Each bud includes an 11mm driver with a carbon-coated diaphragm that reportedly provides fast response times and a minimum of distortion, while brass stabilizers and a steel-mesh resistor promise to respectively cut back on resonance and improve high-frequency responses. You can also count on aptX, AAC and SBC wireless audio codecs minimizing the compression effects you sometimes hear with wireless audio, and Bluetooth 5.0 should help with wireless performance.

Like many competing devices, Audio-Technica's in-ears have only a modest amount of battery life by themselves -- here, six hours. You'll need to slip them into the included charging case if you want to eke out another nine hours. This isn't for all-day listening at work, then, but you won't have to panic if you crave music on the subway ride home.

The ATH-CKR7TW should arrive sometime this fall for $249. That puts it well above options from the likes of Apple, Jabra and Samsung, and there's no mention of water-resistance. You probably don't want to take these to the gym. So long as you keep those considerations in mind, though, these might hit the sweet spot if you want to go wire-free without making too many compromises.

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