Recently, I’ve been testing AKG’s latest pair of N5 and N9 Hybrid headphones, and without giving too much away, I think that both are pretty solid.
One is an over-ear pair, the other is a true wireless model, but what unites both models is that they come with a Wi-Fi dongle.
With this Wi-Fi dongle you can plug it into a PC, laptop – any device that you can connect it through USB-C and allows it to send audio to the headphones; and in doing so you can listen to sound (audio and video) over Wi-Fi.
My question is, why haven’t more headphones done this?
The holy grail for sound
Maybe I’m out of the loop, maybe more headphones have done this, but the only ones I’m familiar with are gaming headsets that connect to consoles and PCs via a similar Wi-Fi dongle. This dongle allows for both higher quality and lower latency because of the increased bandwidth over Bluetooth.
The way AKG integrated the Wi-Fi dongle with the headphones makes for a pretty seamless and quick setup. The biggest problem I had with the over-ears was trying to locate where the Wi-Fi dongle was (it’s cleverly enclosed within one of the earcups). I was almost about to email the PR to tell them they forgot to include the Wi-Fi dongle.
It’s a pretty nifty way of getting higher quality audio to your headphones, which should be a decent amount better than over Bluetooth.
Wi-Fi is the holy grail for headphones. Apple has been rumoured to be chasing Wi-Fi integration for years. We thought Sonos would include it in what is now its Ace headphones – it seemed like the obvious thing for Sonos to do – but instead, the headphones don’t really support Wi-Fi connectivity.
We’ve reviewed at least one headphone on this website that did have Wi-Fi connectivity in the HED Unity. There was very little wrong with its sound, but the control app it came with was pretty much unfinished.
With gains in noise-cancellation, comfort and design getting towards being minor gains, I’m surprised that more headphones haven’t adopted this form of Wi-Fi integration. Imagine the Sony WH-1000XM6 or even AirPods Max if they had Wi-Fi connectivity?
Something of a blind spot
I’m not sure why more audio manufacturers haven’t tried this. Granted, Wi-Fi connectivity is not everywhere, which is likely a reason for not adopting it. And then there’s an added aspect of the headphones for owners to deal with, as well as potentially something to lose.
But as more and more audio brands chase higher quality sound, it’s odd that they aren’t covering all bases. They’re trying hard to extract as much performance from a Bluetooth connection, improving the drivers, improving the wireless latency between the headphones and source.
But even the likes of LDAC and LHDC feature some lossy compression (loss of detail), while Snapdragon Sound requires that you have compatible headphones and source to get close to the best sound performance.
In the past five years, I’ve reviewed a variety of headphones, budget and premium, and there’s no doubt in my mind that compared to where headphones were in 2020, they’ve vastly improved in 2025.
But aside from these pair of AKG headphones, no one has really dabbled with Wi-Fi connectivity. AKG has made it relatively easy, and in that context, I hope more manufacturers consider adding it to their future headphones.
