True wireless earbuds are everywhere, but here are some newly-launched lug-stoppers with interesting quirks

Sony LinkBuds

£149 / stuff.tv/LinkBuds

Sony’s LinkBuds are quite the chalk to a standard pair of wireless earbuds’ cheese. They can do music – and make a darned good job of it too, thanks to Sony’s new ‘ring driver’ – but those who demand active noise-cancellation should look elsewhere. That’s because the LinkBuds are designed to let the outside in. Why? So you can listen to conversations around you.

In a way, these are the ideal office earphones: no longer do you need to remove your ’phones to take part in watercooler chats – and that’s the same when you need to cross a busy street. You can even choose in the app to auto-pause your music if someone starts talking, though we didn’t find this worked very well, especially outside where wind noise stopped our tunes. Even inside we had problems as it just doesn’t react quickly. Put simply, you’ll turn this off.

The adaptive volume control is more impressive, as you don’t find yourself needing to change volume that much – if at all. The LinkBuds can work with Alexa natively or your phone’s voice assistant, and can be set up to work with 360 Reality Audio.

The compact and tactile case adds an extra 12hrs to the earbuds’ 5.5hrs of playback time. There’s no wireless charging for it, but it will give you a 90min top-up in 10mins.

STUFF SAYS ★★★★★ Ingenious buds… as long as you want to let the world in

FACE THE MUSIC

The LinkBuds can detect when you tap your face in front of your ear, in order to play/pause or take a call. This means you don’t tap the buds themselves, and so don’t risk having to re-adjust them afterwards.

ALBUMS TO STRETCH YOUR BUDS

The Chemical Brothers

Surrender

Any Chems LP will test the capabilities of your audio gear; this one is full of demanding tracks including Hey Boy Hey Girl and Out of Control.

Pink Floyd

The Dark Side of the Moon

A trad choice, but there’s so much this album has to offer the headphone listener. Check the intros of both Money and Time.

Daft Punk

Random Access Memories

A beautiful force of nature that goes way beyond Get Lucky. It’s an album recorded mostly with live instruments that sounds ace on good buds.

Audio-Technica ATH-CKS50TW

£150 / stuff.tv/50TW

If there’s a signature feature with these buds, it’s battery life: with the noise-cancelling switched off, you can get 20hrs out of them. And even with the ANC on you’ll get about 15hrs, for a total of up to 50hrs including the charging case.

Audio-Technica is no newbie to true wireless and says it has particularly worked on the bass this time. It shows: top sound quality is on offer.

Negatives? The case is a bit chunky, and it can be easy to knock the controls while adjusting the fit.

STUFF SAYS ★★★★✩ Sound that approaches the best, but clunky looks

Denon AH-C830NCW

£139 / stuff.tv/Denon830

Along with the cheaper AH-C630Ws, these are Denon’s first true wireless in-ear headphones. But being late is fine as long as you make an impact when you finally show up.

Faced with the choice of ‘lozenge’ or ‘dangly stem’, Denon’s gone with the latter – but these are a relatively stylish example. They also have ANC, but while the audio quality is excellent there’s no app, which means no common features such as voice-assistant support or EQ adjustment.

Battery life is around 5hrs, which you can extend by an hour by turning the ANC off, plus four charges in the case.

STUFF SAYS ★★★★✩ No app-based twiddling, just high-class sound

Marshall Motif ANC

£169 / stuff.tv/Motif

These noise-cancellers retain the signature look of all Marshall’s ’phones, in turn inspired by the classic amplifiers. That design gimmick doesn’t get in the way – these are seriously impressive buds with fab sound, a decent fit and sturdy build.

Max playtime is 6hrs plus 20hrs from the case. Marshall’s app is pretty decent, enabling you to switch ANC modes, but as you’d expect you can also do this on the ear. The only issue is that the touch controls can be a bit too easy to hit as you brush past them.

The bottom line is that these in-ears have stayed in our bag.

STUFF SAYS ★★★★★ Marshall’s buds offer robust build and audio quality

Shure Aonic Free

£179 / stuff.tv/AonicFree

Shure is well known for its top-quality studio and live microphones and in-ear monitors – but this is its first proper pair of true wireless in-ears.

They do demand some concessions: no ANC and only two recharges from the case (though 7hrs in the buds isn’t bad) mean they’re no match for some rivals on pure specs. And a lot of people will take one look at them and run for the hills anyway.

But these Shures do offer incredible sound. Not many buds, at any price, can major on accuracy and precision without sounding quite uptight in the process… but then, these aren’t just any buds.

STUFF SAYS ★★★★✩ Rather gawky looks and no ANC, but the sound is great