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If you want one pair of over-ear headphones that does everything — music, calls, travel and low-latency gaming — choose The Next Beat Sound; if you need to get wireless audio and a clean voice chat channel into an Xbox controller, choose YOCOWOCO Adapter. These two are not really rivals. One is a headphone. One is a bridge. But both get searched under the same low latency gaming headphones angle, so let me sort out which one actually solves your problem.
• The Next Beat Sound — biggest strength: a complete, self-contained headphone: Hybrid ANC rated to cut ambient noise by up to 37 dB, Tiësto-tuned 40mm dynamic drivers, a 40-hour battery and a low latency gaming mode, all in one foldable over-ear package.
• The Next Beat Sound — biggest trade-off: it is a Bluetooth headphone, not an Xbox accessory. It will not turn a wired controller's 3.5mm jack into a wireless hub, and it has no dedicated console voice-chat channel.
• YOCOWOCO Adapter — biggest strength: it plugs into a controller's 3.5mm jack and lets you use the Bluetooth earbuds or headphones you already own on Xbox, with a separate 2.4GHz mic channel rated under 20ms voice latency and two OLED status screens.
• YOCOWOCO Adapter — biggest trade-off: it is a dongle, not a listening device. It produces no sound of its own, and its 13-hour battery (7 hours for the mic) is a session-length figure, not a 40-hour one.
• Who each is for: The Next Beat Sound is for someone who wants one do-everything headphone; YOCOWOCO Adapter is for an Xbox player who already loves their own earbuds and wants them to work on console.
The Next Beat Sound (model MX41H) is the simpler purchase of the two, because it is a finished product rather than a piece of a setup. You charge it over USB-C in about two hours, you get up to 40 hours of playback, and you are done. That is a travel-friendly number — meaningfully longer than a single long-haul flight, and long enough that charging becomes a weekly chore rather than a nightly one. The included AUX cable also means you can run it wired when you want to, which is rare in this class and genuinely useful on a plane's seat-back jack.
Where it earns its keep for gaming specifically is the low latency gaming mode paired with the 40mm dynamic drivers. Bluetooth audio normally introduces a delay between what happens on screen and what you hear — the kind of lag that makes a footstep arrive after the shot. A dedicated low-latency mode is the standard fix, and having it on the same headphone you use for music means you are not juggling two devices. The 20 Hz – 20,000 Hz range is the full audible band, so nothing is obviously truncated at either end. Add Hybrid ANC with Transparency Mode and you have a headphone that handles a noisy commute and a quiet late-night session with the same hardware.
The Tiësto tuning is worth a word, because it tells you who this is aimed at. This is a music-first headphone with gaming as a supported use case, not a tournament headset with music bolted on. If you care about how your library sounds, that framing matters. ENC microphones on the call side also mean video meetings and party chat pick up less of the room around you.
Who should buy it: anyone who wants one pair of over-ear headphones for music, calls, commuting and casual-to-serious gaming, and who values a long battery and a foldable frame over console-specific plumbing.
Who should skip it: Xbox players who specifically want to keep using their existing Bluetooth earbuds. This headphone will not do that for you — that is the other product's entire job.
The YOCOWOCO Adapter (BOX03) solves a problem most headphones cannot: it lets your existing Bluetooth earbuds or headphones — AirPods, AirPods Pro, Sony WH-1000XM, Beats, Bose, or any Bluetooth set — play Xbox audio. You plug it into the controller's 3.5mm jack and pair. That is a genuinely different proposition from buying a headphone, and for a lot of people it is the better one, because it means the earbuds already in their pocket become a console gaming headset.
The interesting engineering choice is the split. Game audio travels over Bluetooth 5.0 with a range stated at up to 65 ft in open space, while your voice goes over a dedicated 2.4GHz channel rated under 20ms. That separation is the point: routing a mic over ordinary Bluetooth is what creates voice delay, dropouts, and the classic problem of your teammates hearing every button press. The included lavalier mic has built-in noise reduction aimed at exactly that click noise.
The dual OLED screens are the feature I did not expect to care about and probably would. One screen handles the adapter — battery, paired device, volume, mic status. The other handles the mic — level, connection and mute. Anyone who has spent a match tapping buttons trying to work out whether their mic is live will understand why that is on the list.
Battery is 13 hours for the adapter and 7 hours for the mic, both recharging in about 1.5 hours over USB-C. That is a full evening of ranked play, comfortably, but it is not a week. Compatibility is the thing to check before buying: Xbox One with a 3.5mm jack, Xbox One S/X, Xbox Series X|S, and Elite Series 2. It does not work with Xbox 360, pre-2015 original Xbox One controllers, or Elite Series 1.
Who should buy it: Xbox players who want to use their own Bluetooth headphones or earbuds for game audio and want a clean, low-latency mic channel without buying a gaming headset.
Who should skip it: anyone not on a compatible Xbox controller, and anyone who wants a single self-contained listening device rather than a dongle-plus-your-own-earbuds arrangement.
• Best for low latency gaming headphones as one product → The Next Beat Sound, which builds the low latency gaming mode into the headphone itself.
• Best if you already own great Bluetooth earbuds → YOCOWOCO Adapter, which makes them work on Xbox instead of making you buy new ones.
• Best for battery life → The Next Beat Sound at up to 40 hours versus 13 hours for the adapter and 7 for the mic.
• Best for voice chat clarity in a controller setup → YOCOWOCO Adapter, with its dedicated 2.4GHz mic channel rated under 20ms and lavalier mic noise reduction.
• Best for noise cancelling → The Next Beat Sound, with Hybrid ANC rated to reduce ambient noise by up to 37 dB plus a Transparency Mode.
• Best for status at a glance mid-match → YOCOWOCO Adapter, thanks to its two OLED screens for adapter and mic state.
• Best for travel and commuting → The Next Beat Sound, with the foldable over-ear frame and included AUX cable for wired listening.
• Best for music quality as a priority → The Next Beat Sound, with Tiësto-tuned 40mm dynamic drivers covering 20 Hz – 20,000 Hz.
• Best if you're on PS5, PC, or mobile only → The Next Beat Sound; the adapter's compatibility list is Xbox controller-specific.
If you are buying one thing and want it to be the low latency gaming headphones you reach for every day, I would buy The Next Beat Sound. It covers music, calls, travel and gaming from a single charge, and the low latency mode plus 40-hour battery is the combination most people actually want. I would buy the YOCOWOCO Adapter only in one specific situation: you already own Bluetooth earbuds or headphones you love, you play on a compatible Xbox controller, and you want them to work on console with a mic channel that will not embarrass you in party chat. That is a narrow case, but for the people in it, the adapter is the only one of these two that does the job. Everyone else should take the headphone. Check the current price on Amazon before you commit to either.
FAQ
what are low latency headphones
Low latency headphones are headphones designed to minimise the delay between the audio source and what you hear. Standard Bluetooth introduces a lag that is noticeable in games — a footstep or a shot arriving late. The Next Beat Sound addresses this with a dedicated low latency gaming mode, so the same headphone can switch between music listening and gaming without the delay getting in the way.
There is no single number that fits everyone, but lower is better, and for voice chat specifically the YOCOWOCO Adapter states under 20ms on its dedicated 2.4GHz mic channel. On the listening side, a low latency gaming mode like the one on The Next Beat Sound is the practical way to keep audio aligned with on-screen action. If you notice your mic echoing back late, latency is the usual culprit.
No. The Next Beat Sound is a self-contained Bluetooth headphone with its own low latency gaming mode and ENC microphones, so it does not need an adapter to work. You would only add the YOCOWOCO Adapter if you wanted to route audio through an Xbox controller's 3.5mm jack using a different pair of Bluetooth earbuds or headphones.
Only if your controller has a 3.5mm port. It supports Xbox One with a 3.5mm jack, Xbox One S/X, Xbox Series X|S and Elite Series 2. It is not compatible with Xbox 360, first-generation Xbox One controllers, or Elite Series 1. Check the bottom of your controller before ordering.
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