According to Audio-Technica, whose budget-friendly and decidedly cubist ATH-SQ1TW earbuds still hold a dear place in our hearts – and a coveted spot in our best budget earbuds buying guide – the Japanese audio expert has been on “a 15-year quest for super-deep bass” and the new ATH-CKS30TW+ earbuds are the result. With a frequency response of 5Hz to 20,000Hz, these earbuds go deep, too. To be clear: Humans can only hear from 20Hz; anything lower than that is felt as vibrations in our bodies.
The ATH-CKS30TW+ earphones are built around patented 9mm drivers with “acoustic channels” to deliver tight low frequencies, and you can customize the sound via AT’s app, where you’ll find a new ‘Bass Boost – Deep’ option to push those bass frequencies even further. There are also four preset listening modes for Beats, Dynamics, Vocals and Clarity, and there’s active noise cancellation with hear-through and talk-through functions.
Audio-Technica ATH-CKS30TW+: specifications and prices
Battery life is a very reasonable 6.5 hours per earbud or 17.5 hours via the charging case, and turning off ANC ups that to 7.5 and 20 hours respectively. There’s IP55 equivalent water and dust resistance, customisable touch controls, and Bluetooth multi-point for easy pairing. Voice assistants include Apple’s Siri and Google Assistant.
There are four color options: black, beige, a sage green, and a translucent black option. All four versions are available starting today for €99 / £89. We haven’t received any information on US pricing yet, but we’re expecting it to be around $99.
We haven’t had a chance to test these earbuds yet, but we expect them to share a similar sonic profile to other AT earbuds, such as the ATH-TWX7, which launched earlier this year. We liked their sound: like other AT earbuds, they have a slightly warm tone (this is, after all, a company that has made a name for itself making excellent turntable cartridges) that’s pleasant to listen to. However, we didn’t like their relatively short battery life, and found that the earbuds weren’t as loud as we would have liked. Even with the volume up and the noise canceling enabled, we sometimes struggled to hear our music when walking along busy streets. Hopefully that won’t be the case here: the newer earbuds have larger drivers and are likely more powerful as a result.
As always, when we know, you will too. Watch this space.
