Focal Bathys MG Headphones: Testing Wireless Luxury

In October 2022, Focal made its entry into the competitive wireless headphones segment with its first “Bluetooth hi-fi” Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) design, named Bathys. Short after, it relaunched the design with new finishes and added support for Mimi personalization. More importantly, Focal understood that it needed to sell it as a “luxury” product considering the asking price of US $799 USD. It didn’t work very well. Now, Focal is introducing the Bathys MG, doubling down on the strategy, with an updated model priced at $1,299 USD.

An exclusive interview with Dino Bekis, Qualcomm's Vice President and General Manager, Wearables & Mixed Signal Solutions Business Unit, where he shares fascinating insights into the company's roadmap and future developments, leveraging the best of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi in wireless earbuds and headphones into a seamless, high-quality audio experience. We also learn about Qualcomm's unique vision for its latest generation Snapdragon Sound platforms, and XPAN technology, allowing wireless hi-res audio without bandwidth constraints or compromising battery life.

audioXpress April 2025 is now available and includes a comprehensive Market Update on Wireless Earbuds and Hearables, covering AI, Sensors, how Wi-Fi streaming is possible in headphones, and more. René Christensen explains Expansion Techniques for Acoustical Engineering, Ethan Winer writes about Built-In Guitar Effects, and Vincent Thiernesse shares his incredible single control Low-Frequency Hybrid Crossover. Don't miss also Paul Marchese's Primer on Class-D Amplifiers, and Richard Honeycutt's article on Silvertone guitar amp circuits.

A Californian company that was instrumental in multiple pioneering efforts to run machine learning on-device, particularly for voice recognition, Edge Impulse has agreed to be acquired by Qualcomm, which is aiming to boost its own development ecosystem for edge AI applications. Edge Impulse, founded in 2019 with the mission to streamline the creation of AI and machine learning models in embedded systems, says it will remain open to other platforms, while accelerating integration with Qualcomm devices and development kits.

Precisely a month since I was at the Barcelona Fira attending the mammoth of a trade show that is Integrated Systems Europe, here I was back in Barcelona for an even bigger and busier event, the annual Mobile World Congress (MWC) promoted by the GSMA. 109,000 attendees and 2,900 exhibitors. In this first impressions report I discuss Bluetooth, why there was no Auracast, how Qualcomm made a splash with XPAN, and why are mobile operators obsessed with AI and Robots.

A year past since Qualcomm announced its S7 Pro Snapdragon Sound platform with micro-power Wi-Fi, Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi unveiled the new Xiaomi Buds 5 Pro Wi-Fi earbuds at MWC 2025. The brand designed a premium model with a triple coaxial driver system, hybrid active noise cancellation (ANC) up to 55dB, support for AI-powered transcription, and Qualcomm XPAN for direct connectivity to smartphones, enabling 24-bit/96kHz lossless audio with an expanded 4.2Mbps bandwidth.

One of the most unexpected booths at NAMM 2025 was undoubtedly that of Flow DSP, the Integrated Development Environment for Audio that was created by Tymphany and is now becoming a separate business unit. Flow DSP has recently joined the Qualcomm Voice & Music Extension Program to help deliver innovative DSP and AI solutions for the audio industry running on Snapdragon Sound platforms. The Flow DSP team also announced an exciting integration with Elk Audio, creating an embedded Linux platform that runs VSTs with 2ms latency.

Roger Shively shares his Automotive Audio perspective of CES 2025. An evolutionary year, more tempered after the explosive nature of the software-defined vehicle becoming reality last year. Narrow and Deep AI, Machine Learning, and Generative AI had their roles in developing and maintaining most of the software and platforms for automotive audio at CES 2025. The “Ploughman's Lunch” of Automotive Audio, Shively was going to call his chronicle from the automotive-filled West Hall and the Beach Lot across the street.

A Celebration of the Art of the Possible. CES 2025 was extremely successful. Even with the impression of fewer people because of the show being even more dispersed. In this first impressions report we discuss how Edge-AI (on-device) is transforming what is possible in audio processing. And of course there was MagSafe and Qi2. USB4. Bluetooth LE Audio. Auracast. Wireless Multichannel. And much more. This is necessarily a brief first impressions editorial to follow up on a very intense edition of CES, where the business-to-business aspects of the show have intensified as predicted.

With Microsoft’s enhanced emulation technology for native Windows apps, current ARM laptops are now ready for professional audio production. However, audio is a unique domain where driver emulation is not an option. To meet this challenge RME has developed WDM and ASIO drivers that are fully compatible with Windows 11 ARM 64-bit, unlocking the potential of Snapdragon X-CPU chipsets from Qualcomm.