Best List: Mythro Air wireless earbuds by Moshi
Moshi’s Mythro Air wireless earbuds look good and sound good. They offer all-day battery life, a clever magnetic clip to keep them in place, and a unique feature that allows you to share music from a single source to two sets of Mythro Air earbuds.
Best of all, they cost $69.99, and sound better than premium earbuds costing two or three times more.
Photo: Lyle Kahney/Cult of Mac
Solid design
Like most of Moshi’s products, the Mythro Air earbuds are well-designed and well-made. They are constructed from durable aluminum that comes in three colors — Gunmetal Grey, Burgundy Red and Jet Silver.
There’s an in-line control with a microphone and volume buttons. Phone calls sound clear at both ends.
The battery pack is beefier than some competing products. Moshi rates the battery at eight hours, which is roundabouts what we got in tests. Moshi’s Bluetooth Audio app shows the battery level (which is also displayed in iOS 10 on the iPhone’s status bar when connected). The app also includes a low-power alarm, equalizer, presets and auto power off.
Bluetooth pairing is easy and straightforward. Moshi’s DJ4two feature allows a second pair of Mythro Air earbuds to be connected to the same source, which proves handy for sharing music or watching a movie with somebody else. We tested it with the kids watching shows on my iPhone 7 in the back of the car. Apart from fighting over what to watch, it worked fine.
Included are three sizes of soft silicon ear tips that offer good sound isolation and really pump the bass with a snug fit. Wearing the earbuds is comfortable and unobtrusive, especially with the clever magnetic clip, which keeps them in place while exercising or on the move.
Photo: Lyle Kahney/Cult of Mac
So how do these Bluetooth earbuds sound?
The sound quality is better than expected at this price. The Mythro Air earbuds are built around a pair of 8mm neodymium drivers that deliver frequency response of 15 Hz to 20 kHz (-10dB@1kHz). The commonly stated range of human hearing is 20Hz to 20kHz.
They aren’t as open or wide as a set of high-quality wired headphones, but for most music, these Bluetooth earbuds sound clear and sharp, with solid bass and midrange. The Mythro Air buds sounded pretty great to my ears.
I compared them to a couple of pairs of Bluetooth earbuds that cost $200 and $300 respectively, and they sounded better in my opinion. They have stronger bass and a warmer, fuller sound. I was surprised, frankly, and happy too. I’ve lost several Bluetooth earbuds, and I’d rather be out $70 than $300.
Bottom line
Moshi’s reputation for quality goods at affordable prices is upheld by the Mythro Air earbuds. They punch above their weight in the affordable class, and are highly recommended for the gym.
Price: $69.99
Buy from: Amazon
Moshi provided Cult of Mac with a review unit for this article. Check out more Best List reviews. Read Cult of Mac’s reviews policy.
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander is an expert on:
Apple and Apple history
Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Tim Cook and Apple leadership
Apple community
iPhone and iOS
iPad and iPadOS
Mac and macOS
Apple Watch and watchOS
Apple TV and tvOS
AirPods
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
