Wireless earbuds have become a staple in the everyday tech category, gifting us all the ability to discretely score the soundtrack to our lives, catch up on our podcast backlog, and even take calls hands-free, no matter where we find ourselves.
While convenience is key to earbuds, the tech that powers them gets better every year. Improved touch controls, spatial audio, and refined active noise cancellation are hallmarks of a great pair of earbuds, and the longer they can last, the more we get to enjoy them.
At CES 2025, Laptop Mag took a moment to switch from WiFi to HiFi in search of some killer competition for Apple's ever popular iPods, and thanks to the efforts of Audio-Technica, we may have found just that in the ATH-CKS50TW2 wireless earbuds.
Best earbuds of CES 2025: Audio-Technica ATH-CKS50TW2
If there’s one thing we all love in our gadgets, it’s a long battery life and wireless earbuds are no different. Even if most earbuds charge pretty fast, having to take your buds out and endure the horrible sounds of the New York City subway while they charge in their case isn’t ideal.
For that reason, Audio-Technica’s ATH-CKS50TW2 wireless earbuds are getting the nod for the best earbuds of CES 2025.
While we haven’t had a chance to test for ourselves, Audio-Technica claims the buds get 25 hours of battery life outside the case while ANC is turned off and a still very impressive 15 hours while ANC is activated.
And if a hefty battery life isn’t enough to convince you, the buds also come with a useful feature for those of us who like to let our buds live dangerously outside the charging case.
Magnetic Switch Technology, as Audio-Technica has dubbed it, uses magnets on the buds themselves to glom with ears together and automatically switch them off so they don’t die when you hastily shove them into your pocket (I assume this would also be useful for not losing them, too).
The ATH-CKS50TW2 wireless earbuds are available to purchase from the Audio-Technica website for $149 in Black or Beige colorways.
