Audeze crossover review: A great speaker, but do you need it?

If you take the occasional call, a Bluetooth headset works well, but it can be uncomfortable if you spend much of your day on calls or video chatting. This is precisely the problem that the Audeze Filter Bluetooth conference speaker aims to solve.

If you're familiar with the Audeze brand, this device may come as a surprise since the company is best known for its planar magnetic headphones. The filter actually uses a planar magnetic speaker, but the focus isn't on the music at all. Instead, this device uses carefully chosen parts and AI-powered noise cancellation to make voices clear and easy to understand at both ends.

Is a professional speaker from a company popular with audiophiles a good idea? It's certainly built well and sounds great, but it seems aimed at a decidedly narrow market.

Premium look and feel

Audeze has certainly not skimped on the presentation of the Filter. The review unit arrived tucked away in a sleek black box. Inside, the speaker was stored in a sturdy black leather case, which features a magnetic flap to keep the device well covered.

The size of the filter was eerily close to my iPhone 13 Pro Max, so much so that I felt like it was designed as a companion. With phones trending towards the larger size, it's a good idea to see the filter sized similarly.

The build of the unit felt solid, especially the hinge that allows you to position the speaker towards you with the speaker sitting on a desk. The hinge seems completely solid and I'd be surprised if it started to feel looser or weaker within a few years.

The built-in USB-C port is covered out of the box, which helps protect against water, but given that the speaker is partially exposed to the elements, this doesn't offer much protection.

All the connectivity you need

The Audeze filter is intended to be used either with a telephone for calls or with a computer for audio and video calls. You can connect wirelessly via Bluetooth or wired via USB-C.

As for wireless, the Audeze filter includes Bluetooth 5.0 and a surprising number of codecs. While even expensive Bluetooth headphones sometimes only offer the standard SBC codec, the filter also supports AAC and aptX Classic.

While most will likely stick with Bluetooth, the USB-C functionality is particularly useful if you're using the filter for Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or other similar apps.

Controls: surprisingly detailed

There is only one physical button on the Audeze filter: the power button on the side of the device. The other six controls on the face are capacitive touch buttons. On headphones and earbuds, these can be annoying and easy to touch accidentally, but they work well on a device meant to sit on a desk.

With just six buttons, you can control most device functions. You get volume up and down buttons and a handy mute button, plus an Audeze logo-branded multifunction button for answering and ending calls. The other two controls adjust noise cancellation and microphone pickup angle.

To narrow down the options, you'll want to use the Audeze Hub app. This is available for iPhone and Android. It's also available for Windows and Mac, which is handy if you use the filter more for video chat.

The app lets you choose the strength of the AI ​​noise cancellation, as well as how wide or narrow the detection angle is. You can also test the microphone to see how your voice sounds, increase the speaker volume, and adjust the volume of voice prompts.

The voices sound good, but the music? Not really

Audeze clearly states on the filter's product page that it is a speaker device and not a Bluetooth speaker. That's true, but since it connects to your device via Bluetooth just like a speaker would, it's hard to resist the temptation to play music on it.

Used as a speaker, the Audeze filter works great for audiobooks and podcasts. It's not a device you want to use for music, however, as bass is suppressed from 300Hz onward, meaning you'll miss out on a significant amount of bass content.

That said, that same bass reduction means lower-pitched vocals don't have the same booming quality as they do on Bluetooth speakers. Vocals across the spectrum sound great on the Audeze filter, as they should. The volume is also quite high, thanks to the planar magnetic drivers and the Uniforce voice coil.

Impressive microphone and noise cancellation

Making incoming voices sound good is only half the equation when it comes to speakers. You want to make sure the people on the other end of the line can hear you clearly as well.

To that end, the filter has an AI-powered noise-canceling beamforming microphone to make sure background noise from your side doesn't get through. I didn't have a crowded office to test the filter, so a noisy TV in the background should suffice, but the noise cancellation seems quite effective.

Of course, especially with business calls, you're not always the only person on your side of the call. This is where the adjustable angle comes from. Instead of choosing a standard pickup angle like cardioid or supercardioid, you can choose from different angles. It ranges from a narrow 30 degrees to a wide 180 degrees.

With a low angle, the filter will only pick up voices directly in front of it. It's handy if you're making a call from a busy office or a crowded cafe. On the other hand, if you're with two other people, all on a speakerphone call, a wider angle, like 90 or 180 degrees, ensures that other voices are picked up as well as yours.

Audeze filter microphone sample: Close

Audeze Filter Microphone Sample: Distant

Example of an Audeze filter microphone: with background noise

Plenty of battery life

Audeze claims the filter provides up to 15 hours of battery life on a single charge. That's more than enough for even the longest day of calls. Battery life always depends on the volume you're listening to, as well as other factors like whether or not you're using noise cancellation.

Interestingly, Audeze provides volume for its battery life: 80 decibels at 50cm, or about 3 feet. A standard conversation is usually around 60 decibels, so that's a pretty good number for realistic use.

Personally, I don't need to make that many phone calls or spend that much time video chatting, so I couldn't test battery life that way. When testing by playing an audiobook and making occasional calls, I got over 16 hours.

Should you buy the Audeze filter speaker?

The Audeze Filter speaker isn't the type of product you'd expect from the company, but it has the design and attention to detail that makes Audeze headphones and earbuds so popular. I was so drawn to the sleek design and functionality that I found myself wishing I had more reason to use it.

That's the main point against the Audeze filter: it's not a product that many of us need. Even with remote working more popular than ever, not everyone spends much of their day making calls or chatting with their team members. It's hard to justify paying the asking price if you only make a few calls a week.

On the other hand, if you spend all day talking to others, whether on the phone or via Zoom, the Audeze filter is a fantastic alternative to headphones. If you want to see more remote work audio solutions for comparison, check out our picks for the best office conferencing speakers.