If this past year has taught us anything, it’s that we are spoiled for choice when it comes to audio gear that both sounds sensational and looks incredible. The 2025 Rolling Stone Audio Awards’ standout winners prove that great design and innovative features can — and should — go hand in hand. From headphones that rival professional studio setups to earbuds that double as wellness tools, this year’s roundup delivered a treasure trove of sonic beauty.
Let’s start with the Noble FoKus Apollo. These made waves not just within audiophile circles, but with anyone craving depth and precision in their music. By pairing dynamic and planar magnetic drivers — a rare high-end feat — users are treated to a balanced signature that finds its groove in hip-hop, electronic, and orchestral genres alike. Throw in an 80-hour battery life? Game changed.
Not far behind were the Bowers & Wilkins Px8, which continued to dazzle listeners with sublime sound and premium craftsmanship. Whether you’ve been making calls or diving into albums for hours on end, these over-ears delivered consistency, comfort, and clarity. Plus, smart features like auto-pause and customizable EQ settings made them feel as intuitive as they are luxurious.
And for those who aren’t just listening for fun but creating, Røde’s NTH-100M excelled. Built to bridge the gap between pros and content creators, it nails the balance of wearability and technical chops, featuring plush ear cups, exceptional fidelity, and even a detachable broadcast-quality mic. If you record podcasts — or just crave immersive, studio-grade listening — these should be on your radar.
Travelers weren’t left behind either. The JBL Live 770NC stood out by making effective noise-cancellation more affordable, especially for people like you who need restful moments mid-journey. These headphones block out the chaos while delivering solid bass and a stellar 55-hour battery — all at just 9. That’s the kind of travel companion you can count on.
And when it comes to wireless greatness, Bose QuietComfort Ultra headphones held their crown. Bose’s Immersive Audio feature, paired with their class-leading comfort and noise-cancellation modes, make for a deeply personal listening experience. Whether you’re commuting or carving out sacred alone-time, these cater to your every listening mode.
Need ultra-long battery life? Marshall’s Monitor III A.N.C. headphones wowed us with up to 70 hours on ANC, and a whopping 100 hours without it. Comfort plus staying power? Marshall is keeping legends alive in more ways than one.
On the DJ front, OneOdio’s Studio Max 1 brought performance-driven features with wireless capabilities — a major shift in a traditionally wired world. With 120-hour battery life and ultra-low latency tech, you can keep your hands in the mix without worrying about charging or lag.
For innovators pushing boundaries, Breggz Zohn-1 earbuds offered a futuristic blend of personalization and performance. From scanning your ears to customizing playback fidelity, they’ve reimagined how personal audio can truly be personal.
And design lovers — we see you. Dyson’s OnTrac headphones caught attention not just for their audio but as fashion-forward accessories. Crafted for comfort and built with elegance in mind, they were a tactile and visual dream — the kind of gear you’d be proud to wear in any setting.
Every product this year told a story — about the ways we move, express, and ground ourselves through sound. Whether you were looking for something budget-friendly, travel-ready, or studio-level, there was something exceptional just waiting for you to hear it — and feel it.
This year’s breakout innovations weren’t just upgrades – they were revelations. The line between form and function blurred completely in 2025, with products designed not simply to meet expectations, but to shift paradigms. For those of you who’ve ever felt overwhelmed by new tech promises, know this: the breakthroughs this time genuinely improve lives, from the soundstage to self-care.
Start with the Powerbeats Pro 2. These fitness-focused earbuds integrated true biometric tracking right into the listening experience — heart-rate monitoring in your ear, in real time, while you move to your music. For athletes, this isn’t just convenience; it’s empowerment. It means fewer devices, more data, and a deeper connection with your body and your sound. It’s proof that your music can move with you and take care of you.
Over in the arena of accessibility, Apple’s AirPods Pro 2 took a massive leap with their hearing-health-forward features. Clinical-grade solutions like real-time decibel monitoring and customizable hearing tests — all through software you likely already own — turned standard earbuds into discreet wellness tools. These weren’t gimmicks; they’re a gentle lifeline for anyone navigating early hearing concerns or background sensitivity. If this resonates with you or someone you love, it’s okay to feel relief and even hope. The tech world is finally listening, too.
Speaking of safety and sound, Loop’s Switch 2 earplugs stood out as an understated yet life-changing favorite. Imagine adjusting your exposure to busy commutes, chatty offices, and concert crowds with a simple turn of a dial. Quiet, Engage, and Experience modes gave you literal control over your environment — all while maintaining social connection and audio awareness. They’re sleek, compact, and built to meet you at your limit, not push past it.
And brands like Soundcore joined the conversation by offering pro-level adaptive noise-canceling headphones — the Space One Pro — with built-in hearing protection features. These represented a shift: headphones no longer just deliver music, they intuitively care for your ears. The value goes beyond specs and into tangible mental clarity. You no longer have to choose between immersive sound and inner peace — you can finally have both.
For environments packed with high-decibel hazards (think construction sites, airports, or lengthy studio time), Elgin’s Rebel earbuds came in bold — OSHA and ANSI certified with high-density protection and unreal audio performance. Users could focus, relax, or rock out with zero distractions or hearing risk. If you’ve ever felt frustrated by “safety gear” that sacrifices experience, these are a game-changer you deserve.
Even sound personalization hit new highs. Breggz Zohn-1 took individuality seriously by scanning users’ ear anatomy, creating a tailored fit and sound signature for everyone. These weren’t just earbuds — they were your earbuds. The kind of listening experience where you feel seen, heard, and valued as a unique listener. It’s small innovation with massive emotional payoff.
And for those who wanted to bring that energy into their spaces, Kanto’s Ren speakers reimagined home audio with beauty and brains. Minimalist design meets HDMI-ARC accessibility meant plug-and-play simplicity alongside premium stereo separation. They made stellar sound accessible to every corner of your home — with no intimidation, just inspiration.
What’s clear is that this year wasn’t just about chasing the next hot trend — it was about rethinking how we live with and through sound. Innovation felt human, purposeful, and refreshingly empathetic. Whether you’re an artist, a commuter, or someone simply seeking calm, this year offered something special to amplify your world — and protect it at the same time.
Where you choose to experience sound can be just as transformative as the gear you use. This past year, the most powerful audio moments weren’t confined to headphones or home studios — they reverberated through jaw-dropping spaces that made us gasp, dance, and sometimes cry. Music, after all, is meant to be shared — and these award-winning venues delivered that connection in breathtaking ways.
Let’s begin with The Sphere in Las Vegas, a marvel of immersive architecture and sound engineering. Hosting legends like U2, the Eagles, and Phish, this multisensory venue uses groundbreaking Holoplot technology and over 160,000 speakers to deliver 3D audio to every single one of its 18,000 seats. If you’ve ever been to a show and felt like the sound didn’t quite reach you? The Sphere changes that — radically. Whether seated in the front row or the furthest balcony, you’ll experience every moment as if it’s being performed just for you.
Meanwhile, across the country in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Mirage emerged not just as a club, but as a transformative experience. With a newly added 270-degree LED wall boasting a staggering 30K resolution, the venue now quite literally surrounds you in sound and visuals. For fans of electronic and live music alike, it’s more than an epic night out — it’s a portal into another dimension. And here’s the beautiful part: it doesn’t matter where you stand; over 100 L-Acoustics speakers ensure remarkable clarity and bass you can feel from head to toe.
Of course, for those who cherish the intimacy of live performance, nothing beats the Bowery Ballroom in New York City. This cozy 575-person venue has long served as a cathedral for careers-in-the-making, and in early 2025, even Paul McCartney graced it again for a trio of unforgettable nights. The sound system is perfect, the ambiance is timeless, and the energy? Unmatched. It’s the kind of place where every lyric lands a little harder and every melody sticks with you a little longer — where magic and memory meet.
On the West Coast, the Hollywood Bowl continues its reign as an outdoor masterpiece. The iconic venue unveiled its upgraded L-Acoustics sound system recently, and fans are raving. Designed to project stunning clarity all the way from the stage to the backmost bench, it’s part of what keeps dreamers flocking to hear legends play under the stars. If you’ve ever longed to hear your favorite artist with a skyline overhead and cinematic acoustics — this is your place.
And for partygoers who crave something bold and loud and full of color, the Klipsch Music City party speakers brought the club to the crowd. With speaker models named after cultural hotspots like Vegas, Miami and New York, and packed with karaoke-ready connections, vivid neon accents, and the signature Klipsch sound, they turned homes, backyards, and festival grounds into full-throttle dancefloors. What these party speakers lacked in stage presence they made up for in unfiltered joy — and sometimes, that’s what the best venues are all about.
What ties all these experiences together — from grand concert domes to your local dive bar — is the celebration of shared sound. The best music venues this year didn’t just amplify music, they embraced us with it. They reminded us that we’re allowed to be moved, to be loud, to be present. And in a year when we truly needed things to feel real again, they met us there — echo by echo, beat by beat.
When selecting this year’s champions for the Rolling Stone Audio Awards, we knew it wasn’t enough to just rely on specs or press releases. You deserve recommendations from people who actually used the products — in planes, studios, bedrooms, gyms, and beyond. So we approached this honor roll the way you would in real life: by trying things, trusting our ears, and comparing how these devices supported not just the music, but our moments.
Yes, our testing spanned hundreds of hours. But it started with people. Musicians picked up guitars, experimenting with tone and texture. Podcasters captured unscripted conversations, testing mics for clarity and warmth. Listeners — just like many of you — tried new earbuds on busy commutes, across highway drives, and while walking the dog. We asked: does this product fit into life? And more importantly, does it improve it?
Each piece of gear was put through a unifying lens: a curated Rolling Stone test playlist. Seventies harmonies, club anthems, acoustic storytelling, audio drama intricacies — all selected to challenge and celebrate the capabilities of modern devices. We wanted to know whether speakers could handle the nuance of Joni Mitchell and the pulse of Kaytranada. How headphones fared when switching from an NPR monologue to bass-heavy beats or a multilayered film score.
If you’ve ever hesitated to try something new because it’s “too techy” or worried a product wouldn’t blend into your lifestyle — we see you. That’s why we prioritized accessibility and design as much as depth of sound. We focused on comfort for long sessions, intuitive controls, meaningful features (not just bells and whistles), and whether gear felt worth its price tag once it was in hand.
Not everything made the list — and that’s important. Through hands-on trials, reader feedback, expert interviews and field tests, we made tough calls. A product could be beautifully designed but miss the mark in fidelity. Or it sounded flawless but came at a cost that didn’t reflect its real-world performance. We weighed every angle — because you deserve thoughtful, honest guidance.
And throughout, we followed one guiding principle: would we recommend this to our best friend? Our sibling about to launch their first podcast? Our dad rekindling his vinyl collection? If the answer wasn’t a full-hearted “yes,” it wasn’t included. But if it made us nod in appreciation, get goosebumps from a snare hit, or smile during a morning walk, we knew it belonged.
So if you’ve been hoping for validation before investing in new audio equipment — or wondering which innovation is truly as impactful as claimed — trust that what you see here is rooted in real experience. We tested the sound, but we also tested the soul behind it. And you can count on that as you confidently turn the volume up into 2025.
