Panasonic’s premium Technics EAH-AZ80 true-wireless earbuds came out in 2023 and made our list of best-sounding wireless earbuds. Now Panasonic has released a new set of flagship earbuds, the EAH-AZ100, which it says features a more compact design along with improved sound quality, noise canceling and voice-calling performance. Introduced at CES 2025, the buds are available for purchase in black or silver for $300.
Read more: Best wireless earbuds of 2025
I haven’t tried the AZ100s yet but look forward to testing them considering how good the AZ80s sounded. If they deliver on their promise of offering improved all-around performance and an even better fit, they will compete with the best earbuds on the market.
I thought the noise-canceling and voice-calling performance of the AZ80s could have been slightly better (the noise-canceling was not up to the level of the noise-canceling you get with Sony’s and Bose’s flagship earbuds). The voice-calling performance didn’t quite live up to expectations.
The buds have a 10% smaller design than the AZ80s.
The key upgrade here appears to be Panasonic’s newly developed proprietary Magnetic Fluid Driver it says creates “clean, high-resolution, low-vibration and low-distortion sounds for the most authentic, balanced audio that’s true to the original source.” According to Panasonic, the “magnetic fluid” is an oil-type liquid filled with magnetic particles that is “injected into the space between the driver magnet and voice coil that enables low-distortion playback.” This type of driver is found in Technics high-end EAH-TZ700 wired in-ear monitors ($1,200), and it’s been miniaturized for use in the AZ100s.
The AZ80s allowed you to connect to 3 devices simultaneously and the AZ100s retain this triple multipoint Bluetooth pairing option. The AZ100s add Dolby Atmos spatial audio with head tracking, a nice bonus feature that you’d expect in a pair of $300 earbuds.
The buds in black. The case features wireless charging.
Designed to fit more ears comfortably, Panasonic says the Technics AZ100s are 10% smaller and 16% lighter than the AZ80s. A fifth medium-large ear tip has also been added to ensure more users get a tight seal, which is crucial to optimizing sound quality and noise-canceling performance.
Battery life was one of the strong points of the AZ80s and the AZ100s also appear to have very good battery life. They’re rated for up to 10 hours with noise-canceling on at moderate volume levels using the AAC audio codec. If you use the LDAC audio codec that’s available with many Android devices, battery life is reduced to up to 7 hours with noise canceling on.
I’ll have a full review of the AZ100s once I get my hands on a review sample.
Technics EAH-AZ100 key specs
- 10% smaller and 16% lighter than the AZ80s
- Magnetic Fluid drivers for low distortion, accurate bass and high-resolution audio
- Improved adaptive noise cancelling with ambient/aware mode
- Voice Focus AI technology delivers advanced noise reduction while talking and listening
- 3 microphones in each bud
- Spatial audio optimized for Dolby Atmos and Dolby Head Tracking
- Bluetooth 5.3
- Multipoint connection to 3 devices, including PCs, smartphones and tablets
- Touch controls (customizable in the companion app for iOS and Android)
- Up to 10 hours of battery life (noise-canceling on) with an extra 18 hours of battery life in the charging case
- IPX4 splash-proof
- Wireless charging
- Quick charge: 15 minutes of charging gives you 90 minutes of playback time
- LE audio
- Audio codecs supported: AAC, LDAC, LC3 and SBC
- Ear-detection sensors
- One-touch conversation mode
- Colors: black or silver
- Price: $300