Verdict
Great-sounding, open-ear headphones that with some small design tweaks would be an even better match for the competition
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Enjoyable, balanced open-ear sound -
Useful equalizer settings -
Nicely designed companion app
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Bit uncomfortable for longer listening sessions -
Physical buttons bit too close to each other -
Questionable promised battery life
Key Features
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Review Price: £119 -
Bluetooth support
Bluetooth 5.3 streaming with multipoint connectivity -
Battery
Up to 20 hours battery life -
Voice control
Works with Siri and Google Assistant
Introduction
The recent surge of open-ear headphones has been largely led by brands that aren’t what you’d call powerhouses in the audio space. This is starting to change though.
Audio Technica entered the fray when it launched the ATH-CC500BT in 2022 and now its successor in the ATH-CC500BT2 continues its momentum. Like the first generation set, the BT2 uses cartilage conduction offering an alternative approach to bone and air conduction to channel sound in a safer fashion.
There’s also been changes to the design along with new smarts that Audio Technica hopes will convince you that these are the open-ear headphones you should have near, but not directly inside of your ears
Price
TheAudio Technica ATH-CC500BT2 launched in February 2025 and are available directly from Audio Technica’s website for a not too unreasonable £119.
That price puts it firmly up against other open-ear headphones like the Shokz OpenRun Pro 2 (£169) and OpenRun (£129.95) as well as solid open-ear performers like the Suunto Sonic (£115) and the Nank Runner Diver 2 Pro (£157.55).
Design
- One colour option
- Neckband design
- IPX4 water resistant rating
Like the first generation ATH-CC500BT, Audio Technica has a neckband look that’s been the go-to design for most open-ear, bone conduction headphones. It uses the same materials too, with titanium in place to make them durable yet keep things pretty light at 32g.
There’s silicone on top of that titanium to make sure you don’t have metal resting directly on the sides of your head and around your ears.
While generally they’ve felt secure to wear I have found the ear hangar part of the headphone sits more snug against the side of my head than I’d prefer, especially when compared to similar open-ear headphones. It meant over longer listening periods they felt like they were applying a bit more pressure than I’d like.
It’s interesting that Audio Technica bucks the trend in terms of the placement of its physical buttons. These sit on the underside of the left side of the headphones alongside the USB-C charging port.
The trio of buttons lets you adjust volume, play and pause audio and handle calls through the included MEMS type microphone. The controls work absolutely fine though all sit very close together, which makes it challenging to distinguish between them.
To make them better suited for more rugged use, they carry an IPX4 water-resistance, which means they can withstand rain and splashes of water and gives you a similar level of protection as rival headphones. I’ve had pretty dry conditions to put them to the test, though they handled some sweaty gym time without issue.
Features
- EQ presets and custom EQ in companion app
- Up to 20 hours battery life
Pairing the headphones is done over Bluetooth 5.3 and while that’s not the latest Bluetooth version available it caused zero problems pairing them to a range of devices including an iPhone, Android phone and a MacBook.
When you’re using it with a phone, you can use the Audio Technica companion app where you’ll find an equalizer mode equipped with three EQ presets.
Audio Technica talks some impressive numbers for battery life that suggests up to 20 hours playback time or 10 hours talk time. The quick-charge mode gives you 120 minutes of listening from a 10-minute charge.
Charging is done via USB-C with the port concealed to help keep dust and dirt out. I did find that the battery performance is influenced by volume and EQ presets.
For an hour’s listening, with a mixture of EQ modes in use and listening volumes, battery drop-off from an hour’s listening could be as little as 5%. At times it dented more for the same period of listening and it was more than double that.
Using it for an hour or two a day should keep you away from charging for a week. Fortunately, there’s that handy USB-C fast charging mode that makes it quick and easy to keep things topped up.
The three EQ settings have additional sub-settings to tailor the sound quality. Using the Original EQ preset also allows you to enable a mode that reduces sound leakage. When selecting the Dynamic or Clear Voice presets you can adjust the intensity of those presets to be mild, strong or set to default.
The additional BGM mode takes a step back to put you far more in tune with your environment. An LE Audio mode is designed for gaming and you’ve also got the ability to adjust balance across the headphones. Lastly, there’s a series of soundscapes you can download to help you relax and get you in a better frame of mind before nodding off to sleep.
There’s also a very thoughtful approach to the companion app and the settings available, which you can’t say for most open-ear headphones. The ability to limit sound leakage is very effective and the BGM mode effectively creates a sort of feeling of sitting in a cafe with the radio humming in the background.
If you’re using these headphones for calls, there’s smarts on hand to make sure that call experience is a good one. There’s AI noise reduction technology and wind noise suppression to make them better equipped to handle calls outside.
In open-ear terms, the ATH-CC500BT2 performs well and delivers good call clarity, even in more challenging, louder environments. If you were hoping for strong open-ear call quality, these are absolutely capable of that.
Sound Quality
- Very polished open-ear sound
Audio Technica bucks the open-ear trend by delivering sound using cartilage conduction as opposed to the more popular methods of bone and air conduction. So how does cartilage conduction work and how is it different from bone and air conduction?
In essence it’s all about vibrations, which is at the core of bone conduction technology as well, except instead of channelling sound through vibrations up your cheekbones to your ears, Audio Technica sends sound through vibrations through the cartilage of the ear and to the wall of the ear canal towards the cochlea.
Doing that pushes sound closer towards the ear without blocking them and creating more of an in-ear earbud listening experience. Along with producing high quality sound, Audio Technica claims it is a more comfortable way to enjoy open-ear sound than bone conduction, particularly in terms of removing the vibration tickle associated with bone conduction.
When current bone conduction and air conduction headphones can offer a mixed performance, the ATH-CC500BT2 gives you something I’d describe as very polished.
Unlike a lot of open-ear headphones the profile is nicely balanced and there’s pleasing clarity that underpins everything that’s good here. Whether you’re switching between the few EQ presets at your disposal or listening in the BGM mode, there’s plenty to like.
On Massive Attack’s Teardrop, bass is punchy without feeling overbearing. Mids are surprisingly detailed for a set of open-ear headphones, and when tackling vocals there’s a lovely grainy quality that shines through.
Throw something more bass heavy like DJ Shadow’s Open Donor and it doesn’t lose that balance. Neil Young’s Honest Moon shows off some warmth and an enjoyable grainy treble performance again.
On Jeff Buckley’s Last Goodbye there’s smoothness to the mids performance and showcases the effectiveness of playing around with the EQ preset intensity to better match your sound.
Should you buy it?
You want high quality open-ear sound
If you’re sold on a neckband-style open-ear headphone, these are some of the best you’ll find for overall sound quality
You want the most comfortable open-ear headphones
The Audio Technica ATH-CC500BT2 doesn’t quite stack up on the comfort front against similarly priced open-ear headphones
Final Thoughts
The biggest takeaway from Audio Technica’s latest set of cartilage conduction headphones is that they’re capable of offering a great-sounding alternative, particularly to bone conduction headphones.
It’s a bit of a shame that some aspects of the design aren’t quite faultless as those would be the key reasons to hold off grabbing them over similarly-priced open-ear headphones.
How we test
We test every pair of headphones we review thoroughly over an extended period of time. We use industry-standard tests to compare features properly. We’ll always tell you what we find. We never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
- Tested for two weeks
- Tested with real world use
FAQs
No, the Audio Technica ATH-CC500BT2 uses cartilage conduction, which transmits sound through vibrations sent through the cartilage conduction pathways in the ear.
Full Specs
| Audio Technica ATH-CC500BT2 Review | |
|---|---|
| UK RRP | £119 |
| Manufacturer | Audio Technica |
| IP rating | IPX4 |
| Battery Hours | 20 |
| Weight | 32 G |
| ASIN | B0DKNQSLKZ |
| Release Date | 2025 |
| Audio Resolution | SBC, AAC, LE Audio |
| Connectivity | Bluetooth 5.3 |
| Colours | Blue |
| Frequency Range | 25 22000 – Hz |
| Headphone Type | On-ear (Open) |
| Sensitivity | 100 dB |
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