One of the most elite audiophile earbuds makers has a smart new USB-C Hi-Res pair for a much more realistic price
Elite wired earbuds for a fraction of the usual price

- Campfire Audio Axion wired earbuds with USB-C just unveiled
- New silicon dynamic driver and a built-in 32bit/384 kHz DAC
- Available for £249 / $249 / about AU$413
Campfire Audio makes exquisite earphones that can rank among the best wired earbuds, but they're priced beyond many people's budgets: for example, its Clara earphones are fantastic but launched with a price tag of $1,999 / £1,999 (around AU$3,900). So we're intrigued by the new Campfire Audio Axion earphones, which have an official price of just £249 / $249 / about AU$413.
The price may be a fraction of what you'd pay for Campfire's best headphones. But the specification is impressive, with a high-quality DAC and a newly designed driver.
Campfire Audio Axion: key features
The new Axion earphones have an integrated USB-C cable featuring a built-in 32-bit/384kHz DAC chip, an in-line microphone and a three-button control panel. That's likely to be a big upgrade to the DAC in your phone… and being USB-C means you can actually connect them to your phone.
The star here is the new full-range silicon driver, which Campfire Audio says "blends a unique, compact form factor like that of a balanced armature alongside the rich sonic properties of a dynamic driver."
Sound-wise the Axion earbuds promise "just the right amount" of warmth, smooth highs and "impactful" lows.
You'll be able to get your hands on a pair from Amazon and other well-known retailers from later in April 2025, and given the company's history, we're very interested in these.
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Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than a dozen books. Her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, is on sale now and her next book, about pop music, is out in 2025. She is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind.
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