Technics’ new flagship earbuds have ‘Magnetic Fluid’ drivers

The Panasonic-owned audio brand Technics makes some of the best wireless earbuds that most people have probably never heard of. For example, we found that the sound quality and active noise cancellation of the company’s stylish EAH-AZ80 earbuds equal that of the high-end options from bigger brands like Sony, Bose, and Sennheiser — if not better in some respects.

Now, Technics has launched a new pair of earbuds at CES 2025 in a bid to further that reputation. The Technics EAH-AZ100, which are available for purchase starting today for $299.99, are the first wireless earbuds with the company’s proprietary fluid magnetic drivers. That’s not just a buzzword: according to Technics, there’s actual oil-like fluid with magnetic particles sitting between the 10mm driver and voice coil to keep distortion at bay.

We’ll have to take its word on that until we try them out for ourselves, but the brand says it tested the result with sound engineers, presumably with no complaints. Technics says they have a frequency response floor of 3Hz, which is a calming ultra-low binaural frequency that produces a bass result most people would have trouble hearing, but you may feel the low-rumbling vibration affect your body as you’re listening. For comparison’s sake, most headphones and earbuds (including the Sony WF-1000XM5 and other flagships) target the typical human frequency range of between 20Hz and 20,000Hz. In short, it sounds like we’re in for a wide but well-balanced sound with warm bass. The earbuds also support Dolby Atmos spatial audio head tracking tech.

The Technics EAH-AZ100 have three microphones in each bud to enable features like Voice Focus AI, which detects and amplifies your voice on calls while filtering out traffic noise, wind, and other external sounds. It uses similar tricks for active noise cancellation but goes a step further by detecting your ear shape for personalized tweaks. The result should be impressive if it’s anything like the AZ80’s top-notch noise cancellation. Whether the new transparency mode sounds any better than the older pair’s unnatural reproduction is still a question mark, though.

You’ll get lots of modern connectivity conveniences in the AZ100, too, such as three-device Bluetooth multipoint that trounces the two-device limit of most competitors. The device also supports Google Fast Pair for seamless switching between supported Android devices, Bluetooth LE Audio with Auracast for easy multidevice audio pairing and sharing, and the low-latency LC3 audio codec.

The earbuds come in a wireless charging case that adds 28 hours of battery to the advertised 10-hour runtime during AAC playback or up to seven hours with LDAC, which Technics says you can achieve while noise cancellation is on. They also have the same IPX4 water resistance as the AZ80 (although, like the older pair, the case still has no such rating).

All of these qualities sound about right for a $300 pair of flagship earbuds in 2025, and in some cases, the AZ100 seem to be pushing the bar a bit. They certainly have the on-paper credentials, and we already thought the AZ80 were justifiable at that price. (They now start at $199.99.) If the AZ100 are building on that foundation with a meaningfully transformed soundstage, then the incumbent rivals occupying this tier of wireless earbuds should be listening.