TDM Neo review: they twist and shout, but they don't sound good

Date:
Sat, 17 Oct 2026 17:00:00 +0000

Description:
The TDM Neo is a hybrid headphone-speaker gadget, but sadly it doesn't work very well in either form.

FULL STORY ======================================================================TDM
Neo: Two-minute review If you follow your audio news, no doubt you followed the early-2026 unveiling of the TDM Neo with fascination. Its a novel audio gadget: it functions both as a loudspeaker and as a pair of headphones, with
a neat twisting mechanism folding it or unfolding it between the two.

Months on, and the TDM Neo has been released, so I naturally made sure to
test a pair to see how well they work and unfortunately, I cant really recommend it to anyone but collectors of neat knicknacks. The problem is almost entirely in the audio department: the Neo just doesnt sound good. As a pair of headphones its okay , but imprecise in a way that many rivals arent. However, when you turn it into a portable speaker, you get a tinny bass-less hiss which even bargain-bin Amazon options beat. Latest Videos From TechRadar Watch full video here:

Ill be forgiving: its likely that you cant get high-tech driver systems in a gadget like this due to its form function. But at the same time, a valid reason for something bad doesnt mean its not bad. Pick up something else from our list of the best Bluetooth speakers , I promise youll enjoy it more.

Not helping the Neo's case are a few other imprecisions. Take, for example, the design: the twisting mechanism locks the speaker mostly in place, but not always; its a bit loose. This means you dont always get a secure fit, and the speaker can be quite wobbly.

Another gripe: theres a TDM app, but to use some of its key features, you
need to make an account. You cant just boot up your speaker and change the
EQ, without giving over some of your data. Why ?

Its a real shame that the TDM Neo has these issues, because there are signs that the company put some real thought into the device, with some neat touches. There are some useful in-box extras such as a sturdy carry case and high-quality cables, and some of the features (including different EQ modes per format) let you tweak with the nitty-gritty. Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

Id be remiss not to mention the price. It matches top-tier Bluetooth speakers or mid-range headphones, despite the sound and build quality again, as a proposition it's just really hard to justify.

As a viable consumer product, the TDM Neo isn't easy to recommend. Its a neat concept, with some thought put into its various departments, but several gaping weaknesses mean youll be disappointed if you spent your money on it. Keep your eyes peeled for a Neo 2, though if TDM fixes these issues, it
could make something really special. TDM Neo review: Price and release date (Image credit: Future) Unveiled in January 2026, sold from October Available for $249 / 249 (about AU$500) TDM also sells battery replacements The TDM Neo was initially unveiled at CES 2026 in January of the year, but it took until September for the device to go on sale and October for it to ship.

You can buy the Neo for $249 / 249 (about AU$500, but I cant find the device available to buy in Australia). Its a high price, but a little more justified when you consider that youre getting two devices.

While repairability isnt touted as one of the Neos key features, TDM does
sell battery replacement kits online for $29 / 23 (about AU$46) , and has an online guide on how to swap them out. So the brand deserves kudos on the repairability front. TDM Neo review: Specs Swipe to scroll horizontally

Drivers

40mm / 40mm

Active noise cancellation

No / No

Battery life

16 hours (speaker) 200 hours (headphone)

Weight

340g

Connectivity

3.5mm, USB-C, Bluetooth 6.0

Frequency response

Not specified

Waterproofing

None TDM Neo review: Features (Image credit: Future) Incredibly good battery life App brings EP, some extra tools Account required for some features One real strong suit is the TDM Neo's battery life. Youre looking at 16 hours of listening in speaker mode, which is above-average for a device of this size and a wild 200 hours of listening when youre in headphone mode.

Thats right, well over a week straight of listening without having to charge them up, and dwarfing the 100-plus hours the previous frontrunners hit. Helping that figure is the lack of ANC, which is par for the course with on-ears, so nothing to get upset about.

On your smartphone, you can download the TDM. app to get some extra features. I found it a little tricky to locate, since putting TDM into the app store brings up loads of options, so make sure to download the option with the full stop after the letters. (Image credit: Future) The app offers all the basics: you can see battery level, toggle a low-latency gaming mode, and find the Neo if youve mis-placed it. Theres also an option to change what twisting the
unit does, away from switching formats as it currently does, and some battery saver modes which are an appreciated rarity.

The equalizer has several presets and space for two custom modes, and I
really appreciate that you can set a separate EQ for when the Neo is in headphone mode and when its in speaker mode. Its a neat touch, but it shows that TDM has really thought through the design.

However to actually edit the 5-band equalizer yourself, and also to use the find-device function, you have to create an account and log in on the app.
The TDM Neo is an audio gadget; you shouldnt need to create an account to use all of its features. Features score: 3.5/5 TDM Neo review: Design (Image credit: Future) Twisty twisty: headphones to speakers using magnets
Headphones are fairly sturdy, but a little heavy Speakers feel unstable and wobbly Well, this is the whole thing of the TDM Neo, isnt it? Theyre designed to be dual-purpose. They begin as headphones, and you twist them into a speaker configuration, wherein the cups are housed in the headphone band and use outward-facing drivers. Id compare the process most to using those pop-up festival tents: it takes a knack but when you know, you know.

As headphones, theyre fairly sturdy on-ears which are surprisingly
comfortable to wear. Thats despite these puppies weighing a fair bit more
than the average pair, at 340g. They have a fairly reliable fit, as long as youre not jogging in these things. A small release catch lets you extend the length of these; I say this because it took me a good week of testing to realize thats what the buttons do, so if you own a pair, theres a good chance you missed it.

But twist the Neo into speaker mode, and its a different affair. Music automatically switches to play from the speakers when the cups are bent to a certain degree, and two magnets on the band meet (or roughly at that point, although they dont need to physically touch). (Image credit: Future) Its not
a precise science, and every time I twisted the device down, Id end with the two halves of the speaker in different places; sometimes they were aligned, sometimes not, and sometimes pointed in different angles.

Musically, this doesnt make much of a difference, but it means the device is weighted in different ways, and doesnt have a flat base to lean on. As a result, the speaker would be unstable, rocking when I put it down and constantly shaking if it was on a surface that was being jolted (like, say, a table where board games were being played).

On one of the cups theres an LED indicator and USB-C port, the latter of
which is facing directly upwards, so I imagine this is a no-go in rainy environments or anywhere where particles could fall in (theres no IP rating). The other cup houses a 3.5mm jack, pairing button, volume rocker and power button. The volume and power buttons are made of a cheap-feeling rubber,
which quickly looked scuffed on my review unit.

At least its a fairly compact speaker, being only slightly bigger than my Tribit Stormbox Micro 3 . Several times I took it to other locations, because its small enough to carry in a bag fairly comfortably, without taking up too much room. Design score: 3/5 TDM Neo review: Sound quality (Image credit: Future) Headphones & speakers both have dual 40mm drivers Speakers are tinny, lack much bass Headphones have muddy, rumbly sound Important context: the TDM Neo has two sets of drivers, and so when youre in headphone mode, youre listening to different drivers than when youre in speaker mode. Otherwise,
the room-filling audio would deafen you the first time you put the Neo on
your head. Sensible.

This results in two very different sound profiles for the device, even if all four drivers are 40mm ones. Unfortunately, depending on your mode, the sound ranges from not great to bad.

Its the loudspeaker mode that Im filing as bad years of using Tribit, JBL or Ultimate Ears speakers has ruined me, it seems. Put frankly, the TDM Neo sounds tinny. It lacks any credible bass to speak of, relying on a steaming pile of treble to pass as a song. But even then, high treble and mid lines
are conspicuously absent too.

One of my favorite bands to test hi-fi gadgets with is Morningsiders, as
their varied instrumentation (band instruments with strings, brass, piano, so on) makes it easy to analyze speakers. I wanted to put on one of their songs with a more prominent bassline, to see how the Neo fared, and skipped through nearly an entire album without finding one until I realized that the Morningsiders werent the problem.

In something like Hang the Cedar , bass is only apparent from the void in a track it leaves, while acoustic guitar sounds like a metallic sneeze and even some of the guitar harmonics are missing. (Image credit: Future) I dont like being overly negative in product reviews, and luckily I can calm it, because the headphones dont sound as bad . I still wouldnt pick them over well, much, but I didnt physically recoil while testing them for this review.

The headphones have bass in fact, its quite prominent, even if youre not coming straight from the speakers. Its a little looser than I like from bass, sometimes sounding rumbly and imprecise, but its certainly powerful. I was half expecting the treble to be missing in compensation, but thats not the case its not too energetic or sharp, but it completes the V-shape sound profile that ensure the headphones are much more pleasant than the speaker.

Yes, V-shape means that mids are a little lacking, but not to a fault. In Morningsiders Four Face Liar , for example, acoustic guitar is barely audible between the bass and vocals. But barely audible is still a step above the nonexistent bass of the speakers.

With support only for the SBC and AAC codecs, you wont be able to enjoy high-res music with the Neo. And youre probably wondering whether the equalizer or presets saves the sound? Unfortunately not, it just exacerbates or masks the issue depending on how you use it. Sound quality: 2.5/5 TDM Neo review: Value (Image credit: Future) You're getting two devices in one... ... but two devices would be cheaper... ... and they'd work and sound better, too As mentioned before, the TDM Neo is essentially two devices in one. In the same way that you pay a premium for folding phones, because theyre both smartphones and tablets, youd expect to pay a little more for a novel hybrid gadget like this.

Saying that, it dashes their appeal against the rocks. You could easily pick up a solid option from our Bluetooth speakers buying guide and one of the
best cheap headphones for less; each device would beat the TDM Neos audio and design pretty handily

The premium price really doesnt help the Neo; $249 / 249 is a cost that youd only really consider going for if you were buying from a big audio brand like Sony or Bose, not a Kickstarter brand selling a rough-and-ready piece of kit. If you find it half price, maybe its worth buying; and if you have some
unique use case in which you need a 2-in-1, then perhaps pick it up. But if youre just interested in the novelty, its hard to recommend. Value: 3/5
Should I buy the TDM Neo? Swipe to scroll horizontally TDM Neo score card

Attributes

Notes

Rating

Features

The incredible battery life, and a few other neat touches, work well. It's a shame that you need an account to run them.

3.5/5

Design

It's a neat twisty concept, but neither form works well compared to alternatives.

3/5

Sound quality

The speaker sound bad, and the headphones aren't great.

2.5/5

Value

It's a jack of all trades, but a master of none

3/5 Buy them if

You only have space for one device I've said you'd be better off buying two devices for the price, but if you literally only have space for one, this is basically your only way of listening to music.

You need headphones with incredible battery Need a pair of headphones with
an absolutely ludicrous battery life? This is it. Dont buy them if

You want good audio Not everyone buys audio gadgets with sound quality in mind, but if you care even 1% about how your music sounds, you might want to skip these.

You don't want any more accounts Hate making new accounts for every app, service and feature? Honestly, me too. TDM Neo review: Also consider Usually, we'd list several similar gadgets to the reviewed one, which you may want to do instead. However I'm going to do something different here; I'm going to list one speaker and one pair of on-ear headphones, which together cost less than the TDM Neo. Swipe to scroll horizontally Header Cell - Column 0

TDM Neo

Tribit Stormbox Micro 3 (speaker)

OneOdio Focus A1 Pro (headphones)

Drivers

40mm

48mm

40mm

Active noise cancellation

No

No

Yes

Battery life (ANC on)

16 hours (speaker) 200 hours (headphone)

24 hours

70 hours (ANC off)

Weight

340g

330g

200g

Connectivity

Bluetooth 6.0, USB-C, 3.5mm

Bluetooth 6.0

Bluetooth 6.0

Waterproofing

N/A

IP68

N/A

Tribit Stormbox Micro 3 This is my go-to portable Bluetooth speaker; it's about a quarter of the price of the Neo, yet sounds far better. It has a useful carry strap and sits nice and flat on a surface. Plus, it's incredibly durable. Read our full Tribit Stormbox Micro 3 review

OneOdio Focus A1 Pro For even less money than the Tribit, these are solid on-ear headphones released earlier in year. They sound decent and last for ages, plus weigh far less than the Neo. Read our full OneOdio Focus A1 Pro review How I tested the TDM Neo (Image credit: Future) Tested for over two weeks Paired with Android phone for Bluetooth Used mostly at home, but on
some walks too The testing time for the TDM Neo lasted for two weeks, not including the writing time for the review.

I used the TDM paired with my Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8, over Bluetooth. Lots
of the testing took place at home in speaker mode, but I also used the headphones at home and while going on walks around my local area. Testing was largely done via Spotify, for music and audiobooks, but also on YouTube and several games.

I've been reviewing gadgets for TechRadar since early 2019, and in that time have tested plenty of speakers and headphones. First reviewed in October 2026 Read TechRadar's reviews guarantee TDM Neo: Price Comparison No price information Check Amazon We check over 250 million products every day for the best prices powered by



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