When we’re picking out the best wireless earbuds, rest assured TechRadar prioritizes sound quality over brutalist beauty. But as Astell & Kern typically tops both the style and content categories with its excellent hi-res players – and who could forget the South Korean audio specialist’s stunning collaboration with Campfire Audio earbuds? – we haven’t had to compromise with its audio products.
Now the company is unveiling a second-generation iteration of its five-star Astell & Kern UW100 earbuds, released in April 2022, and while the stunning pentagonal design – I might say ‘beautiful goth jewelry’; A&K would say that Astell is Greek for ‘star’ and ‘Core’ means ‘center’ – may seem similar, but there is one major upgrade to unpack.
The UW100MKII earbuds (because that’s their name) now have a total of 29 hours of playtime with the earbuds and case together, or 9.5 hours with just the earbuds.
To clarify, you only get six hours from the inaugural UW100 earbuds or a total of 24 hours including the charging case. It may not sound like much, but anyone who’s ever been caught short of a road trip or flight will appreciate those extra hours of playtime – and don’t forget the second-gen Bowers & Wilkins Pi7 S2 arrived with the same five hours of playtime and an additional 16 hours from charging case as their older Bowers & Wilkins Pi7 stable mates.
Analysis: Astell & Kern makes upgrades where it counts
Elsewhere you get a built-in 32-bit DAC and a custom balanced full-range armature driver, a more advanced circuit design (with a super stable connection and a huge reduction in distortion or excess noise) plus a redesigned acoustic chamber – all will, says A&K,” setting a new standard in true wireless sound”.
The company tells us it’s also “drastically” reduced the size of the charging case and improved touch controls and call quality, with Qualcomm’s cVc Generation 8.0 (Clear Voice Capture) dual microphones per earbud to minimize background noise and focus on the voice.
A&K’s UW100MKII also supports multipoint pairing and Google’s Fast Pair service to automatically connect the earbuds to Android devices via Bluetooth Low Energy and Bluetooth 5.2.
The UW100MKII is accompanied by an exclusive app to provide an adjustable 10-band EQ to change the sound of the UW100MKII – yes, a 10-band option versus the five you get with most earbuds that can offer this.
You’ll also find the option to change the Ambient mode levels in these earbuds via the app, but it should be noted that there’s no active noise canceling – so the A&K UW100MKII isn’t about to enter our best noise-canceling earbuds. For example, I don’t care about the lack of active noise cancellation if the audio can improve on the already excellent sound quality in the originals.
Prices? Sure: The AK UW100MKII will be on sale from early October 2023 for $280 / £269 / AU$499 via Astel & Kern or at selected retailers.
The astute will note that these prices undercut the UW100’s original April 2022 launch price of $299 / £249 / AU$399 by $19, £20 or AU$100, which is just more good news – and I can’t wait to hear what they can do when paired with my smartphone and the company’s beautiful Astell & Kern A&norma SR25 MKII.