Beats Studio Buds+ offer improved performance and a transparent design option for $169.99

After nearly two months of leaks, the Beats Studio Buds+ are now official, with Apple’s audio brand revealing improved performance and some new color options compared to the original Beats Studio Buds, including an eye-catching transparent option.

At $169.99, a $20 increase over the original model, the Beats Studio Buds+ offer improvements to suitability, active noise cancellation (ANC), transparency mode, microphones, battery life, and more.

The most noticeable change for the Beats Studio Buds+ is the overall look, with the new transparent color option being the standout along with the black option with gold accents and the ivory option. The transparent design reminds us of what its phones and headphones didn’t do, though the specific look is somewhat different. While parts of their devices don’t have a completely transparent exterior, Beats’ transparency isn’t crystal clear but basically includes every part of the outside of the buds, the case, and even the ear tips.

In addition to the new colors, the Studio Buds+ look essentially identical to the original Studio Buds, but Beats says 95% of the internals are all-new including 3x larger microphones for improved voice pickup and an all-new vent and mic design. As with the previous model, the Studio Buds+ include IPX4 sweat and water resistance to stand up to workouts and weather.

When it comes to fit, the Studio Buds+ make improvements there too with a new extra-small ear tip option that combines the existing small, medium, and large sizes to fit a wider range of ears with a better seal.

The multifunctional “b” button on each earbud has been redesigned to reduce accidental pressing and provide a firmer feel. The button continues to offer standard media controls where a single press handles play/pause, double press skips forward, and triple press skips backward.

The press-and-hold function lets you switch between ANC mode and Transparency mode, but it can also be configured to activate a voice assistant or adjust the volume up and down. The call handling function can also be customized to require either one or two presses to end the call.

Aside from ANC and transparency, the Beats Studio Buds+ also support spatial audio content on Apple Music, though they don’t include the immersive head tracking functionality found on the Beats Fit Pro and many AirPods models.

Instead of using Apple’s H1 or H2 chip, the Beats Studio Buds+ use a custom 2nd generation “Beats Proprietary Platform” that offers many of the same features as Apple’s chips like “Hey Siri” and Find My Support, automatic device switching via iCloud and more, While it also offers similar features on Android like Find My Device, one-touch pairing, and automatic pairing with all devices associated with the same Google account.

With a revised vent design and ANC processing now found on the base chipset, Studio Buds+ have up to 1.6x better ANC than the previous model and up to 2x better transparency performance. The buds also include playback correction, which attempts to remove residual audio artifacts that might be introduced by ANC or transparency processing. The feedback microphone and secondary filter analyze audio data at up to 50,000 times per second to ensure playback accuracy.

Additional improvements in audio performance focus on noise suppression and acoustic targeting to make sure speech is as clear as possible, while larger microphones provide a higher signal-to-noise ratio with greater sensitivity. Machine learning was used to train the system in a variety of noisy environments to capture the optimal sound.

Battery life sees a significant increase in Studio Buds+, with the earbuds providing up to 9 hours of battery life with ANC and transparency off and the case providing an additional 27 hours for a total of 36 hours of battery life, a 50% increase compared to the original Studio Buds. With ANC or Transparency turned on, you’ll get 6 hours of buds on a single charge, with an additional 18 hours available from the charging case.

As with the original Studio Buds, the new model’s case charges over USB-C and does not support wireless charging, and a micro USB-C to USB-C cable is included. It takes two hours to fully charge the case and the speakers, but the 5-minute Fast Fuel feature provides up to an hour of battery life when it’s running low.

All three colors of the Beats Studio Buds+ are priced at $169.99 and available to order starting today on apple.com in the US, Canada and China, with shipping starting tomorrow. Versions will be released in other countries over the next few months.