Best Wireless Earbuds 2025: The best pairs tested and rated

If you’re after the overall wireless earbuds, the standard bearer remains the WF-1000XM5 but only just as they come under heavy pressure from the Technics AZ100, which are better in several respects.

The bass performance isn’t as powerful or as fun as it was on the WF-1000XM4, but this model is more detailed and clearer. The midrange has a better sense of finer detail, especially with voices, and the high frequencies are sharper, clearer and more detailed.

The noise-cancelling performance is an improvement on the WF-1000XM4, able to suppress voices and general noise better than its predecessor for a much more quiet performance. The transparency mode is clear and detailed, although we find the WF-1000XM4 is slightly clearer to our ears. However, both the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds and Technics AZ100 offer better noise-cancellation.

Battery life is the same as the WF-1000XM4, with 8 hours per earbuds and 24 in total with the charging case. However, the design is smaller and lighter, making for a more favourable and comfortable fit, and with the introduction of an extra small ear-tip size, there’s more room to fit a wider range of ears.

Wireless performance is good in both AAC and LDAC playback modes, and the WF-1000XM5 is bundled with an array features that make these earphones one of the most, if not the most, smartest pair of wireless earbuds on the market, although a good alternative would be the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4 or Technics AZ100.

Call quality is decent but can be a little odd, leaking in background noise whenever we spoke but silent when we weren’t. It’s not as good as the AirPods Pro 2 for call performance.

Reviewer: Kob Monney
Full Review: Sony WF-1000XM5

The WF-C510 build on the foundation of the C500 with better audio and more advanced features for the same price as before ($55 / £50).

The WF-C510’s offer a spacious and balanced audio performance, with an improved bass performance that delivers more weight and punch. The mid- to high frequencies are clear and detailed and while the headphones don’t sound the most dynamic, they are wholly enjoyable for the money.

Build quality is solid with an excellent fit that blocks out most external sounds. They come with physical controls, which we feel are better than touch controls at this price. An IPX4 rating means they’re protected against some sweat and water.

There’s no noise-cancellation but Sony has added an Ambient Sound mode that lets outside sounds in, and it’s a performance we found to be loud and clear, making it easy to listen announcements and get a better sense of the environment around us.

Bluetooth 5.3 covers SBC and AAC streaming, so these headphones lack wireless Hi-Res Audio but again, like ANC, we don’t that’s a big miss at this price. Sony says the battery life has gone from 10 to 11 hours per charge but in our tests we found the battery life was the same as the original. Still, 10 hours is plenty enough, and if you do run out of battery, there is fast-charging support but no wireless charging.

Call quality, like it has been with some of the best Sony headphones is below par, as they do a bad job of protecting your voice with the microphones constantly letting sound in.

Reviewer: Kob Monney
Full Review: Sony WF-C510

Bowers & Wilkins have tried to crack the true wireless market with varying success. We liked its original pair, but it came with a number of issues. The Pi7 S2 solved some of them but struggled to offer the performance we would have liked. With the Pi8, B&W delivers its best true wireless.

They sound absolutely cracking. Loud and energetic, warm but detailed, the Pi8 bring a high level of fidelity to music that we haven’t heard from other true wireless pairs. Vocals sound natural and true, the soundstage is big and wide, with highs described clearly and bass reaching down low.

The noise-cancellation is solid though not as strong as the Bose, Sony, Jabra and Sennheiser pairs. It is better than previous B&W true wireless in clearing away noise, but it’s more reliant on a good fit and volume levels in getting rid of noise.

The wireless performance is excellent with barely any blips in busy areas, while there’s also the retransmission case where you plug the case into an analogue source (a 3.5mm jack) and have the audio wirelessly relayed to the earphones without any latency. It works fantastically.

Call quality isn’t as good as we’d hoped, both indoors and outdoors, with a performance that isn’t the clearest we’ve heard.

The Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 won’t be for everyone considering the price, but for those who want to indulge in luxury, we feel they are the best premium true wireless earbuds.

Reviewer: Kob Monney
Full Review: Bowers & Wilkins Pi8

Similar to Bowers & Wilkins, Technics has been trying to crack the true wireless market for years, and like the Pi8, they’ve succeeded with their latest attempt in the EAH-AZ100.

They are a fantastic all-round effort, that give the likes of the Sony WF-1000XM5 and Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds a run for their money in several categories. Where they better those two earphones is with its call quality, with the AZ100 latching onto your voice clearly and blocking out pretty much all the sounds around you. It’s the best call quality we’ve experience on a true wireless so far.

The sound is not too shabby either. It’s rich but detailed, with a better bass performance than the AZ80 model and a more dynamic and musical presentation. The soundstage is wide, highs are clearly, the midrange is detailed while bass packs a punch. These are the best-sounding true wireless from Technics yet.

The battery life depends on the mode the earphones are in. We found that in the AAC mode, they can last for a long time, but with LDAC we managed to get less than six hours from the battery. We were hoping for better. The Bluetooth performance is mostly strong, though we found that in busy areas the signal can get very choppy. They do boast Bluetooth multipoint, which allows them to connect to three devices at once.

The noise-cancellation is excellent, stripping away most of the sounds around us for a quiet performance whether we were on a plane, a bus on the Londong undergound. The transparency mode is strong, though we don’t find it to be as clear as the one on the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds.

With lots of features, excellent sound and noise-cancellation, the Technics AZ100 are top-tier wireless earbuds that in some ways are even better than the Sony that sits at the top of this list.

Reviewer: Kob Monney
Full Review: Technics EAH-AZ100

With the QuietComfort Earbuds II discontinued, the baton passes to the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds. And they’re just as good in terms of the noise-cancelling performance, putting them right at the top of the class.

When we first reviewed the QC Ultra Earbuds, it turned out we had a slightly dodgy pair as the noise-cancelling performance wasn’t as strong. We’ve since had a second pair to listen and the noise-cancelling is back up to where we expected it to be.

The QC Ultra Earbuds do an impressive job of reducing ambient noise and blocking out people’s voices, and the Bose sound better in windy conditions as well. We consider the Bose and the Technics AZ100 to be the best noise-cancelling earbuds current available.

The Aware mode is excellent, it makes it sound as if you weren’t wearing earphones at all. And Bose’s ActiveSense technology automatically reduces background noises when in transparency mode, so you’re not surprised by suddent noises around you.

The QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds support aptX Lossless/Snapdragon Sound to transmit higher quality audio over Bluetooth. The wireless performance is an area we found to be excellent, consistently reliable with not dropouts.

In terms of sound, it’s a similar peformance that we’ve heard from recent Bose headphones. The top end of the frequency range is bright but balanced, bass is big and punchy and vocals carry more weight too. It’s not as finely-balanced as the WF-1000XM5, but if you like your bass, the Bose is better than the Sony.

The Immersive Audio feature offers a wider soundstage and more depth, but isn’t as detailed or as sharp as listening in stereo mode. The head-tracking is a neat effect, maintaining the illusion of sound following you when you move. We feel the Jabra Elite 10 Gen 2 are better at spatial audio with its Dolby head-tracking.

Reviewer: Kob Monney
Full Review: Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds

It’s a shame that Jabra has bowed out of the consumer headphone market, but with the Elite 8 Active Gen 2, it’s made its finest true wireless for runners and workouts.

We very much liked the Elite 8 Active model, but this pair improves on it in every major way. The earphones are smaller, which for us meant they actually fitted into the ear better. The fit was more stable, so we didn’t have to keep adjusting it mid-way like we did with the previous pair. That also led to a better noise-cancelling performance.

The ANC is stronger than before, getting rid of more sounds both in indoor and outdoor environments so you’re not distracted by what’s around you. And if you want to beaware of your environment then the HearThrough mode is clearer, more detailed, and latches onto voices better in case you want to have conversation.

The sound quality is also a step up from before. It’s not as bass heavy, with more clarity, definition and detail for a performance that’s better balanced than the Elite 8 Active. We’re not too keen on the spatial sound feature, which doesn’t sound like an advancement on what came before.

The new charging case also allows for retransmission of audio from an analogue source. So you could plug the earphones into a bike machine at the gym, and then have it wirelessly transmitted to the earbuds in similar fashion to the Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 (which are £100 more expensive).

Otherwise the features remain the same as before. The Elite 8 Active Gen 2 pass the US Military Standard for ruggedised electronics (810H) and Jabra’s own HACT tests (Highly Accelerated Corrosion Testing. The Sound+ app presents the opportunity to tinker with the EQ settings in the app and customise other features.

Reviewer:Kob Monney
Full Review: Jabra Elite 8 Active Gen 2

For Apple users, the AirPods have become the go-to choice for wireless earbuds and for the best iOS experience we’d recommend the Apple AirPods Pro 2.

They replaced the original AirPods Pro and come with a bevy of improvements. The design is still pretty much the same bar a couple of new additions. One is that the stem sensor could be used to change the volume (to mixed results in our opinion) and that there’s a new XS ear-tip size to help the AirPods Pro 2 fit a wider range of ears, which is a welcome addition.

The buds are still rated to IPX4 water resistance to ensure protection from a light drizzle or sweat, and the charging case comes with a lanyard connector to keep them on your person (though an actual lanyard is not provided). They only come in white, so they are still rather susceptible to picking up dirt and grime. We would have hoped Apple had taken cues from the AirPods Max and brought out a variety of colours.

As always the integration with Apple devices is seamless, with instant recognition across iOS and MacOS devices, and they buds can now be connected to multiple Apple devices at the same time. The noise cancelling performance is a step up from the original, which we enjoyed at the time, but the AirPods Pro 2 clear out almost all the noise when used on a tube.

Battery is better at six hours per charge but that’s still behind even some cheaper true wireless earbuds such as the JBL Live Beam 3. In total they’re capable of 30 hours with the charging case, which is fine. Charging here is taken care of by a Lightning cable and not USB-C, or you can use the slower Qi wireless charging for cable-free charging.

They also sound better than the original AirPods Pro with their new H2 chip. Bass is still rich in tone, but voices are clearer than before, detail is more audible and instruments are defined with more clarity.

Reviewer: Max Parker
Full Review: Apple AirPods Pro 2

The Live Beam 3 are one of the latest earbuds from JBL, and in terms of battery life, these earphones can go on and on and on.

Battery life is claimed to be 12 hours and in our tests we found that level of battery life was achievable. That’s much better than the WF-1000XM5 which can reach about 8 hours max, or the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds, which are less.

There is LDAC Bluetooth for Android users and while the Bluetooth connection is strong, rarely falling over in busy area. Call quality is also above average too, the earphones make sure that your voice is priority with good clarity.

The JBL support ANC, and we found them to be very good a cutting through the noise of everyday life. Whether it’s on a plane, or public transport, the help minimise the sound of people and traffic around us. Compared to other mid-range true wireless models such as the Cambridge Audio M100, they offer a stronger and more consistent ANC performance

The Live Beam 3 carry the same JBL sound we’ve become used to, with a bit of boost to the bass, a wide soundstage to, and good levels of detail and clarity. They’re not the most dynamic to listen and lack a degree of energy, but they’re a powerful sounding pair of wireless earbuds. We’d skip the spatial audio feature as it doesn’t do much to turn songs into 3D.

Reviewer: Kob Monney
Full Review: JBL Live Beam 3

The JLab Go Air Pop are the cheapest wireless earbuds on this list, but even with their immensely low price in mind, they still offer some great quality.

The design is not the most stylish not, but the Go Air Pop are functional and offer a comfortable fit. During 1-2 hour stints of testing them, we found the fit to be great with no discomfort at any point. There is the choice of small, medium or large ear-tips in the box to fit a range of ears, too, and changing these proved to be nice and easy.

The fit of these buds also meant we could use them for HIIT workouts without fear of them falling out. Touch controls did prove to be fiddly, but generally speaking they’re never going to be as precise or reliable as physical buttons.

You won’t find ANC here, but that’s not expected at this price. What you do get is great battery life that punches above their weight, as during testing we found JLab’s claims of 32 hours total playtime to largely ring true. They should be good for a week’s use before you need to plug them in, an easy feat with the built-in charging cable.

Of course, the audio from a $24.99 / £19.99 pair of earbuds is not going to set the world alight, but as wallet-friendly pairs go these sound great. Their ‘Signature’ sound mode delivered a warm bass and smooth mids without any noticeable harshness until you crank the volume up.

Doing so made the top end a little harsh, although not enough that it made the Air Pops unlistenable. There’s also a Bass Boost sound mode designed for working out, and a Balanced mode for classical music and spoken word audio that we found worked well with good detail and separation.

Reviewer: Mike Sawh
Full Review: JLab Go Air Pop

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