Loewe Leo Review

Design

• Anodised aluminium and lambskin
• Repairable and personalisable
• Rotary-wheel controls

First impressions are the whole point of a product like this, and the Leo look promising. The frame is anodised aluminium, the ear cushions and headband are wrapped in strokably soft lambskin, and everything folds flat into your choice of a felt hard case or zip-up leather wallet.

Mine arrived in a classy Midnight Blue finish, combining a silver body, navy headband and magnetic earpads. Alternatively, Moonlight Beige sports the same silver frame paired with paler leather.

Fancy a colour change mid-ownership, and Loewe sells a Horizon Bronze accessory kit that swaps in warmer, brown lambskin. Reassuringly, the ear cushions, headband, and battery can be replaced via the manufacturer.

At 360g, they’re not the lightest, the hug is firm, and the leather pads warm the lugs over a long session. Not dealbreakers, and they sit fine over glasses, but I did feel the weight and grip after a few hours.

Rotary wheels on each earcup handle the controls. The smooth operators are novel, niche, and a delight to use. They also melt nicely into the overall design.

There’s no 3.5mm socket, so wired listening runs through the supplied USB-C-to-USB-C or USB-C-to-3.5mm cables. There is IP53 dust and water resistance, so a drizzly journey shouldn’t be terminal.

Features

• A deep app of extras
• Personal Sound that actually helps
• AI assistant and live translation

Style isn’t in question, so focus turns to substance, and Loewe has leaned hard on app features ranging from sound personalisation to AI productivity tools.

Curious extras include Leo AI and Translate, both still in beta. Leo AI is a chatty assistant, enabled by the Bragi platform and powered by ChatGPT overlords, OpenAI. Wake it with a “Hey Leo”, and it’s fun for everyday basics like the weather.

Quizzing Leo AI about the headphones, I was promptly told they’re “beautifully judged” and “premium through and through”, which is either charming or nauseating depending on your mood.

Translate does what it says, playing back a spoken foreign language translation of whatever you say. In testing, it turned English into Italian without a hitch.

Both AI tools come bundled with a complimentary five-year subscription. A €7.99/month fee was originally pencilled in for afterwards, though Loewe says that pricing is under review and likely to change before the free period runs out.

Elsewhere, Remote Selfie is supposed to activate your smartphone camera hands-free. To the benefit of my Instagram followers, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get this to work. Wear detection was also buggy, but nothing new there.

Familiar app features include a plethora of preset and custom five-band EQ options, bolstered considerably by something called Personal Sound. Using Mimi software, this runs a hearing test and builds an audio profile tailored to your ears based on the results. It’s a standout addition and a Godsend for anyone with iffy hearing.

Elsewhere, Ambience Mode blends noise-cancelling and transparency to personal taste. Multipoint keeps two devices connected at once when flitting between laptop and smartphone, while Low Latency Audio tightens lip-sync for video.

Bringing up the rear, Spatial Audio widens the soundstage of whatever you’re listening to, and you can use Voice Control to navigate features and playback, although personally I’d stick to the rotary wheels.

On connection, the Leo runs Bluetooth 5.3 with LE Audio supporting SBC, AAC, and LC3. There’s no aptX or LDAC, and Loewe says it has no plans to add either.

LC3 isn’t a hi-res codec — it’s built for stability and battery life rather than outright fidelity — so the hi-res route here is USB-C. Finally, it’s worth noting that call quality was crystal clear and stable throughout.

Noise Cancellation

• Strong on low-frequency noise
• Excellent passive isolation
• Adjustable ANC/transparency blend

To push the Leo’s noise-cancelling credentials, I did the obvious and sat next to a running cordless drill.

With ANC off, the sealed leather earcups knocked the noise down by roughly a third. With ANC on full, the overall level was similar, but the character changed completely as the low rumble of the motor vanished, leaving only a thinner, subdued high-frequency edge.

That’s noise cancelling doing its job. It works best on low frequencies, so it strips out the rumble and lets the passive seal deal with the rest. The result is a headphone that’s very good at shutting out mechanical, low-end noise, with those plush cups pulling real weight of their own.

Using the left wheel, or app, you can set the balance between cancelling and transparency in 25 per cent steps, letting a little of the world back in without switching modes. Five microphones handle the cancelling and your calls.

Sound Quality

• Bright and lively
• Big low end
• Tiring over long sessions

Loewe has tuned the Leo for excitement rather than neutrality. The sound is bright and forward, with a pushed low end and a faintly futuristic sheen that makes everything feel immediate.

Put on The Prodigy’s Firestarter and everything comes barrelling out at you, all snarl and drive, the bassline hitting hard and the whole thing crackling with energy. For a certain kind of listener, it’s a blast.

That energy cuts both ways. It’s a thrill in short bursts, but the hard edge to the treble, hi-hats, and the ‘s’ sounds in vocals especially, starts to wear on you over a long listen. Charli XCX’s ‘360’ lays it bare with a brash, bright production that’s fun at first, before a sharper top end begins to tire.

Switching on Personal Sound took the sting out of the treble and became my day-to-day setting of choice, although this was also down to how the Mimi software had assessed my hearing.

Underneath there’s a proper Texas Instruments amplifier driving the two 50mm drivers, and the Leo is at its cleanest when fed digitally over USB-C. This isn’t a neutral, tell-you-the-truth headphone for critical listening. It’s a punchy, fun one built to make everyday music sound exciting.

Battery Life

• Up to 45 hours with ANC on
• Two-hour charge over USB-C
• Play while you charge

Loewe quotes up to 65 hours with noise cancelling off, dropping to 45 with it on, and across two weeks of daily use I rarely thought about charging. That’s above par compared to the 30 hours of ANC from Sony and Bose flagships, and 32 hours from the £1450 Bang & Olufsen Beoplay H100.

Even with ANC running, that’s plenty for a week of commutes between top-ups. A full charge takes about two hours over USB-C, and you can keep listening while it charges. The 660mAh cell is also replaceable.

Should you buy it?