Other features, according to those familiar with the matter, will include Siri, integrated touch controls and similar wireless-pairing and noise-cancelation tech to what’s already in Apple’s AirPods Pro. No word on pricing, although the sources have suggested the headphones will compete with the likes of Bose and Sennheiser, so we’re looking at around $350 at least. The official announcement is expected to be made at some point later this year, although the ongoing COVID-19 crisis may end up pushing things back.

If these rumors are true, the new product will represent Apple’s first own-brand foray into over-ear headphones – and it’s hardly unexpected, as the company bought Beats back in 2014. Beyond the iPhone, Apple’s wearables arm is a major growth driver for the company, and AirPods — while hugely popular — aren’t to everyone’s liking, so over-ear headphones are a natural next move for the company.

Much like the Hammerhead, these Pikachu buds feature a 13mm driver each, IPX4 water resistance and Bluetooth 5.0 radio. There’s also the same low latency mode, which reduces the latency to 60ms for the sake of competitive gaming. The Hammerhead’s voice prompts are replaced by Pikachu’s voice, though I do wonder if the translations will be accurate.

The earbuds alone can last for around 3 hours per charge (one hour short of the Hammerhead’s, for some reason), and it’s a total of 15 hours if you include the charging case. Even though the earbuds do snap onto their charging ports magnetically, the product page asks that you do not throw the Poké Ball at the earbuds to “capture” them. Pikachu is an electric type Pokémon, not a fire type.

Sadly, these Pikachu earbuds will only be available in China, but if you have a really good friend on that side of the world, you may be able to grab a pair for 849 yuan or about $120 on Tmall starting from midnight on April 16th local time.

When it comes to audio quality, I’m not going to mince words: These are the best-sounding Beats headphones yet. There is one caveat, but overall, the company has done well with the tuning on the Powerbeats Pro. The Studio 3 Wireless has noticeably less bass than most previous models, and the same is true here. There’s still plenty of low end to help keep your energy up at the gym, which is exactly what you should expect from earbuds designed for physical activity. However, it’s never overpowering to the point of drowning out the mids or highs. In fact, I’d argue there’s too much treble — which is something I never thought I’d say about a pair of Beats.

The heavy-handed, high-end tone is most noticeable when they are cranked near full blast. If you’re like me and have no regard for your hearing (I ruined it years ago anyway), this is how you like to listen to music. Especially when you’re at the gym, either trying to get in the zone or trying to drown out the Maroon 5 or Ariana Grande blasting over the speakers. Some genres suffer from this treble issue more than others, and I found it more noticeable when I listened to the likes of Maren Morris, Thrice and Anderson Paak. Hi-hats, snare drums and some guitar licks quickly become uncomfortable noise instead of contributing to the song. It’s an odd thing, because there’s still plenty of bass underneath — it’s just that the treble is turned up way high too. The clarity is nice here, but it’s not quite as crisp as what Sennheiser offers on the Momentum True Wireless.

Not all genres suffer from this though. The Powerbeats Pro (like every other pair of Beats) handles most hip-hop, pounding electronic tunes and chugging metal with ease. Gojira’s Magma sounds great on these, for example, but it’s booming and bass heavy — even the grinding guitars. Ditto for Every Time I Die’s Low Teens. It’s when you’re listening to styles that rely on treble to complete the sound that you run into issues. But again, it’s the worst at or near full volume. Turn the level down a couple clicks and it’s not nearly as bad.

Beats claims nine hours of battery life on a charge for the Powerbeats Pro, which is much longer than most of the competition. Other models typically offer around five hours of listening at a time. I never found myself getting close to a low battery in one go, and I’d imagine you won’t either. Even if you wear them all day at work, you’re likely going to put them in the case during a lunch break or meeting or some other interaction with humans. And with 24 total hours of playtime, according to Beats, that handy (albeit bulky AF) charging case almost entirely eliminates any battery anxiety. Especially when you factor in the Fast Fuel feature that gives you 1.5 hours of use with a five-minute charge or 4.5 hours of listening with a 15-minute charge. The earbuds will fully charge in 90 minutes while the whole shebang (charging case and all) is topped off after 2.5 hours. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t drain the Powerbeats Pro entirely during normal use, and that’s a good thing.

At $250, there are more-affordable true wireless options out there. Jabra’s Elite 65t is still my favorite overall, and the pricey Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless and Master & Dynamic MW07 offer better overall audio quality. However, the Powerbeats Pro’s reliability, features and great overall audio make it a solid choice for anyone looking for workout headphones that can double as your everyday set. They work well even on Android devices, despite some features being iOS-specific.

The Powerbeats Pro isn’t without its flaws, but overall, this is the best set of headphones or earbuds Beats has put out thus far, especially in terms of audio quality. The company took awhile to enter the true wireless space, and thanks to Apple’s tech, it got almost everything right. If you’re looking for headphones you can put through the ringer at the gym, you’ll have a tough time finding an alternative that checks as many boxes at the Powerbeats Pro, especially if you’re an iOS user.

Daniel Cooper
Senior Editor

For all of my airs and graces, there are a number of topics where I’m a philistine, and proud. Take high-end audio. To my uncultured ears, there’s little difference between your pricey cans and my phone’s Bluetooth buds. It happens a lot at trade shows, where people slam a pair of headphones on your skull and turn the volume up so loud you’re nearly deafened.

I was once in a very private demo for a company that sold hi-fi systems worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Reps were showing off their latest speakers, worth $20,000, that could easily beat the speakers of its nearest rival, also worth $20,000. We sat there for hours listening to the same songs being played by Speaker A, followed by Speaker B.

Sitting there for hours, I was stupefied by the wise old men from audio magazines, nodding along in sage agreement. Was I living on another planet, was I going deaf, or did both units sound exactly the fucking same? As much as I wanted to, I resisted the urge to point out that the emperor was wearing no clothes, and wandered off at the earliest opportunity.

Recently, my friend Alan insisted that I listened to the freshly remastered version of the Beatles’ White Album. And that I had to listen to it in high-res. Insisting that I try it on Fiio’s M9 lossless audio player and its FH5 in-ear monitors. And, crazily enough, I’ve come to something of a revelation, because both put together is pretty freakin’ amazing.

Nobody needs me to bang on about how good The White Album (yes, I know it’s the Beatles’ The Beatles) is, especially in 2019. Giles (son of George) Martin’s stereo remixes are beautiful and clear, with a wonderful amount of depth to them. If there’s one surprise, it’s that the music isn’t more subtle — it remains as clattering as the mono version.

I did a lot of A/B testing between the 2018 FLAC version on the M9 and the 30th-anniversary edition I already had. And there really is a significant difference: the bass is deeper, the vocal is clearer, the whole thing feels far more immersive. With this particular material, and in this format, the difference between regular-res audio and high-end is obvious.

The White Album is still something of a Rorschach test of one’s musical taste; you can feel the creative tension in the band in the music. It spikes at you and draws you in at the same time as the album progresses, difficult and easy. And it’s also the moment where it’s clear that George Harrison can no longer be considered the third-most-talented member of the group.

I enjoyed my time with the M9 so much that I started scouring around to see if I had any other high-res music lurking on my system. I’d (somehow) ripped the Tron: Legacy soundtrack to FLAC, and had Rob Dougan’s 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time in ALAC. And so I started comparing one against the other to see if I could tell the difference.

There were moments that I could pick out sounds that I’d never heard before on these songs, and it was breathtaking. You can hear hammers hitting strings that were never available before, and woodwind players taking breaths. It’s staggering.

One of the reasons that I was skeptical about high-end audio was because I’d believed that digital audio is digital, and therefore lossless. Those companies selling gold-plated Ethernet leaders for pricey music systems are taking advantage of people’s ignorance of digital audio. I’d never put any stock in the need for a good DAC (digital-to-analog) converter for the same reason.

I’d also believed that the price of high-end music gear was designed to take advantage of people whose children have left home. Not to mention that, like the research that says people’s enjoyment of wine is based on how much they paid for it, is part of the point. But Fiio’s M9 costs just $300, and the headphones a further $260, making it cheaper than Astell and Kern’s cheapest DAP.

They could include the same H1 chip as the latest AirPods and may have handsfree support for Apple’s voice assistant through the “Hey Siri” function. The true wireless Powerbeats may also offer more use out of a single charge than AirPods (which offer about five hours of listening time).

Beats adopted a similar release strategy after Apple announced the first version of AirPods in 2016. Soon after, it revealed several headphones with the same W1 chip as its parent company’s earphones.