The best true wireless earbuds crown just got a radical new contender

A headphone heavyweight makes a surprise move into the world of true wireless earbuds

Campfire Audio Orbit wireless earbuds
(Image credit: Campfire Audio)

The best true wireless earbuds just got some serious competition. The new Orbit earbuds come from a firm famous for its high-end in-ear monitors, Campfire Audio, and they promise to deliver seriously impressive audio performance for a surprisingly low price: just $249 / £249. When you consider that IEMs from Campfire can cost thousands, that's pretty much Poundland prices.

These new earbuds feature 10mm full-range drivers with a liquid crystal polymer diaphragm, something Campfire Audio says provides real depth and low-end power without sacrificing clarity – and with Bluetooth 5.2 including aptX Adaptive it can make the most of your smartphone's audio app. 

Serious specification for a surprisingly low price

Early reviews suggest that the Orbits deliver an impressively three-dimensional sound stage with tight, powerful bass, strong mids and a slightly reserved high end, although you can adjust that with the Orbit's companion app if you want a bit more air up top. Campfire has clearly been sending its review units to audiophile sites first,  and the consensus is that these are very impressive earbuds: according to HiFiHeadphones.co.uk "the sound is massive. It slams [with] bass that drops low and punches high."

In addition to the impressive audio performance there's 8.5 hours between charges, plus another 30 hours via the Qi-enabled charging case, and the Orbits have a design that's noticeably different from most other premium in-ears. 

The Campfire Audio Orbit earbuds are available now from Campfire Audio and retailers including Amazon.

Carrie Marshall

Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series. When she’s not scribbling, she’s the singer in Glaswegian rock band HAVR (havrmusic.com).