The best noise-cancelling earbuds for your commute and quiet time
Headphones with active noise canceling (ANC) have been around for nearly a decade and are constantly improving in terms of sound quality, battery life, and ability to block or pass sound through. Here, I’ve rounded up the four best high-end models I’ve tested and recommend for your music, podcast, and video consumption needs while out in the loud world.
Sony seems to be completely reinventing its flagship ANC headphones with each generation, and despite intense competition they’ve come out on top again with the 1000XM6. Switching between these buds and the latest releases from Apple and Sony reveals that the Sony is noticeably better in terms of depth, definition, warmth, musicality, and tone.
Music sounds incredible through these headphones, and the quality of the noise cancellation is almost unmatched, especially for constant buzzing noises like public transport. If you have a supported Android phone, high-res files via LDAC sound great too. This is all good, because there are options on the market that are half that price and step on Sony’s toes in other areas.
For me, the biggest weakness of these buds is compliance. The quest for maximum seal led Sony to only include foam tips on its buds, and I found these gave my ears an unpleasant fullness. The ears will of course be different. Another part of the experience that is “okay” is the touch controls, which only support poke, multiple pokes, or hold. There is no good way to do volume control.
Sony has been pushing the idea of adaptive voice control for a long time, and it works well on the XM6. The headphones decide whether you will be standing still, walking, running or traveling and adjust the appropriate options, taking into account the ambient noise level. You can also save locations to a map and specify settings there that you don’t want to be changed automatically. I prefer to tap my ear to switch from noise canceling to transparency, but it’s nice to have options.
Speaking of which, Sony’s app is packed with features you can definitely fine-tune, including the acclaimed pro-level 10-element equalizer and talk-to-chat, which turns on transparency when you pause your music and talk. There is also a “background music” setting that takes almost all the depth of the music and pushes the stage as far left and right as possible, making it appear to be coming from the walls of the room. But even if you don’t use either, their basic sound quality and noise canceling features put them at the top of the list.
Whether it’s big over-ear headphones or tiny buds, Bose has cracked the noise-canceling code. Other brands are good, but there is always a weakness in the higher end; they can’t quite block out a group of people chattering nearby or the clacking of a mechanical keyboard. QuietComfort Ultra eliminates almost all of these. These headphones are the complete package, considering they also sound great, are quite comfortable, and come with an impressive spatial audio setting that you’ll want to leave on at all times.
Obviously there are caveats. The “Immersive Audio” setting in Apple Music, which makes the Dolby mix sound even better than AirPods, has a noticeable impact on battery life. I measured that I would run out of juice in four hours.
There also seems to be a delay in syncing when you first plug in the buds, as I often felt the sound bouncing from left to right. Touch controls have a large surface area; This is good because it lets you slide your finger to adjust the volume, but it’s also bad because you can pause the music if you accidentally brush the controls. It may seem like a silly complaint, but I don’t like handling this case at all. It’s very big and bulky and feels like using a briefcase compared to most high-end buds.
But if you can get past these ancillary complaints, these are ideal buds for music lovers who find themselves in a variety of noisy situations. The sound is forward and energetic, and with Immersive on, it’s spacious without feeling artificial or distracting. As for EQ, they offer a simple three-band option that won’t please tinkerers, but it works well to find the preferred sound.
Where Bose offers extra room for customization is in the sound modes. You can stick to the default few (ANC, transparency, immersion) and switch between them, or you can create your own options with custom cancellation levels and spatial settings and choose as many as you want to switch between when you put your finger to your ear.
So if you want to have maximum cancellation and head tracking spatial on the train, but have transparency and stereo when walking, it’s easy to achieve this with minimal problems.
AirPods have been my headphones of choice since the first-generation Pro in 2019, and they’ve improved with each model. These are the most comfortable and effortless to use. They have very effective noise canceling, the most natural-feeling transparency mode of all the buds, and the most consistent control system that allows you to squeeze the stems or slide them up and down; this is much more intentional than just blowing them up.
There are two main limitations to be aware of with AirPods. First of all, the other side of ease of use is that they offer very few options. The equalizer is automatically managed by the buds, and there’s an excellent adaptive mode that works like transparency but still cuts out background noise, but you can’t change this at all to suit your taste. The other downside is that almost all features of AirPods only work on Apple devices. On other devices, these are basic Bluetooth buds.
Of course, that’s no problem for Apple device users, and the fact that AirPods can transition seamlessly from iPhone to Apple Watch to Apple TV is part of the appeal. New to the Pro 3 are active heart rate sensors that your iPhone will use for fitness tracking, and they work great. For Dolby Atmos content, Spatial Audio is automatically engaged; there is an option to switch to transparency mode when you start talking; and the buds can even perform a hearing test and act as medical-grade hearing aids.
Going further into the details, I really like that both the case and the buds are completely waterproof; this is rare and the case can be attached to any magnetic iPhone or Apple Watch charger (or any Qi charger) to be charged. But none of these holistic, thoughtful features would be worth anything if the buds didn’t sound good, and thankfully they do. You won’t get the depth and tone you can from their best (and bulkiest) rivals, but they’re clean, detailed and consistent, making them an ideal daily companion for almost anyone.
Slightly cheaper and slightly older than other options, the Pixel Buds are still a clear contender if you’re in the Google ecosystem. These are great-looking, good-sounding, premium headphones that tick all the usual boxes, including wireless charging, spatial audio, multi-point Bluetooth, and so on. But if you use Android, especially Pixel, and like using Gemini as your AI tool, Pixel Buds offer plenty of smart integrations.
Musicality is the Pixel Bud Pro’s main failing. The buds are noticeably flat, and fiddling with the app’s EQ presets doesn’t improve things significantly. They definitely sound good overall across the range of ANC earbuds, but if you like listening to your music up close, I wouldn’t say they’re in the top five in terms of quality. The other downside is that you can only get the most out of them with a Pixel phone, and some features are completely missing on the iPhone.
In terms of comfort and presentation, Pixel Buds are on another level. The case looks and feels like a bird’s egg, and the tiny buds fit comfortably in your ear and lock into place with a clever little fin. The ANC is not as complete as other models, and I can say that it reduces loud ambient sounds rather than blocking them completely. It does this very effectively, and that’s a good thing if you want to avoid that withdrawal tank feeling, but they can’t silence a tram or plane.
What about these exclusive features? On a Pixel phone, the buds have all the settings available in the phone’s UI, including spatial audio with head tracking, an AI process that lets you deliver crystal clear audio to the other party on phone calls, a low latency mode for gaming, and full “find my device” functions on par with Apple’s AirPods. On any Android, you can use the buds for live translation as well as two-way conversations with the Gemini assistant, and use the Google Buds app for settings and EQ. Since there is no app for iPhone, most of the settings cannot be accessed.
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Tim Biggs is a writer covering consumer technology, gadgets, and video games.Connect with: X or email.
