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It’s been a big year for wireless headphone news. We have had Apple is releasing not one but two pairs of AirPods 4including a noise reduction option for the very first time.

We have seen the arrival of a new flagship pair of wireless headphones from Bowers & Wilkins in the form of Pi8. This spring Pi8 reviewwe felt they set a new benchmark for sound quality at their price point and I have been suitably impressed during my long-term testing.

And back at the beginning of the year we had Bose presents Ultra Open Earbudsthe brand’s first offering in the emerging category of open earbuds. They were impressive, if a bit pricey, and got us excited about what might be possible with this relatively new type of earbud.

But it’s a recently announced Sony (no, not WF-1000XM6unfortunately) which makes me really hope that we may be about to see something special in this area.

You see, while Bose is a great first effort, Sony is now on its second generation of open earbuds. The LinkBuds Open (pictured below) claim to take the performance of the original LinkBuds (above) to a new level and I can’t wait to hear what they bring to the party this time around.

I was surprised by how much I liked the original LinkBuds (WF-L900). For anyone who doesn’t love digging into their ear that happens with traditional wireless earbuds, I think they’re a great option. Not only do I find them super comfortable, I also love a certain aspect of their sound.

Although they struggle to generate the drive and dynamics of the very best in-ears, the enormous sense of openness and space they produce is hugely impressive. In our review we said it was “a real highlight and very different to anything you’ve heard from more obtrusive in-ear designs”.

Reading through Sony’s press release, it appears that the second generation ring driver (above) has been redesigned to be slightly smaller than the previous unit and from the images you can see that they now feature Sony’s new “Air Fitting Supporter”, an air cushion that is designed to facilitate comfort and stability. This replaces the plastic grommets that did a similar job on the original model.

More importantly, Sony also claims that the level of sound pressure in the low and mid range has both been improved so that they can be louder if you use them outdoors and need to face a lot of ambient noise. I found that more atmospheric, fragile tracks could drown out quite easily, so any tweaks in this area could make a big improvement and make them more versatile in different environments.

Add to that the fact that the LinkBuds Open uses Sony’s Integrated Processor V2, which was first used in its fantastic WF-1000XM5and its DSEE music enhancement engine to enhance low-quality music files, and I think they could be the surprise package of 2024.

At £179 / $200 they’re slightly more expensive than their predecessors (£150 / $180) but that’s not a huge jump and still makes them significantly cheaper than the likes of Bose Ultra Open headphones (£299 / $299).

Of course, a review sample has been requested and we’ll hopefully be able to tell you how the sound has (or hasn’t) evolved once they’ve passed through the hands (and ears) of our test team.

MORE:

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