I test a lot of earbuds – they're the yin to the yang of over-ear headphones, and I've tried dozens in the last few years. Very few have impressed me like the Technics EAH-AZ100 did, though. These lovely little earbuds are the closest I've ever come to ditching the AirPods Pro, but they've very rarely seen any discounts since coming out at the turn of 2025.
That makes this Black Friday deal really quite a rarity – it knocks £50 off the EAH-AZ100, but only if you're happy to pick them up in their newer blue colourway. As it happens, I think that's no sacrifice at all, since the blue version is really classy and still very understated, so it's a win-win all around.
I actually had the EAH-AZ100s in my hands for about a month before they were available to the public, and that gave me plenty of time to formulate my impressions before confirming things with a five-star review at the start of this year. The earbuds were so impressive, in fact, that they then won a T3 award this summer, confirming them as 2025's best new earbuds.
Why, you ask? Well, first and foremost, because they sound simply superb. They're a really balanced set of earbuds straight out of the box, with sound that doesn't over-emphasise any one part of the audio register. You get real delicacy, too, and the amount of detail you can pick up is really impressive for earbuds.
Technics also made huge strides in terms of its active noise-cancelling (ANC) performance. This was solid on the older AZ80s, but in the AZ100s it takes a huge level up and becomes enormously reliable, even in challenging situations. I've used it on many flights and trains without ever getting let down.
So, I could wax lyrical about these earbuds all week – but with the Black Friday sales really hitting their stride, I'd grab this deal while you can. It's a beaut.
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