £150 set they are a little prone to sibilance, and the upper-mids have a slightly hard, synthetic edge that you wouldn’t want to hear in a £100-plus ‘normal’ set of earphones

These effects aren’t necessarily deal-breakers. They’re things I’ve noticed in comparison with other earphones and headphones, not things that have caused obvious fatigue after an hour or so of listening. But it does mean that, aside from the bass, these might not be the audiophile-quality earphones you were hoping for

Should I buy the Audio Technica ATH-ANC40BT

With fairly effective active noise cancellation and, when paired with the right phone, good Bluetooth performance, the Audio Technica ATH-ANC40BT get a lot right. It’s also handy that you can use Bluetooth/ANC independently, go wired when the battery dies and that the sound barely changes as cancellation is switched on and off. That’s a real rarity

There are little shortfalls in each area that make them less than a sure-fire hit, though. Not everyone’s going to love the look/feel of the neckband, Bluetooth performance isn’t flawless, ANC is bettered by the (more expensive) Bose QC20 and the mids/treble are a little hard and slightly sibilant for the price

Still, if this is the exact combo of features you’re after, I’m not going to deny having enjoyed using them. I’ll be on the lookout for other potential ‘ultimate’ travel/sport earphone sets for review later this year

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Fidue A65 review

Fidue A65 review

 

What are the Fidue A65

The Fidue A65 are reasonably affordable in-ear headphones. They cost £50, have an Android/iOS hands-free remote and metal bodies to give you the sense you’re using something that costs a lot more

They offer clear sound which, while a little less wide and smooth than the Sennheiser alternatives, also has better bass control

Fidue A65 – Design and Features

The Fidue A65 are some of the more striking earphones in this price range. They’re a little more eye-catching than our go-to Sennheiser CX5.00, with metal bodies that look like copper

Unusual, right? It has a brushed finish, although the caps are more familiar silvery metal, and the whole lot is actually aluminium (a zinc-aluminium alloy, to be specific). Up close I think the copper bit looks a bit too bold and shiny, but Fidue is clearly going for a confident look here anyway. Generic is not the aim

Even the cable has a hint of copper to it, with what looks like a copper-coloured sheath inside translucent smokey rubber. It’s a nice look

Look really close and you can see little signs these aren’t ultra-premium earphones, but the general impression is of a set that can take punishment without suffering

The aluminium can hack being stood on, although the copper part’s shiny finish will start scraping off if it gets grazed

Common to pretty much all earphones at this price, the Fidue A65 have a non-removable cable, so don’t be too mean to them. And, out to work with as many sources as possible, they use a single-button remote rather than the triple-button type generally designed to work with iOS

Despite being a little heavier than Fidue’s entry-level plastic earphones, the metal doesn’t cause any comfort issues. They’re just fine

The only issue I have is that the Fidue A65 seem a little prone to becoming blocked by moisture, if you wear them soon after having a shower or in the gym. It seems to be to do with the filter style, or potentially the ‘micro’ driver (anecdotally I’ve had the same issue more with tiny-driver sets like this). You generally end up with one ear sounding quieter than the other, with a good dabbing of the earphone's aperture needed to get the balance right again

For this reason I wouldn’t recommend them as gym earphones. These are general-purpose

In the box you get four sets of silicone tips, including one dual-flanged pair and a basic carry case: nothing too special

Fidue A65 – Sound Quality

Other than the interesting look, one thing that drew me to the Fidue A65 was their use of 8mm ‘titanium’ drivers. Contrary to what you might assume, smaller drivers like this often sound better than those that try to spread out towards 11mm, or even further

When earphones aren’t out to impress with big-sounding drivers, it often also comes with better tuning

The Fidue A65’s sound balance is rather nice, with a more neutral or accurate tone than you normally get at this sort of price. There’s a good bass kick, but no sense of the lower frequencies dominating or even pulling focus to any serious extent. Even the Sennheiser CX5.00, among our favourites at this price, do that a bit

What this gets you as well as that desirable sense of a flat-ish frequency response is good mid-range clarity. This is the frequency range in which vocals sit, so it’s pretty important. If you’ve owned earphones before that sounded a bit muddy, muggy, foggy, or something that, there’s none of that in the Fidue A65. Bass isn’t 100% perfectly controlled, but for the price it’s very good

As such, the Fidue A65 are a good step into the world of ‘proper’ earphones if to date you’ve only been willing to spend £10 on a pair. You get some of the more important tonal properties of more expensive earphones

There are a few things that mark the Fidue A65 out as a cheaper set, though. While the mids are well defined, they are also a little bit raw. I wouldn’t go as far as to call them harsh or grating, as they are in the OnePlus Icons, but they’re not smooth and ultra-refined either

It’s actually a similar property we saw in the SoundMagic E50, another top pick at this price. The two are comparable in several areas of sound, in fact

But should you buy these or the Sennheiser CX5.00? The Fidue A65 have a narrower soundstage and the Sennheisers sound much richer, smoother and perhaps a bit more involving thanks to their grander scale. However, the Fidue A65 have a bit more mid-range definition and better bass control, in part precisely because of those other differences

Should you buy should the Fidue A65

The Fidue A65 are great all-rounder headphones for those who want the sort of extra definition you get when upgrading from entry-level earphones to ones around the £50 mark

They aren’t quite as ear-charming as some at the price – most obviously Sennheiser’s pairs – but this comes with a quite correct sonic reserve that shouldn’t be undervalued. Plus they’re powerful and bassy enough to still be considered good fun. They’re quite comparable to the SoundMagic E50, with perhaps a little more energy if a little rougher around those mid-range edges

The only bit you might want to worry about is how they’re pretty prone to becoming blocked by moisture, making them less-than-ideal exercise earphones

Verdict

A pair of rough diamonds, the Fidue A65 are good everyday earphones

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