Earbuds with active noise cancellation (ANC) have been around for a decade or so, and they are constantly improving in terms of sound quality, battery life and the ability to block or pass through sound. Here, I’ve collected the four best high-end models I’ve tested and recommend for your music, podcast and video consumption needs while you’re out in the noisy world.
Sony seems to completely reinvent its flagship ANC earbuds for each generation and against intense competition, it has come out on top again with the 1000XM6. Switching back between these buds and the latest from Apple and Sony reveals that Sony’s are noticeably better for depth, definition, warmth, musicality and tone.
Music sounds incredible through these buds, and the quality of the noise-cancelling is practically unmatched, especially for constant droning sounds like public transport. If you have a supported Android phone, high-res files over LDAC also sound great. All of which is good because there are options on the market that are half this price that are nipping at Sony’s heels in other areas.
For me, the major weakness of these buds is the fit. The quest for maximum seal has led Sony to include only foam tips with its buds, and I find they give my ears an unpleasant stuffed feeling. Ears will differ, of course. Another part of the experience that’s “just OK” is the touch controls, which support only prodding, prodding multiple times or holding. There’s no good way to do volume control.
Sony has been pushing the idea of adaptive sound control for a long time, and it works well on the XM6. The headphones decide if you’re staying still, walking, running or on transport, and taking in the ambient noise level sets the appropriate options. You can also register locations on a map and specify settings you want there that shouldn’t be automatically changed. I prefer just tapping my ear to change from noise-cancelling to transparency, but it’s nice to have options.
And speaking of which, Sony’s app is absolutely stacked with features for you to tweak, including a much-appreciated pro-level 10-element equaliser, and speak-to-chat, which pauses your music and turns on transparency if you talk. There’s also a “background music” setting that takes almost all the depth out of the music and pushes the stage as far to the left and right of you as possible, giving the impression that it’s coming from the walls of the room. But even if you don’t use any of it, the core sound quality and noise-cancelling put these close to the top of the pile.
Whether it’s big over-ear headphones or these tiny buds, Bose has cracked the code for noise-cancelling. Other brands are good, but there’s always a weakness at the high end, where they can’t quite block a chattering group of people nearby, or the clattering of a mechanical keyboard. The QuietComfort Ultra banishes just about all of it. Considering they also sound great, are quite comfortable and come with an impressive spatial audio setting you’ll want to leave on all the time, these buds are the total package.
There are caveats, obviously. The “Immersive Audio” setting, which makes a Dolby mix on Apple Music sound even better than AirPods do, has a noticeable impact on battery life. I measured them running out of juice in four hours.
The buds also seem to have a delay in syncing up when you first put them on, as I often feel the sound jumping from left to right. The touch controls have a large surface area, which is good because it lets you slide your finger to adjust volume, but it’s also bad because you’re likely to pause the music if you brush them accidentally. And it might seem like a silly complaint, but I don’t like handling this case at all. It’s huge and clumsy and it feels like using a briefcase compared to most high-end buds.
If you can get around those ancillary complaints though, these are ideal buds for music-lovers who find themselves in a variety of noisy situations. The sound is bass-forward and energetic, and with Immersive on, it’s also roomy without feeling artificial or distracting. As far as EQ, they offer a simple three-band option that won’t please tinkerers but it works well for dialling in a preferred sound.
Where Bose does offer some extra room for customisation is in the sound modes. You can stick with the default few (ANC, transparency, immersion) and cycle through them, or you can create your own options with custom cancelling levels and spatial settings, and choose as many as you like to switch between when you hold your finger to your ear.
So if you like to have maximum cancelling and head-tracking spatial on the train, but transparency and stereo when walking, it’s easy to get that with minimal fuss.
AirPods have been my go-to earbuds since the first-generation Pro in 2019, and they’ve improved with every model. They’re simply the most comfortable and they are effortless to use. They have very effective noise-cancelling, the most natural-feeling transparency mode of any buds and the most consistent control system that has you squeezing the stems or sliding up and down, which is far more intentional than just booping them.
There are two main limitations to be aware of with the AirPods. First, the other side of their ease of use is that they offer very few options. The equaliser is handled automatically by the buds, and there’s an excellent adaptive mode that works like transparency but still cuts some background noise, but you can’t tweak it to taste at all. The other downside is that almost all the AirPods’ features work on Apple devices only. On other devices, they’re basic Bluetooth buds.
Of course, that’s not a hassle at all for users of Apple devices, and the AirPods’ ability to jump seamlessly from iPhone to Apple Watch to Apple TV is part of the appeal. New in the Pro 3 are active heart rate sensors that your iPhone will use for fitness tracking, and they work great. Spatial Audio kicks in automatically for Dolby Atmos content; there’s the option to switch into transparency mode whenever you start talking; and the buds can even administer a hearing test and act as medical-grade hearing aids.
Getting further into the details, I really like that both the case and the buds are fully waterproof, which is a rarity, and that the case can attach to any magnetic iPhone or Apple Watch charger to be topped up (or any Qi charger). But none of these holistic, thoughtful features would be worth anything if the buds didn’t sound good, so thankfully they do. You won’t get the depth and tone you might get from their best (and bulkiest) rivals, but they’re clean, detailed and consistent, making them an ideal everyday sidekick for practically anyone.
A little cheaper and a little older than the other options, the Pixel Buds are nonetheless a clear contender if you’re at all in the Google ecosystem. These are great-looking, good-sounding, premium earbuds that tick all the usual boxes, including wireless charging, spatial audio, multipoint Bluetooth and so on. But if you’re on Android, though particularly on a Pixel, and you like to use Gemini as your AI agent of choice, the Pixel Buds offer a lot of smart integration.
Musicality is the Pixel Bud Pro’s main failing. The buds are noticeably flat, and playing around with the app’s EQ presets doesn’t improve things considerably. In the spectrum of ANC earbuds, overall they definitely sound good, but I wouldn’t say they’re in the top five models for quality if you’re into closely listening to your music. The other downside is that you’ll get the absolute best out of them only with a Pixel phone, and on an iPhone, some features are missing entirely.
For comfort and presentation, the Pixel Buds are on another level. The case looks and feels like a bird’s egg, and the tiny buds sit snugly in your ear and lock into place with a clever little fin. ANC is not as complete as some other models, and I’d say it brings loud ambient sounds down rather than blocking them out entirely. It does this very effectively, and it’s good if you want to avoid that deprivation tank sensation, but they can’t silence a tram or a plane.
So what about those exclusive features? On a Pixel phone, the buds have spatial audio with head-tracking, an AI process that makes you sound exceptionally clear to the other party on phone calls, a low-latency mode for gaming, and all the settings baked into the phone’s UI, including full “find my device” functions on par with Apple’s AirPods. On any Android, you can also use the buds for two-way conversations with the Gemini assistant as well as live translation, and you can use the Google Buds app for settings and EQ. There’s no app for iPhone, so most of the settings are inaccessible.
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