INTRODUCTION

   Consumers and professionals alike looking for the best ANC (active noise cancelling) headphones currently primarily look at two brands, SONY and BOSE which design, develop and produce (and have produced) some of the best models money can buy to date. However, SONY and BOSE are not the only two manufacturers that have good ANC solutions in their product lines, others like for example Sennheiser and Jabra also have very good choices aimed towards demanding users and even audiophiles. Cost however matters to many people and so far, none of the well-known and established manufacturers has produced anything close to being affordable/budget-friendly, at least not with a good level of ANC. The new Aiwa brand aims to change that with the recent release of their ARC-1 ANC model which I’ve been using for roughly 2 weeks.

   We’ve proudly resurrected the iconic Aiwa brand in the passionate pursuit of bringing people together around music. How do we do that? We create products that deliver legendary sound quality; we bring you the music you love, the way it was meant to be heard. Aiwa has a simple formula for delivering serious audio equipment without compromise – we have the best acoustic talent, we put our money into the highest quality components and we offer world-class service. For those that want music to be more than background noise, for those who want their music to have the power to entertain.

   The ARC-1 ANC model by Aiwa is built around an IPX5 (water and sweat resistant) certified body which houses two 40mm dynamic stereo drivers (20Hz-20KHz frequency response/40mW max input power/advanced biocellulose composite), 3 microphones (2 for ANC & 1 for Calls) and a 750mAh lithium-ion rechargeable battery pack which can power the device for up to 40 hours (with ANC off - up to 25 hours with ANC on). As expected, the ARC-1 ANC uses 2 of the 3 built-in microphones to filter out ambient noise by using the Qualcomm CSR 8670 chipset (cVc 8th Generation voice processing technology with wideband speech - aptX, aptX Low Latency, MP3, AAC and SBC audio codecs are supported). The ARC-1 ANC also feature Bluetooth v5.0 connectivity (10 meter range with support for the following profiles: HSP v1.2 , HFP v1.7, A2DP v1.3, AVRCP v1.6, PBAP v1.1 and SPP v1.2), 24-bit DSP, Qconnect technology (allows other headsets to connect with it and listen what you're listening), exterior earcup controls, foldable & rotatable earcups and support for voice commands/assistant (compatible with Apple's Siri and Google Assistant). Last but not least Aiwa covers the ARC-1 ANC with a 3-year limited warranty.