The Status Audio Pro X is a pair we have rated before. It arrived in 2025 with a hybrid triple-driver array in each earbud, LDAC at 24-bit/96kHz, noise cancelling rated up to 52dB, and a price well under what the household names charge for the same job. Status has been going since 2014, and the Pro X is the product that got it noticed.

The GoldenSound Pro X is a limited edition of that same earbud, and the hardware inside it has not changed at all. Same drivers, same case, same codecs, same noise cancelling. What is different is the tuning, which comes from Cameron Oatley and the team he works with as GoldenSound, along with a black and gold colourway and an engraved case lid. It costs £249 in the UK at the time of writing.

That makes this an unusual thing to review, because the entire difference is software. The question is not whether the Pro X is good hardware; that was settled a while ago. It is whether a tuning researched this far is worth having, and who it is for. Status Audio gave us our pair free of charge at IFA in Berlin.

The black and gold finish is the only visual tell. The standard Pro X comes in Black Alloy or Moonbeam; this one comes in one colourway and no other, with gold plating on the stem accents and gold engraving on the lid of the charging case. It is restrained rather than loud, which is the right call on a product that spends its life in your ears where nobody can see it anyway.

The chassis is metal-plated and carries over from the standard Pro X unchanged. Status describes the body as substantially smaller than its earlier true wireless designs, built to sit close in the ear rather than protrude from it. The case charges wirelessly on a Qi pad or over USB-C, and there is an optical sensor in each earbud that pauses playback when you take one out (a feature we really like).

Controls are split between a touch surface on each stem and a physical button, with the button handling the noise cancelling and ambient modes. A physical button for mode switching is worth more than it sounds on a product like this, because touch surfaces are the first thing to misread an input when your hands are cold or wet.

One gap worth naming: Status does not publish a weight for the earbuds themselves anywhere we could find, on either the standard or the GoldenSound page. We would rather tell you that than quote a figure we cannot stand behind.

In the hand and ear they feel light, and so does the case (that never went anywhere near inside our ears, don’t worry), which tucks into a bag without being obvious.

Here is the full sheet, taken from Status Audio's own listings:

Set that against the standard Pro X and almost nothing moves. The drivers are identical, the noise cancelling figure is identical, and the codec support, the case, the protection rating and the microphone array are all identical. This is the same earbud with different firmware and a different paint job, and Status is upfront about that.

One thing the app will not let you do is edit Oatley's profile. Try it and a warning pops up to tell you so. That is the right call, because the honest GoldenSound tuning is the entire reason you bought these. If you want more bass, four other presets sit alongside it and every one of those can be customised.

One figure Status does not state consistently. Both product pages lead with 32 hours of total battery life, but the standard Pro X page then says, further down its own specification copy, 8 hours per charge and 24 hours in total. Eight in the earbuds plus 24 in the case gives 32, which is the reading we have gone with. This was closer to our experience in practical use.

The primary case is listening to music properly, and not only from a phone. Feed these from a DAP and you are giving the drivers the best source most people own. On Android, LDAC at 990kbps is the point of the codec support, and it is the route by which a hi-res stream reaches the drivers without being flattened on the way. Pair that with the tuning and this is an earbud aimed squarely at someone who listens on the move and cares what it sounds like.

The secondary case is everything a commute throws at you. Noise cancelling rated up to 52dB, multipoint so a laptop and a phone can both stay connected, six microphones with Voiceloom speech enhancement for calls, and IP55 for rain and sweat. None of that is specific to this edition, but it is the reason a tuned-for-listening earbud can still be the only pair you carry.

iPhone owners have one hurdle and one fix. LDAC is an Android codec, so Apple hands you AAC and a chunk of the technical argument for this edition goes with it. A Bluetooth transmitter solves it: plug one into the Lightning or USB-C port and it takes over the codec job from the phone. We covered the options in our guide to the best Bluetooth audio transmitters for iOS, and the Questyle QCC Dongle Pro2 took the Wavemaker there as the only Apple MFi certified option in the group.

For DJs, treat this as listening kit rather than working kit. Noise-cancelling true wireless earbuds are no use for monitoring in a booth, where you need a cup you can lift off one ear and a wired connection that cannot drop out. That job belongs to the kit in our guide to the best DJ headphones for every budget. If it is the sound quality that appeals and the wireless part does not matter, the best wired IEMs will take you further for the money.

The physical case for comfort here is the size. The Pro X chassis is the smaller, flusher design Status moved to with this generation, and a smaller body sitting closer to the ear is the single biggest factor in whether an earbud stays comfortable past the first hour. Three pairs of silicone tips come in the box, in small, medium and large.

Fit matters more on this product than on most, and not only for comfort. An earbud seals against the ear canal, and that seal is what the noise cancelling and the low frequencies both depend on. A tip that is slightly too small leaks, and a leak costs you bass and isolation at the same time, so it is worth working through all three sizes before deciding what the earbuds sound like.

Ours have been comfortable for hours at a stretch with no ache, which is not something we say often. Narrow ear canals mean even small tips can hurt after a while, and these do not. The weight is the reason: there is little enough of it that the earbud balances in the ear rather than pressing on the roof of the canal. They stay put on a walking commute, and the small tips were the right ones for us.

The tuning is the only thing that changed, so it is worth knowing what sits behind it. A head-related transfer function is a map of what your own anatomy does to a sound on its way in. Your head, your shoulders and the folds of your ear each filter it, and the filtering shifts depending on which direction the sound arrives from. Build a detailed enough map and you have a reference for what the brain treats as natural, which is the thing a tuning can then be aimed at.

Status and Oatley's team made that map themselves. Readings were taken across hundreds of directions in a laboratory built for the job, from Oatley's own ears and from a Brüel & Kjær 5128 simulator. A measuring fixture stamps its own signature on anything it records, so the rig's ear response was subtracted afterwards, leaving a result that describes the earbud rather than the apparatus. The target is true neutral at the eardrum, and Status claims it lands nearer to that than anything before it.

Everything carrying that tuning is standard Pro X hardware. LDAC reaches 990kbps at 24-bit/96kHz on Android, and the hybrid noise cancelling works from microphones on the outside and inside of each earbud, one sampling the room and the other checking what actually arrives at your ear.

With someone like Oatley behind the tuning you would expect the reproduction to be excellent across the range, and it is. Bass is clear and heavy without a trace of muddiness or boom around it, and the control down there is tight. The midrange is warm, with vocals that stay engaging and natural rather than pushed forward. The top end is crisp and transparent and serves up no sibilance at all.

Against the standard Pro X tuning, the difference is detail retrieval. There is more of it, most obviously in the top end, and it arrives without the presentation ever feeling busy. This reviewers ears are sensitive in the upper register, so that is the first place we notice a change, and this is a clear step on. The trade is in the low end: bass is less pronounced here than on the standard tuning. That is the honest version of the record rather than a flattering one, which is the whole point of what Oatley has done.

The noise cancelling deserves its own line. A flight home from Berlin was all but silenced by it.

Yes. The GoldenSound Pro X scores 9/10, takes a Waveform Wavemaker editorial award, and sits at the top of our guide to the best wireless earbuds for serious listeners. The tuning delivers what the research promised: detail you can hear without the sound turning busy, a low end that stays tight, and a top end that never bites. The noise cancelling flattens a flight. They are comfortable enough to forget you have them in. They have been our daily carry ever since Berlin and we absolutely love them.

They are for anyone who listens properly and wants an earbud that is honest about what is on the recording, and that is not only phone listeners. Running them from a DAP gives the drivers the best source most people own. iPhone owners are the one group who need a workaround, because Apple will only hand you AAC. A transmitter fixes it, and the Questyle QCC Dongle Pro2 from our guide to the best Bluetooth audio transmitters for iOS is the one we would reach for.

If you want the hardware without Oatley's tuning, the standard Status Audio Pro X is the same earbud with an open EQ and a choice of two colourways. Everyone else should move reasonably quickly, because this one is a limited edition. Pick up a pair below.

Status Audio supplied the GoldenSound Pro X reviewed here free of charge. Free products are only provided to aid our testing and do not affect our honest opinion.

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