Playing in the premium headphone space is dangerous for any brand – you’re competing with the biggest brands in tech, and trying to win favour with a product that you can’t even try in store. Welcome to the challenge of Technics with their latest EAH-AZ100 in-ear earbuds

Fortunately, Technics has a trusted name in Audio, with 60 years of experience, so there’s a market among consumers who will inherently trust in what they offer.

Great news, that trust will be rewarded with quality.

I’ve been enjoying all my music via these for a few days, and don’t feel I’ve missed a thing. There’s a clarity to the sound, and while there are Bass options within the app, I think they are the least Bass heavy that I’ve used in a while, that’s a good thing. I think that the Bass I am getting is as its intended, not an artificial boost.

Add to that Dolby Atmos and Dolby Head Tracking and you’re likely to hear your music in a whole new way. I paired these with an iPhone and that process was easy, plus the Apple Music library of “Spatial” Audio means you can try out these Dolby features.

I will say they did a standout job hiding that feature in the app though. Should be on the home page, not in the settings menu.

Active Noise Cancelling appears to be top notch, though I have not tested on a plane, my sense from testing with background noise is that it’s well into the premium level. Critical to the success of these headphones is the presence of great ambient awareness, so you can adjust the level of outside noise coming in, and even use some AI tech to ensure that the voices around you are what are brought in, not just random sounds.

That Voice Focus AI is most apparent though in how you sound to others.

Using the app you can actually hear what you sound like, to understand the smarts involved in suppressing the sounds around you and enhancing your voice.

Even sitting in my office this sounded better, but its perfect for when you are out and about with background noise. Using this in-app test you can hear yourself in almost real time, to notice the difference.

One of the must have features of headphones I think is customisation of ear control actions.

Fortunately with the Technics EAH-AZ100 you can do that for four controls on each ear – a total of eight different and independent controls. That’s a winner

This is a slick app, one of the better ones I’ve used.

They are a great design too, really well packaged to fit everything within your ear, so they are not sticking out a lot, and the metallic outer surface gives an excellent premium look and feel.

There’s not much of them, and they fit straight back into the charging case with ease.

Technics suggest a 10 hour battery life, and I can tell you they are certainly more than 6 hours because that was the most I needed of them.

The ones tested are Silver, while there is also a Black variant. Both are available at Amazon, JB HiFi and other retailers – you’re up for $499 here, so a genuine premium price which I think is overcome by brand loyalty most likely.