Kiwi Ears Ardor Review

Kiwi Ears is known for their economically priced IEMs, but now they’ve released their first ever Bluetooth headphone. Priced at just under $100, the Ardor delivers more than just the basics, featuring active noise canceling (ANC), a dual dynamic driver setup, and industry-leading battery life. But it’s the surprisingly refined soundstage and midrange clarity that truly set these headphones apart from the typical budget crowd. Let’s break down everything the Kiwi Ears Ardor offers, from its sleek, comfort-focused design to its shockingly detailed audio profile, to help you decide if it’s the best wireless headphone for your needs in 2025.

What You Get

• Kiwi Ears Ardor
• Zipper Case
• USB Type-C Charging Cable
• 3.5mm auxiliary headphone jack
• User Manual

Look & Feel

The Ardor has a fairly standard design for a budget over-ear Bluetooth headphone. One of the things that sticks out about it the most is its padding, and not just on the headband and earcups, but the face of the cups too. Altogether, the Ardor forms a compact design that has very soft pads. It seals nicely around your ears and sits comfortably. There’s a bit of tightness, but it never feels like there’s any significant pressure to deal with.

Design & Functionality

Underneath the hood of the Ardor is a dual-driver configuration. It uses two dynamic drivers, one of them being 40mm and the other being 10mm. This gives the Ardor a sizable output power, displaying a comfortable gain with just enough headroom to make adjustments. The Ardor also has active noise canceling, which performs adequately for the price. It’s perfectly functional ANC, suppressing most obstructive sounds in your environment. ANC is activated with a physical button, which is the only major functionality the Ardor offers. There is no companion app with EQ, but you can activate spatial audio via “game mode” by quickly pressing the power button three times in sequence.

Bluetooth

The Ardor uses Bluetooth 5.4 for quick pairing and exceptional wireless stability. While only being a hundred dollars, it’s still a bit disappointing that the Ardor only supports SBC and AAC.

Battery Life

This is the best battery life for an over-ear ANC headphone. For a hundred-dollar headphone, that’s extremely impressive. The Ardor can be listened to for 72 hours with ANC, and 140 hours without. That’s massive. When I was testing the Ardor, I kept checking the percentage on my phone, and it seemed like it was set at 100% for hours.

Soundstage

You might have an idea of what a hundred-dollar wireless headphone’s soundstage performs like, but the Ardor will surprise you. The Ardor’s wide headspace immediately enamoured me, impressively widening the scope of the sound. It’s definitely more than I expected for a headphone of this type. The left and right channels have a good amount of separation, and the layering is able to communicate a broader space that weaves instruments over each other with clarity. Its imaging is very floaty, forming a dome-like space around your head, and that’s without spatial audio. In fact, when switching spatial audio on and off, I couldn’t figure out what it was really doing. It doesn’t take away anything from the sound of the Ardor, but the soundstage is perfectly fine without spatial audio in my opinion.

Low End

I expected the bass of the Ardor to be very central to the sound signature, but it was another area where these headphones caught me by surprise. If you’re expecting a fun but boomy bass response, the Ardor is surprisingly balanced and smooth. It reaches down to a surprising depth, displaying a layer of sub-bass drive that rumbles and lifts the frequencies. This gives the bass tone a throaty feel, which doesn’t always feature the most dominant impact, but demonstrates note clarity.

Mids

With the sound signature being full of surprises, the midrange performance is certainly its biggest one. Usually, wireless headphones in this price range scoop out the mids to make more room for bass, but it’s the Ardor’s best attribute. It harnesses a ton of energy, with full instruments that have shape and weight. The clarity and detail go beyond what you expect from a budget wireless headphone. There are many more expensive headphones on the market that don’t reach the level of midrange transparency that the Ardor does.

Highs

The treble was as clear as the rest of the sound signature, but not as refined. It maintains a high-end presence without being too harsh, but it has its share of bright spots. At its best, the highs on the Ardor offer a bit of edge, but the frequency response could hold a tighter grasp on its sibilant character.

Summary

In a crowded field of budget over-ear Bluetooth headphones, the Kiwi Ears Ardor stands tall as an exceptional value for under $100. While its codec support may be limited to SBC and AAC, it makes up for that with astonishing battery life (up to 140 hours), a clean and powerful sound signature, and surprisingly effective ANC. Its standout midrange clarity and spacious soundstage are simply unmatched in this price bracket, making it ideal for both casual listening and detail-focused audiophiles on a budget. If you’re looking for a feature-rich, great-sounding wireless headphone without breaking the bank, the Kiwi Ears Ardor is more than worth your attention.

The Kiwi Ears Ardor is available from Linsoul.