CES 2025: Audeze

This year was the first time I’ve met with Audeze, a very highly thought of audio company. Many swear by their headphones and they’ve got a few good ones it seems for gamers. While they didn’t have anything new in terms of gaming headsets to announce at CES, I was privy to learning more about the company and experiencing their CRBN2.

If you don’t know about Audeze, they specialize in headphones utilizing planar drivers. Their two gaming headsets, the Maxwell and the LCD-GX, are super high quality headsets that deliver top notch quality sound. The Maxwell is probably the one that you’re familiar with the most as that’s a pretty popular model amongst gamers and I’ve seen many streamers use them.

At the meeting, I found one of the more interesting tidbits was that because the Maxwell has the ability to do spatial sound with their head tracking feature and is Dolby Atmos certified, creators can use the Maxwells and the Dolby Atmos software to create spatial audio for their games or maybe even movies. Whereas before you would need an expensive setup and array of speakers to achieve this, it’s possible to just use the headphones and software to accomplish this task. Doing so could save a creator money and open this type of audio engineering up to a lot more people who can’t afford an expensive setup.

One of the most impressive audio headsets I’ve ever heard was the CRBN2. While not really game specific, these headphones that are priced at $5995.00 were truly mind blowing to me. You see, I sometimes have difficulty deciphering whether an audio product truly is good or if my ears are just not in tune with what other people hear. That said, when I heard music through the CRBN2, I was flabbergasted by how clear and clean it sounded. The strings on the bass in one song was just so crisp and the vocals were incredibly reproduced by the CRBN2.

I can’t comment on the comfortability of them because I didn’t get to wear them long term, but for the short period I had with them they felt good. The clamping force didn’t feel overtly strong and my ears fit nicely in the cups of the CRBN2. It’s an open back design, a design that I don’t have much experience with as well.

You’ll need a pretty good amp to drive these, but I feel if you can afford to buy a CRBN2, you’ll probably have the necessary equipment or can get the necessary equipment to drive the CRBN2 to its fullest.

There’s been a few times in my career as a reviewer where I was so impressed by an audio product that I could not wait to get my hands on it to use. The CRBN2 is on that short list, but then again what do you expect from a pair of headphones that cost more than most high end PC setups. I could have just sat there and listened to music all day with them on and I think those who are able to afford one will find that the CRBN2’s are some of the best sounding headphones produced. These electrostatic headphones are in a tier all by themselves.