 I don't know, I don't really cover headphones much these days unless there's something really exciting about them. These don't really look like much. Man, that power button takes a long time. Do you hear that power on sound? It sounds like scratchy and ridiculous. This does not look promi- these sound f***** awesome. This video is brought to you guys by Honey. Honey is the free web browser extension that will help you find the best promo codes on shopping websites like Amazon, eBay, and more. Get it today at joinhoney.com slash LTT. To understand this product, I feel like we have to go back in time a little bit. Massdrop, now drop.com, partnered with THX on a desktop headphone amplifier back in 2018. They got extraordinarily positive reviews with people calling it the last amplifier you'll ever need. And I'm not talking just the audiophile community that buys snake oil $200 cables. I'm talking the analytical ones like Amir Am, the founder of Audio Science Review. And the special sauce was apparently in the THX A-chromatic audio amplifier or AAA. A-chromatic is basically a $10 word that means lacking in color. So the name means that the amplifier was designed to not color the sound. Like, for example, a tube amplifier would, which would give your music like a warmer sound. Basically, whatever goes in is exactly the same as what comes out just louder. Thing is, that amp would have been too power hungry for a portable device that's battery powered like this one. So we're actually looking at a new member of the family today, the mobile optimized THX AAA-0. The physical design of the headphones is outstanding, but only in the sense that it's trying so hard not to stand out. Like, honestly, these remind me more of like a reference design that might be created by a technology company to demo it to new partners who are going to run out and create their own designs. I think they ended up with something that's a little bit too plain for the zoomers out there. But there's also an old, excuse me, a more mature audience that might prefer this kind of a black everywhere look. The ear cups, really comfortable. I found the clamping pressure was a nice middle ground between ones that kind of grab onto your head like a vice, taking all the pressure off the headband, and ones that rely on the headband to support them and they just kind of float over your ears. The I.O. and buttons are really simple. So you've got this four-way rocker joystick here that handles volume up and down, track skip this way, and then start and stop just by pressing. And then you hold it for actually really long five seconds in order to get them to power up or power off. It charges via USB-C. In terms of battery life, I ended up getting about five hours of playback and I dropped 20% of the battery in the short time that I've had these. And then microphone-wise, you've got a couple of microphones built into the right ear cup with noise cancellation. I mean, they don't sound amazing to me, but they're definitely serviceable. On the left ear cup, you get a whole lot of not much. So it's a three and a half millimeter jack that serves two purposes. There's an add-on boom microphone if you want to game on these. I can't speak to how well that works. I don't have it. And then you can also just plug a three and a half millimeter cable into your device if you're still using something with a three and a half millimeter jack on it. Now, to me, the amplified sound, that is when you're running off batteries wirelessly, and the wired sound were exactly the same. And I was half expecting the golden ears out there to tell me that I was flat out wrong. But then I actually read a blog post from drop.com later where they confirmed that that was something that they actually tuned these for. So that's pretty nice. One complaint I have here is the headband. The adjustments are pretty granular. They've got a nice satisfying click to them. But there's not a lot of adjustability in it. And the headband itself has almost no padding on it whatsoever. So they're just kind of relying on that clamping force. And I did find that unless I was wearing it at exactly the right spot so that it sits flat on my head, like I prefer to have my headphones a little bit farther back and I found it kind of dug in, wasn't as comfortable as it could be. And this is something that I wish they'd fix in a V2 with just a little bit of cushion because everything else about these is kind of incredible. No matter what kind of music I throw at them, whether it's the soundstage and stereo separation, which is outstanding, the bass response is like, oh man, I hate to say that they're super analytical and flat because they're not. Like when the song calls for it, they punch really hard, but you get no muddiness whatsoever. And one of the other issues that I tend to run into with more, you know, reference or, you know, analytical flat sounding audio products is that I can find them quite fatiguing. I find really sparkly highs are hard on my ears after even as little as 10 or 15 minutes. But with these, I am comfortable saying that these are going to be the most audiophile pleasing wireless headphones out there. And not just compared to your consumer brands like your Skullcandy or whatever else. I'm talking compared to someone like a Sennheiser, who I feel has over the years made a lot of compromises to their wireless products in order to be more of a lifestyle brand rather than being true to their pure audiophile roots. This is just no compromise. Of course, that's my initial impressions. I would be remiss if I didn't actually compare them to other products they're going to be competing with in the marketplace. So what I've got here is the Bose QuietComfort 35 II's as well as a pair of Sony's WH-1000XM3's. These are both very well regarded wireless headphones, but ones that take, as we're going to see, a very different philosophical approach to their design. Man, I can't even talk while I'm listening to these. They're like so sound isolating too, which is weird because they don't have any active noise canceling whatsoever. After trying the Abyss headphones, honestly, I didn't expect to be surprised like that again by a headphone, at least not this soon, but at the price these are at with wireless, this is incredible. You really should try them. Like, anyway, let's get these other headphones paired up here. I'm going to start with the QC35 II since they came away the clear winners in our last roundup. Immediately, the active noise cancellation is nice, but actually, Brandon, can you just kind of talk at me for a sec? Yeah, okay. Shockingly, especially for discreet sort of sudden noises like a person talking, they don't actually block that much more sound, though I would expect them to do a lot better for like a constant drone, like the rumble of an aircraft. The Bose sound is still good, and it's still to my liking. I like the tuning on the QC35 IIs, but it has kind of like a hollowness, and it's not even close. There's a lot of muddiness in the bass that's masking other details that you'd otherwise be able to hear on something more analytical. And when you go loud, they're messy. I mean, you should never be listening that loud, but the truth is some people do, and if you do, they don't hold up. Let's try the Sony's. NFC pairing is pretty neat. Hey, Brandon? I just wanted to hear how much I could hear you. A little bit less hiss, a little bit less of the pressure feeling than Bose. As the volume goes up, the bass gets really loose. One thing you're always going to have to deal with with active noise canceling, though, is there's kind of like this baseline kind of something, even if it's not quite noise, like that pressure. Sony and Bose, though, do a fairly excellent job of minimizing it. After listening to the Sony's for a while longer, I'm having a hard time remembering what I liked so much about the QC35s, to be honest with you. Let's go back to the Pandas. Man, that power on sound is cheesy. Oh, I'm even more impressed. Like, by a long shot. I'm way more impressed now than I was even when I first put them on. Sorry, hold on, hold on, hold on. Let me turn this off. Okay, go ahead. They're actually so much better now with fresh context that I feel like I wasn't positive enough in the earlier part of the video. So I guess this is the part where we talk about the tech that they built into these then. So they're using Drops planer ribbon drivers that are derived from the Oppo Digital's PM series. They're using the QC5125 Bluetooth chipset that has support for LDAC. Although, it should be noted that you'll need to manually enable this higher quality mode on your device. And frankly speaking, I didn't hear much of a difference coming from aptX, so your mileage may vary there. But this is a big deal to me. There's no DSP in these things whatsoever. So you can't set them to auditorium mode or anything like that. But they sound absolutely great without any digital tinkering. And if you really like that stuff, there's apps that you can get for your phone to do it. With all that said, the real test for me, believe it or not, is against the AirPods Pro. That's my daily driver right now. And I know that the AirPods Pros have a lot of compromises. They're not a perfect experience on Android. They are not by any means the best sounding earphones on the market, but the form factor. They can literally fit with their entire charging case inside one of these plush ear cups here. There is something to be said for that. I love these things. These have been a game changer for me. I actually even sleep with them in, because the active noise canceling helps me fall asleep. All right. They already sound like hollow and empty. That really is kind of AirPods in a nutshell, isn't it? You don't know what you're missing because that's all you've ever known. Realistically, I'm still gonna daily drive these. I'm just gonna be a lot more disappointed in them moving forward. But I also want to clarify that these aren't gonna be for everybody. Because up until this point, wireless headphones have really differentiated based on features, as opposed to just audio quality. Like I remember the Parrot Zeeks with their touch sensitive swiping controls. And there's Microsoft with their fancy dial. And there's Sony and Bose with their built-in assistant buttons. And their active noise canceling, all that kind of stuff. But by contrast, these are 400 US dollars. They have no phone app, no touch sensitive buttons, no active noise canceling, no transparency mode. So they actually lack a lot of the modern creature comforts that we've come to expect. You know, there isn't even a digital assistant summon button. And this was something that I forgot I even cared about. But they don't automatically pause when I take them off. They just keep playing around my neck. It's like, oh yeah, that was a thing a long time ago. But I think from a certain point of view, that's the point of these things. They are as close to the experience of wired headphones as you can get. In terms of the sound quality, in terms of just not having a bunch of digital crap in them, other than the amplifier that they need. And I like them. I really like them. Now, one thing I want to address is that Massdrop is, sorry, excuse me, drop.com, a regular sponsor of ours. But the only reason I checked these out was because I was genuinely interested in them. And they did not sponsor any aspect of this video whatsoever. Who did though, how do you like that segue, is Ring. So thanks to Ring for sponsoring today's video. Ring is on a mission to make neighborhoods safer. You can create custom affordable security with their smart home cameras and doorbells. And personally, for me, it's all about the creature comforts. Keeping the delivery driver around a little bit longer, telling the neighbor kid, hey, it's unlocked, just come on in, the kids are playing in the back room or whatever. And not having to actually go to the front door is freaking sick. The Ring Welcome Kit includes the Video Doorbell 2 and Chime Pro. The Video Doorbell 2 has a motion sensing camera with adjustable range. It's 1080p, it's got 160 degrees of vision, and it's got two-way audio built in. It's battery or 8 to 24 volt AC doorbell wiring powered, so you don't have to worry about, you know, just having, being stuck with just one option. And the Chime Pro not only lets you know when someone pushes your doorbell with a nice loud ring, it extends your Wi-Fi signal too, which is useful for getting Wi-Fi to all of your smart home devices, and also just extending your range and having fewer dead zones. So get some peace of mind with the Ring Welcome Kit. It's compatible with iOS, Android, Mac, and Windows. Check it out at ring.com slash LTT, we're gonna have that linked below. Wireless headphones for people who actually care about audio quality. Who'd have thunk it, right? You gotta try them. Like, you gotta try these. I think these are a game changer.