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Best-sounding wireless earbuds
On the hunt for headphones with great sound? While you can find cheap true wireless earbuds, if you want to find the absolute best-sounding wireless earbuds, the hard truth is you’ll need to spend more — a lot more, in some cases.
The wireless headphones with good sound quality tend to be on the bigger side, but that’s where the one big caveat comes into play: To achieve optimal performance, the best true wireless earbuds need to fit right in your ear — and you need to get a tight seal against your ear canal to properly seal out background noise.
If you can’t get a snug fit with a pair of in-ear headphones, you’ll be sadly disappointed, which is why I suggest buying a pair from a store with a decent return policy, such as Amazon. I’d also like to add that if you have trouble finding true wireless buds that work for you, try ones that can accommodate an ear hook.
We wanted to make sure you know about your options beyond the ubiquitous Apple AirPods, especially if you’re not carrying an Apple device. Below are three of CNET’s picks for best-sounding wireless earbuds, with a breakdown of features, including performance, noise cancellation, battery life, audio quality and how comfortable they are.
Bowers & Wilkins PI7
Bowers & Wilkins, the venerable British audio company acquired last year by Sound United, has released its first true wireless earbuds. They are well worth the wait — if you can afford them. The new flagship noise-canceling PI7 earbuds sound terrific — they’re arguably the best sounding true-wireless earbuds out there right now — but cost a whopping $400.
Aside from stellar sound and very good noise canceling, the PI7 buds have a few bonus features that may help you rationalize paying $400 for them. For starters, they’re the first earbuds we’ve encountered where the wireless charging case converts into a transceiver, so you can plug the case into the headphone port on an airplane’s inflight entertainment system and wirelessly stream audio from the case to the earbuds.
Additionally, Bowers & Wilkins says the PI7 supports Qualcomm aptX Adaptive wireless transmission (which includes the aptX HD codec) from compatible mobile devices, allowing for “high-resolution music transmission from suitable streaming services, such as Qobuz.”
Sony WF-1000XM4
No earbuds are perfect, of course, and not everybody will love the fit of the Sony WF-1000XM4 buds or be able to afford their high price. But if you’re looking for great-sounding earbuds with brilliant noise canceling, solid voice-calling capabilities and good battery life, these buds check all the boxes.
We A/B tested these against the Bowers & Wilkins PI7, which arguably have the slight edge — the PI7 may just be the best-sounding true-wireless earbuds out there right now. But the Sony WF-1000XM4’s noise canceling and headset performance is superior and they cost $120 less, so you may see the PI7 come down in price to compete with the Sony because it’s hard to justify spending the extra dough on the PI7, even if its charging case doubles as a Bluetooth transceiver and it does support the aptX Adaptive format.
Beats Fit Pro
Hot on the heels of the third-generation AirPods, Apple has another new set of earbuds, this time from its subsidiary audio company, Beats. Technically, the new Beats Fit Pro aren’t AirPods, but they’re built on the same tech platform as the AirPods Pro. Unlike Beats’ earlier, less expensive Studio Buds, the Beats Fit Pro include Apple’s H1 chip and have most of the AirPods Pro’s features, including active noise canceling, spatial audio and Adaptive EQ. I’d venture to call them the sports AirPods you’ve always wanted. And for some people, they might just be better than the AirPods Pro.