The mid-range wireless headphones market is very crowded to say the least, but it’s worth paying attention when Japan’s Audio-Technica serves up a new offering. The ATH-S300BT gets the mid-range balance right, favoring great sound and extraordinary battery-life – to the tune of a whopping 90 hours – while paring back some other luxuries, such as looks and build robustness.
The ATH-S300BT is quite distinctive in Audio-Technica’s wireless range. Whether high-end (see the ATH-M50xBT2) or low-end (the ATH-M20xBT) the company’s designs tend to mirror their very popular and very chunky wired monitor headphones. With the exception of the very-budget ATH-S220BT, this new Audio-Technica set is quite elegant by comparison, befitting the way it straddles both music-first units and work / productivity devices. There’s really no reason why the ATH-S300BT couldn’t double as an admirable gaming headset either, provided you’re not after modern wireless capability.
Audio-Technica ATH-S300BT review: Price and availability
The Audio-Technica ATH-S300BT costs $99 / £99 / AU$249 and is available directly from audio-technica.com as well as select specialist and general retailers.
Audio-Technica ATH-S300BT review: Design and comfort
Perhaps in keeping with its price, the ATH-S300BT is aesthetically low key. Audio-Technica’s distinctive logo is absent on its outer cups, and you have to look hard to see the faint branding above the cup pivots. It’s a mid-range workhorse, in other words, but its design neutrality will be a selling point for some. Where there’s flair, it comes in the form of a slight beige marbling around the ear muffs on our model, though there’s a black alternative too.
The unit weighs in at a light 258 grams, and the memory foam cushions on the cups and across the top of the headband are plush enough: hours of constant use is comfortable, if not luxurious. The cups are just tight enough, which is a mark in the ATH-S300BT’s favour in a price range where some cans feel like they’re keeping the user’s head in a pincer grip. Build quality is fine: a jewel-like unit this is not, and while we’re a little wary of cut pivots wearing over time, out of the box it feels durable enough.
The 40mm drivers offer a dynamic and complex sound palette, neither too bassy nor too reedy. The digital-hybrid noise-cancelling doesn’t enmesh you in a world of utmost silence like some higher end units (more on that later), but it definitely shaves off the layers of low-range background noise.
There’s no carrying case included. The box includes the headset itself, a USB-C to USB-A cord, and a 3.5mm auxiliary cable for wired use.
Audio-Technica ATH-S300BT review: Controls
Controls are simple. The right cup has a noise-cancelling toggle, which cycles through noise-cancelling, hear-through and neutral (off). The left cup is a bit more crowded: A large circular button sits between two rectangular volume buttons, with the latter doubling as a way to navigate playlists without pulling your phone out. The central button turns the headset on and off and is used to pair with new bluetooth devices
The crowded nature of the left side buttons mean that, unless your phone or whichever device you’re paired with is out-of-reach, it’s easier to adjust volume on-screen rather than locally. Still, it’s there when you need it.
The ATH-S300BT can be paired to two bluetooth devices at once, to accommodate cases where, for example, you’re listening to music from a laptop, but also want to have audio access to a smartphone.
Audio-Technica ATH-S300BT review: Sound quality
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While far from audiophile offerings, the ATH-S300BT offers superb fidelity in this price range, with a sonic range that can accommodate cavernous bottom end without foregoing detail. Indeed, whether we listened to metal or the most bass-emphatic techno, there was no sense of one extreme being sacrificed in favour of the other. Austere minimal techno like Basic Channel’s “Phylyps Trak” retains its bass-led propulsiveness without obscuring the higher frequency subtleties, while there is no elimination of the palm-muted “chug” in Power Trip’s “Executioner’s Tax”, which can happen on cheaper units.
On the other hand, the ATH-S300BT can push out immaculately, deliberately ultra-compressed trance and hip hop exceptionally well, again, without turning into utter mush. “Lost in a Maze” by araabMUZIK is a brilliant test case for this: it sounds heavenly, ethereal, through these Audio-Technica cans. And that holds true both wired and via Bluetooth. O
If you tend to listen to audiobooks and podcasts more than music, the ATH-S300BT pushes out enough volume to make that viable in loud environments, working in concert with its digital-hybrid noise cancelling. Up front, the noise cancelling isn’t so effective that you’ll experience that eerie total silence when wearing them. It shaves a lot of environmental noise away, especially at lower-frequencies, but a screaming baby on a flight will absolutely still be audible, albeit not as bracing. Likewise, people loudly talking in the next room will be faintly evident.
The hear-through mode lets in a little bit of exterior sound via the in-built mic, but the mic isn’t great at picking up distant sounds with much clarity – they tend to be glazed in a light digital distortion. Not that you want “distant sounds” per se, but the aforementioned distortion can be distracting. It’s easier just to toggle noise cancelling off.
While the mic isn’t great at picking up distant sounds – and fair enough; that’s not its primary or even secondary purpose – your voice will sound loud and clear to others when making calls, with the added bonus that the person on the receiving end won’t be bombarded with environmental sonic clutter. On the flipside, receiving calls is a breeze thanks to the noise cancelling, which eliminates the eternal problem of not being able to hear someone on the phone.
Audio-Technica ATH-S300BT review: Battery life
The ATH-S300BT’s extraordinary battery life is one its chief selling points, and for good reason: Audio-Technica advertises an astonishing 90 hours. Caveat, of course: that’s without using noise-cancelling. With noise-cancelling used consistently, you’re looking at an advertised 60 hours. For most users it’ll likely be somewhere in between if you’re toggling between both modes.
Whether 60 or 90 hours, it’s going to be difficult to get into a no-charge pickle with the ATH-S300BT. In practical use, we charged it once across the first three weeks of testing, and even then, only for half-hour or so, hardly refilling the battery but still getting days of use out of it afterwards (Audio-Technica says three minutes of charging provides 2.5 hours of playback, and that checks out).
Audio-Technica ATH-S300BT review: Verdict
The Audio-Technica ATH-S300BT is a great value mid-range set of wireless headphones chiefly thanks to the combination of its brilliant battery life, fast charging and excellent audio fidelity. The battery life rivals the Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless record when it comes to noise cancelling battery endurance, and beats it easily when noise cancelling isn’t toggled on. For this reason, it’s a brilliant choice for work as well as music listening.
The noise cancelling isn’t best in class but it’s effective under most non-extreme use cases, and while the design doesn’t scream premium (or indeed, anything else!) it’s functional and, most importantly, discreet. Overall, it’s hard to argue with sound quality this great, and battery stamina this high, at this price point, though if you’re after best-in-class noise cancelling, you’ll probably need to spend a little more.