Fender MIX – wireless headphones you can take apart

Wireless headphones have a sad life cycle. After two or three years the battery fades, the ear pads crack, and the whole thing goes in a drawer. The drivers inside are often still fine.

The Fender MIX are wireless noise-cancelling headphones built to be taken apart. The battery, the ear cushions and the headband can be swapped, so a worn part doesn’t kill the whole pair.

Yes, that Fender. The guitar people. And on paper they did a lot right on the first try.

What are the Fender MIX headphones?

The MIX is the first pair of headphones from Fender Audio, a new consumer audio brand carrying the Fender name. Fender showed it at CES in January 2026, next to the ELIE Bluetooth speakers. Both went on sale in the US in August 2026, at Amazon, Best Buy and FenderAudio.com. The MIX costs 299 bucks.

It’s a pair of over-ear headphones with hybrid active noise cancellation, spatial audio and 40 mm graphene drivers. The colors are Skyscraper Black and Olympic White. At launch the white one was a Best Buy exclusive.

How does it work?

The clever part is hidden. The ear pads are magnetic, and under the earcups sit the battery and a small USB-C transmitter. Dave Carr at SoundGuys tried it at CES and liked that nothing sticks out: from the outside it looks like any premium pair. Inside, the earcups connect to the headband over USB-C, so there are no loose wires.

That transmitter is called the FWD Tx. Plug it into a laptop, phone or console and you get three modes, according to Fender:

• Lossless wireless audio at up to 96 kHz/24-bit
• A low-latency mode for gaming, under 20 ms
• Auracast, for sharing audio with other Auracast devices

Without the dongle it’s a regular Bluetooth 5.3 headphone with SBC, AAC, LC3 and LHDC. There’s also a 3.5 mm input for when the battery is flat, and a joystick on the earcup for playback.

Fender rates the battery at 100 hours with noise cancelling off and 52 hours with it on. Fifteen minutes of charging gives about an hour of playback.

The good and the not-so-good

What I like:

• A battery you can replace. That’s the part that wears out first, and here it’s a part, not a death sentence.
• 100 hours on paper. That’s about a month of commuting for most people.
• The dongle is included, and it lives inside the earcup, so you won’t lose it. (I would lose it.)
• SoundGuys found vocals clear and the treble more detailed than expected for a first-generation product.

What could be better:

• SoundGuys heard more bass than its reviewer prefers by default. It never got boomy, but if you like a flat sound you’ll want the EQ.
• It’s a first-generation product from a new audio brand. Amazon shows a 4.9-star average, but from only 23 ratings so far.
• Only two colors, and the white one may be easier to find at Best Buy than on Amazon.

Who is the Fender MIX for?

People who are tired of replacing headphones every few years, and gamers or laptop users who’d use the low-latency dongle. A guitarist who already owns three Fender guitars will probably smile at the logo too.

If you mainly want the strongest noise cancelling for flights, the big names from Sony and Bose are still the safe bet. Want something even more modular, made for producers? Look at the AIAIAI TMA-2 HD. Or compare with the Nothing Headphone (1), another design-first pair.

Where can I buy the Fender MIX?

Fender sells the MIX through its own Amazon store, at Best Buy and on FenderAudio.com. It was about 300 bucks at the time of writing (October 2026), in Skyscraper Black. For the guitarist who has everything, pair it with a Fender Mustang Micro Plus and they can practice silently, too.