The $299 Fender Mix, priced well below options from market leaders Apple, Bose, and Sony, enters an increasingly crowded field of midrange noise-cancelling headphones. Their main selling point is the modular and repairable design—something few competitors offer. In addition to letting you easily swap out parts, you can replace the battery and take advantage of a built-in USB-C transmitter for high-quality listening. I really like the long battery life and comfortable fit, but the Mix headphones are somewhat bass-heavy and don't reduce noise as well as the others. If the modularity and other extras appeal to you, the Mix is worth a listen. But for $100 less, we recommend the Nothing Headphone (a), which sounds better out of the box, cancels noise more effectively, and lasts longer on a charge, making them our Editors' Choice.

Design: More Functional Than Many

The Fender Mix looks like a typical pair of black headphones at first glance, but it features unique and interesting design elements hidden from view. For starters, they're modular. The earcups, ear pads, headband, and even the battery can all be swapped out without tools, which is rare among headphones.

The earcups are magnetic, so you can remove and replace them without much effort. A USB-C transmitter is hidden beneath the left earcup, and access to the battery is hidden beneath the right one. Even though it all easily comes apart when you want it to, everything clicks into place securely, and nothing about it feels cheap or like it would break.

The headphones are mostly made of matte plastic and look perfectly fine. You'll spot the Fender logo on the outside of each earcup, and the ear cushions and headband are wrapped in faux leather. The earcups swivel but don't fold, so the headphones aren't quite as portable as others. They're comfortable to wear, with a lightweight build and a gentle clamp force. The pricier Sony WH-1000XM6 ($449.99) and the Bose QuietComfort Ultra ($449) are more comfortable, but I was able to wear the Mix for hours without much discomfort.

(Credit: Christian de Looper)

You control them with a joystick and a button on the right earcup. The joystick handles the vast majority of functions: Slide it up or down to adjust the volume, left or right to skip tracks forward or back, and press inward to play or pause audio. A press-and-hold turns the headphones on and off. The button toggles between ANC, Ambient, and Off modes with a single press, and between the three preset EQ modes (Music EQ, Voice EQ, and Entertainment EQ) with a double-press.

I really like this approach to controls. The joystick is intuitive, so it's easy to control audio and playback without memorizing different button combinations. Unfortunately, the controls aren't customizable. Why not? There's no companion app, at least not yet. Fender says one is coming, even though they have been available for a couple of months.

There are two physical connectors: a 3.5mm jack for wired listening, and a USB-C port for charging.

Internally, the headphones have 40mm graphene drivers with a frequency range of 20Hz to 40kHz. That puts them in High-Res Audio territory. The headphones connect to your listening device via Bluetooth 5.3 and support AAC, LC3, LHDC, and SBC codecs, which is quite good. The removable USB-C transmitter lets you listen to lossless audio when plugged into a source device like your laptop.

(Credit: Christian de Looper)

The kit includes the headphones, a decent hard case with a removable pocket for cables, a braided nylon audio cable, and a short USB-A-to-USB-C charging cable.

Battery: Impressive Listening Times

You may not need to charge the Fender Mix all that often. The headphones offer excellent battery life. Fender says they deliver 52 hours of listening with active noise cancellation (ANC) on and an impressive 100 hours with ANC off. Further, they recharge in a jiffy. Plugging them in for 15 minutes nets you eight hours of playback with ANC enabled. 

Believe it or not, the Nothing headphones outlast the Fenders by a wide margin.

Noise Cancellation: A Mediocre Mix

It continues to get easier to find good ANC at lower and lower price points. While Apple, Bose, and Sony maintain their iron-clad grip on the high-end of the market, you can still find great noise-cancelling headphones in the $200 to $300 range. The Mix is one of Fender's first efforts, and the company has some climbing to do along the learning curve.

The ANC here is fine—and only fine. They can reduce low background droning from consistent sources such as plane engines or nearby fans. Those sounds are still audible, but not as distracting. Where the headphones fall short is with inconsistent noise. They’re not good at reducing the noise from a city bus, like the high-pitched sound of the doors opening and closing or the suspension. In a busy cafe, they cut out some background chatter, but nearby conversations are still easy to hear. Moreover, the ANC introduces a masking hiss to hide the higher frequencies.

(Credit: Christian de Looper)

The Ambient Mode is not very good at reproducing high frequencies, so the audio sounds somewhat unnatural. It will work for short conversations, but you probably won't want to use it often or for very long.

The Nothing Headphone (a) does a better job here.

Sound: A Tale of Two Tunings

Fender has a long history as an audio company, and thankfully, the Mix headphones generally sound good. But the audio response varies significantly depending on how you listen.

When connected via Bluetooth and when using the default Music EQ mode, the headphones are quite bass-heavy. On a track like The Knife's "Silent Shout," the sub-bass can be a little overwhelming. The headphones deliver decent clarity and detail in the high end, but it is sometimes overshadowed by the bass.

(Credit: Christian de Looper)

This response is evident on Kendrick Lamar's "Loyalty," though the extra bass fits this track a little better. "Loyalty" really relies on sub-bass, and the Mix is great at reproducing it, including all but the lowest of the notes at the song's 34-second mark. Lamar and Rihanna's vocals are reasonably rich in the mix, and the mids have a welcome presence here.

On tracks that are meant to sound a little more neutral, like Bill Callahan's "Drover," the boosted bass is distracting. It makes the kick drum too big, and while Callahan's signature baritone vocal has a rich body, it borders on boomy in some segments. The acoustic guitar is a little too tucked away, making it hard to pick out in the mix.

During the opening scene to John Adams' The Gospel According to the Other Mary, the lower strings have a little more meat to them than the higher-frequency instruments, like the brass and the violins. The headphones offer solid instrument separation and a good soundstage, which helps give everything a little bit of room.

(Credit: Christian de Looper)

The audio changes dramatically if you opt to listen via the USB-C transmitter. The overly bass-heavy tuning gives way to a more neutral, crisp frequency response that I much prefer. The headphones still emphasize the bass, but dial it way down. Moreover, I hear more detail in the high end, which makes music sound more exciting.

This is both good and bad. I'm glad the headphones can sound good, but I wish they offered this tuning when listening via Bluetooth. I've reached out to Fender for an explanation and will provide more details once I receive a response.

Microphones: Limited Range

The microphones aren't great. My voice sounds thin and mid-heavy in a recording I made with my iPhone's Voice Memos app. I could hear the words I spoke fine, so it works for voice calls, but I wouldn't use them to capture important audio.