Best affordable wireless earbuds
It feels like everyone is going wireless these days, and the popularity of untethered devices means searching for the best budget wireless earbuds doesn’t feel like scraping the bottom of the barrel anymore. You won’t have to suffer the price tag you see on things like Apple’s AirPods 3 or Sony’s WF-1000XM4.
A plethora of affordable wireless earbuds are available that boast the kinds of stats you see on Apple or Sony products. The best prices can still accompany the solid audio quality and impressive Bluetooth range you get from the big names. We’ve tested a variety of budget true-wireless earphones and found some standout AirPods alternatives for budget-conscious shoppers. All our picks for the best cheap wireless earbuds cost $100 or less, and you can see the full list at cnet.co/3D4YPZU.
BEST-SOUNDING BUDGET WIRELESS EARBUDS: EARFUN AIR PRO SV
The Earfun Air Pro SVs have a few things going for them. First, they sound shockingly good for a set of earbuds in this price range. They offer big, open sound with well-defined bass and good clarity. They’re also lightweight and comfortable to wear, their noise canceling is effective, and they have a fairly naturalsounding transparency mode that allows ambient sound in if you want to hear the outside world around you for safety reasons.
Earfun highlights how you can see the buds’ squared-off stems through the case — there’s a little window — but aside from the stems, the buds themselves have a similar shape and design to the AirPods Pro. While the case offers wireless charging and you can use a single bud if you want, the buds are missing a sensor that would pause your music when you take them out of your ears and resume playback when you put them back in. They’re IPX5 splash-proof, and battery life is rated at six hours with noise canceling turned on. There’s also a low-latency gaming mode and touch controls that work reasonably well, and you can upgrade the buds’ firmware and tweak sound settings in a companion app for iOS and Android. active noise canceling and are pretty basic as far as earbuds go, with no eardetection sensors or transparency mode. But the buds are compact and lightweight, fit comfortably and sound good for an entrylevel model.
While these earbuds have background noise reduction during voice calls, they only have one microphone in each earbud. Many earbuds now have two or more microphones to help process ambient noise and capture your voice. The earbuds are rated IPX4, so they’re splash-proof, and offer up to 10 hours of battery life at moderate volume levels on a single charge. That’s very good.
BEST-SOUNDING CHEAP EARBUDS UNDER $40: TRANYA T20
The Tranya T20 earbuds remind us a little of a cheaper version of Samsung’s Galaxy Buds 2 without the noise canceling.
They’re no-frills and don’t have features such as ear-detection sensors that automatically pause your music when you take the bud out of your ears. But they sound surprisingly decent for their modest price. If you get a tight seal, they sit pretty flush with your ears (they don’t really stick out much) and they have decent battery life — up to eight hours at moderate volume levels. They also work pretty well for making calls and are IPX7 waterproof.
The case feels a little cheap and the buds are lightweight. The Galaxy Buds 2 definitely feel more premium.
However, the buds are well-tuned and have a relatively wide soundstage. Don’t expect the world from them and we think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.