The best wireless earbuds for 2025

January 4, 2025

Share via:

It’s hard to buy a bad pair of wireless earbuds these days, and with constant discounts and deals wherever you look, now is as good of a time as any to splurge on the pair you’ve been eyeing. The market has come a long way since the early era of true wireless earbuds when we had to deal with mediocre sound quality and unreliable performance, all for the sake of ditching cables. Things are much different now. After several product generations of learned lessons, companies like Sony, Apple, Samsung, and others are releasing their most impressive earbuds to date.

You can get phenomenal noise cancellation and sound quality in the premium tier of earbuds if you’re willing to spend big. But those aren’t always the most important criteria for everyone: maybe you’re looking for the perfect fitness earbuds or for a set that works just as well for Zoom calls as for playing your favorite playlists and podcasts.

a]:shadow-underline-white”>What I’m looking for

No matter how they sound, what good are earbuds if you don’t enjoy wearing them? Ears come in all shapes and sizes, so the comfort factor is highly subjective. Most of our picks include several sizes of ear tips; usually they’re silicone, but some companies use foam (or both). Again, which you like better comes down to personal preference. Silicone tips are more common, but foam can expand to fill more of your ear for a better seal. The most important tip I can offer is to try different-sized tips in each ear: you might find that one of your ears needs something bigger or smaller than the other.

Just like with comfort, we all have our own inclinations for what we want from sound quality. Some people are bass-heads who can’t live without a thumping low end. Personally, I care more about dynamics, clarity, and definition from the music I’m listening to. I want vocals to ring through naturally and instruments to be well separated in the sound stage. I look for earbuds that can bring out the subtle details in my favorite songs.

What was once a luxury feature is now the status quo. Many of our top picks include active noise cancellation to help quiet the raucous outside world. Whether you’re trying to concentrate at the office or rest while traveling, noise cancellation can be a huge help. However, some people hate the “plugged up” feeling of earbuds and prefer open-style buds that help maintain full awareness of their surroundings.

Most earbuds these days can reach between five and six hours of continuous battery life with ANC enabled. Some models can exceed that (and over-ear headphones tend to last much longer on a charge), but the convenience of being able to just pop your earbuds back into their case for more juice makes the tradeoff easier to live with.

Even if you don’t intend to use your earbuds for fitness purposes, there’s always a chance of getting caught out in the rain while wearing them. At minimum, you should be looking for earbuds that offer IPX4 water resistance. This safeguards them from splashes of water (and sweat), so they should be cut out for the hazards of daily life.

Tech companies are increasingly making their earbuds work best with their own products through exclusive features and functionality, so that’s another thing to consider as you shop around. If you want a perk like head-tracking spatial audio, you’ll need to use AirPods with an iPhone, Samsung buds with a Samsung phone, and so on.