Bang & Olufsen hits the high end with its newest luxury earbuds, the Beo Grace

Bang & Olufsen takes a leap into the super-premium market with its newest flagship earbuds. At a price point that makes Apple’s AirPods Pro 3 look like a budget option, the Beo Grace earbuds promise class-leading audio quality matched with meticulous engineering and finishing.

These are not your typical mass-produced earbuds. Each Beo Grace is made from polished aluminium, as is the charging case. The company describes the earbuds as ‘a study in wearable sculpture’, and while we wouldn’t go quite that far, they have a polish and a presence that you won’t find in low-end devices, let alone in a typical branded pair.

Luxury doesn’t just mean the price point, it also means performance and durability. In the case of Beo Grace, the pearl-blasted aluminium finishes are paired with an acoustically advanced 12mm titanium driver. B&O’s own EarSense noise cancelling is now four times more effective than earlier iterations and the company has also incorporated Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos into the earbuds.

Battery life has been substantially improved. B&O has teamed up with Breathe, a UK-based start-up dedicated to improving battery performance through better monitoring and adaptive charging. This focus on 'battery intelligence' tailors energy use to each individual cell, improving both life and charge speed. For Beo Grace, the inclusion of a custom-designed battery management system has seen results of more than 2,000 charge cycles, more than four times the expected baseline.

As with all premium earbuds, the Beo Grace also offers gesture control, with the ability for users to control the volume by tapping just in front of the ear. Play controls require more force, with a touch and accompanying click to pause, play and skip back and forth, as well as switch between the noise cancellation and transparency modes. The latter uses the six high-precision microphones within the earbuds to create a striking, hiss-free soundscape that's intended to do away with the feeling of wearing earbuds altogether.

The fully charged Beo Grace earbuds should deliver 4.5 hours of listening, with the case adding an extra 12.5 hours. For another layer of tactile luxury, B&O offers a bespoke leather pouch for the charge case, available in Infinite Black, Cranberry Red and Seashell Grey.

Bang & Olufsen Beo Grace, £1,000 / €1,200 / $1,500, leather charge case pouch, £250, Bang-Olufsen.com, @BangOlufsen