Focal Relaunches Bathys Wireless ANC Headphones with Mimi Sound Personalization

Almost a year ago, Focal introduced two important new headphones one after the other. The main announcement was the introduction of its flagship Focal Utopia 2022 Edition. The second announcement was the Bathys, its first wireless headphones with Active Noise Cancellation (ANC). This sequence didn't help to project the sales of the Bathys, which also offer a high-quality USB-DAC wired mode. Now, Focal relaunched the Bathys with a new color and support for Mimi hearing personalization.

The original Bowers & Wilkins Pi7 & Pi5 noise cancelling earbuds, launched in April 2021, marked the British audio brand’s first entry into the true wireless category. Trying to redefine audio quality in the form-factor, apparently the company decided the brand's goals could be improved and introduced two new upgraded models, the Pi7 S2 and Pi5 S2. Replacing the first-generation models, the two new designs reaffirm their ambition to be "the best-sounding True Wireless earbuds".

As it happens every year with the companies that attempt to follow Apple's model of promoting a large impact event to announce new products, Samsung just promoted something similar to unveil its new Galaxy foldable smartphones, and used the opportunity to also unveil the new Galaxy true wireless earbuds with all the latest features. The new Galaxy Buds2 Pro are Bluetooth 5.3 earbuds with multipoint connectivity, featuring new 2-way coaxial drivers and also introduce a new Samsung codec for 24-bit Hi-Res Audio streaming.

Khadas is about to launch an interesting new Ultraslim headphone amplifier with high-resolution audio support for smartphones. The design will be compatible with Apple’s MagSafe (and all the copycat magnetic chargers that are about to arrive in the market), just clipping into to the back of an iPhone 12 or 13. The Khadas TEA features the high-performance ESS ES9281AC Pro DAC, as well as LDAC and aptX HD Bluetooth audio from a Qualcomm QCC5125 chip.

If the market research is accurate and consumers' main priority is audio quality, then it makes sense to offer the best possible options as a way to differentiate new true wireless earbud designs. That was now attempted by Edifier, a company with access to the best available technologies and manufacturing resources. The NeoBuds Pro ANC earbuds are a new Hi-Res Audio certified TWS design, now available to pre-order on IndieGoGo.

The Mobile World Congress 2020 in Barcelona was cancelled, but that doesn't keep companies from making their scheduled announcements for the mobile industry. Sony released information about all the new products that intended to show in Barcelona and there is an interesting announcement of a flagship smartphone with interesting audio specifications, apart from the usual great quality screen and cameras. The new Sony Xperia 1 II Smartphone even has a 3.5mm audio jack!