Final UX3000 £119
The price tag may appear steep for headphones, but for all the latest features – great battery, Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), Bluetooth 5.0 wireless connectivity and decent sound quality – you’re going to have to invest a little. This pair from Japanese high-end audio brand Final ticks all the budget boxes. Final makes some fantastic top-end headphones – the £3,999 D8000 Pro had me remortgaging – and while these don’t compare, they do boast a considered performance and soundstage that could only come from a brand that puts audio first.
ANC often sullies sound quality, but Final has developed a new driver specifically tuned to cope with the added technology in our ears, and the result puts other budget headphones – and even some premium headphones – to shame. While the ANC is extremely effective at blocking unwanted noise, the Bluetooth 5.0 aptx offers the possibility of almost Cd-quality streaming, and they boast a battery life of up to 35 hours. £119 doesn’t buy you all the features: there’s no auto-pausing if you remove them, on-ear controls are minimal and the buttons and casing are a little plasticky, although the soft-textured, fingerprint-proof coating is a nice touch, and they fold small for easy storage. snext-final.com