High-end earbud makers have been taking a bit of a bashing from budget brands lately. As more makers adopt the excellent Qualcomm range of chipsets with built-in Bluetooth, noise cancelation and advanced tone shaping, it’s getting harder to make a bad-sounding pair of earbuds. However, the premium brands have a few tricks up their sleeve including advanced driver units and years of experience.
One of the headphone and earbud brands with plenty of experience is beyerdynamic, the German audio brand that’s celebrating almost 100 years of excellence. One of the company’s latest products is the beyerdynamic AMIRON 300, a premium pair of true wireless earbuds with top-notch noise canceling and a sound that will knock your socks off.
The AMIRON 300 have a pleasing and contemporary design with an ergonomic shape that fits well in most ears. The ANC function is excellent and ideal for use on a long-haul flight or the daily commute to work if you’re one of those people who still commute to an office.
With up to 10 hours of listening time from a single charge, the AMIRON 300 ha more than enough stamina to get you from Heathrow to JFK without recharging. The charging case can be replenished using a USB-C cable or a Qi wireless charging mat. My one tiny criticism of the overall package is reserved for the ear tips. It’s all too easy for them to drop out of the box every time you open it, because they aren’t secured by anything. Could you please fix that, beyerdynamic?
Like any good pair of earbuds, the AMIRON 300 have touch controls that can be customized so they work just the way you like them. The controls can be set up to cycle through the noise cancelation options so you can turn the ANC off, have it on full or set to hear-thru so you can be aware of your surroundings. Other control options include volume control, pause/play, skip and replay. All the controls and other features can be accessed using beyerdynamic’s smartphone app.
As you would expect on a pair of true wireless earbuds, the AMIRON 300 have microphones built in for taking and making phone calls as well as for video conferencing with Zoom and Microsoft Teams, etc. The sound quality is excellent with good beamforming from the mics and even good wind resistance.
As mentioned, the earbud battery offers up to 10 hours of playtime which drops to 7 hours with the ANC function turned on. With the residual charge in the storage case, there’s a total possible playtime of up to 28 hours, easily enough for the user only to need to recharge maybe once a week.
The Bluetooth chipset used in the AMIRON 300 supports SBC, AAC and LDAC. If you’re looking for the aptX family of audio codecs, you’re out of luck. It’s not a big deal. I sense the hi-res end of the market is moving towards LDAC with the rollout of Bluetooth LE and if you are an iPhone user, you’ll want support for AAC. Latency over Bluetooth seems good.
Let’s turn to the all-important subject of sound. My first impressions were incredibly favorable. These are easy-listening earbuds with a pleasantly open soundstage that does a good job of placing all the instruments where they are supposed to be. All the frequencies are nicely spaced out and there’s no point where things start to kludge; in other words, you don’t get the bass stamping over the midrange or the treble spitting over everything.
The bass frequencies of the AMIRON 300 are strong without being overwhelming. All the bass notes are there, but they don’t fudge together. In other words, you can hear the bass guitar and the kick drum instead of them coming together in just one thud. While a big fat bass may sound enticing at first, it can soon grow tiresome and cause listening fatigue. For my ears, beyerdynamic has got its bass presentation just right.
It’s fair to say that it’s the mid-range where the AMIRON 300 shine. The purity and openness coax out all the details in recordings and then some. Everything you want to hear is there and without any rough edges. If you want to hear music as it was recorded, the AMIRON 300 do a good job of recreating that. A flat response but with a dash of character is the best way I can describe it.
The treble frequencies are tight and well-ordered and are certified up to 40kHz. That’s way higher than most earbuds. However, things never get out of hand and there isn’t a hint of sibilance. Even at my advanced age, I still can’t abide too much treble but I need enough to give an accurate focus to the soundstage and that’s what the AMIRON 300 achieve.
Verdict: The beyerdynamic AMIRON 300 are stylish true wireless earbuds with a beautifully sculpted shape that’s as comfortable to wear as a pair of sheepskin slippers. The sound is beautifully balanced and not far off the excellent sound you get with a pair of beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO X headphones, one of my favorite pairs of studio headphones along with the Austrian Audio HI-X20. Of course, you also get excellent ANC, good voice quality and a very acceptable battery life. Compared to most budget earbuds, the AMIRON 300 offer a much smoother and more detailed sound, plus a design and build quality that’s a joy to use. Recommended.
Pricing & Availability: The beyerdynamic AMIRON 300 true wireless earbuds are available now and cost $279.99 / £229 / €249
Tech Specs:
- Transducer type: Dynamic.
- Acoustic design: Closed.
- Wearing type: In-ear.
- Frequency response: 20 – 40,000Hz.
- Impedance: 32Ω.
- Max. Sound Pressure level: 95dB.
- Total Harmonic Distortion: < 0.2% @ 100Hz / < 1.5% @ 500Hz / < 0.3% @ 1kHz.
- Background noise: Ambient: < 19dB SPL / ANC ON: < 15 dB SPL / ANC OFF: < 1.5 dB SPL.
- Bluetooth version: 5.3.
- Supported Bluetooth profiles: HFP, A2DP, AVRCP, HSP.
- Supported audio codecs: SBC, AAC, LDAC.
- Firmware update: via app.
- Range: 15m.
- Battery runtime: up to 10 hours.
- Additional battery with case: 28 hours.
- Charging case weight: 51.3g.
- Charging time approx.: 2 hours.
- Charging type: USB-C or Qi wireless.
- Microphone type MEMS, omnidirectional.
- Weight 4.4 g per earbud.
