RS Recommends: The Best Sounding Earbuds

If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Rolling Stone may receive an affiliate commission.

The best wireless earbuds can do a lot, from accessing your voice assistant for hands-free phone calls to keeping you motivated at the gym. And while AI features and tech like heart rate detection can be exciting, the most crucial metric for many music fans is the most obvious: how do the earbuds sound?

How We Chose The Best-Sounding Earbuds

Sound quality can be subjective, with some preferring a more bass-heavy profile, but for our roundup of the best-sounding wireless earbuds, we focused on neutral-sounding earbuds that perform across a variety of genres.

We also considered other factors that can impact audio quality, such as the Bluetooth codecs used, some of which allow for higher data rates and less compression.

We also considered features that, while not directly tied to audio quality, can have a huge impact on the listening experience. One of the most important is active noise-canceling. After all, it’s hard to enjoy your favorite music if distractions drown it out. And while all of our options sound great straight out of the case, we sought out earbuds that feature customizable EQ.

The Best Sounding Earbuds of 2025

Read on for our picks for the best-sounding earbuds of 2025, from audio-forward companies like Technics and Sennheiser to tech brands like Samsung and Nothing.

Even in the very crowded world of earbuds, Technics EAH-AZ100 are a standout. The brand, known for its legendary turntables, packed its audio know-how into a surprisingly small package. At $300, the EAH-AZ100 earbuds are a premium product, but they deliver excellent sound, solid ANC, and all-day comfort. Launched at this year’s CES, the AZ100 stood out among the many products we saw.

The AZ100 uses a unique “Magnetic Fluid Driver” for high-resolution audio, and it supports a range of Bluetooth codecs, including AAC, LDAC, and LC3. The active noise canceling is solid, and has an adaptive feature to adjust to your surroundings. However, the ANC isn’t as showstopping as earbuds from Bose or even Apple, but it’s solid enough to cut out distractions and let you dig into musical detail. The earbuds also have features like spatial audio for Dolby Atmos and head tracking for an immersive audio experience.

Impressively, Technics managed to pack all of these features into a compact pair of earbuds. They’re just slightly larger than Apple’s svelte AirPods Pro 2 and no less pocket-friendly. They have a stated battery life of 10 hours with ANC on and 28 hours with the case, meaning these are a great option whether you need a pair of earbuds for your desk or on the go.

Sennheiser’s Momentum True Wireless 4 earbuds have excellent sound and ANC that improves upon our top pick from Technics, but the overly large case just slightly knocks it down a peg. The case features the charging port on the front, rather than the back, a somewhat quirky design choice.

Still, Sennheiser gave these earbuds a premium feel thanks to the textured fabric on the case. I found the sound crisp and detailed, and the earbuds have a comfortable, secure fit that made them easy to wear for extended listening sessions.

The straightforward app also makes it easy to play with features like ANC and EQ, and you can also customize touch controls, including the ability to set different controls for the left and right earbuds. Reliable in-ear detection also pauses music when you take an earbud out, and some cool features make these earbuds stand out.

A “Find Headphones” feature helps you locate your misplaced earbuds based on the last place they were disconnected, and sound zones let you set custom presets based on where you are (home vs work vs the gym, for example). You can also set the codec used, from the battery-saving standard setting, a low-latency gaming mode, or high-resolution audio through aptX adaptive or AAC.

The Sony WF-1000XM5 earbuds are among the best you can buy in terms of audio quality and noise cancellation, and their snug, secure fit makes them well-suited for workouts as well. Like many premium earbuds, these are pricey — at $329 at full retail, they’re pricier than Nothing’s new over-ear headphones. But they’re regularly available for less than retail, reducing some of the sticker shock.

In terms of audio quality, these earbuds offer rich detail and impressively immersive stereo imaging, allowing you to distinguish individual instruments with sound that’s detailed, not flat. The earbuds support AAC for Apple users, Sony’s proprietary LDAC for high-resolution audio, and LC3 for low-latency connections. 

You can adjust the EQ settings in Sony’s Sound Connect app, which also features scene-based audio that adjusts the ANC according to your location, 360 Reality Audio, head tracking, Bluetooth stability settings, and more. The app is somewhat overwhelming, but despite its numerous functions, the touch controls themselves have limited customization options — there are two presets for the left or right earbuds. 

These earbuds are a solid option for Android users as well, thanks to support for Google Fast Pair and Find Hub, Google’s answer to Apple’s Find My. 

If you like the design of stemmed earbuds like AirPods, Nothing’s earbuds replicate the familiar shape and pinch controls. They have solid audio quality across a variety of genres, with clear vocals and highs and a satisfying, but not distorted, thump from the bass. LDAC, LHDC, and AAC support also get you support for high-resolution audio. If you want more (or less) bass, the detailed EQ settings are, if nothing else, fun to play with.

Like the Technics and Sennheiser earbuds, I found that these sounded best with ANC turned on — turning on the aware mode sacrifices some of the audio quality. As for ANC performance, it dependably tunes out background noise, but brands like Bose outshine Nothing in that department.

Nothing’s earbuds also come in a stylish, transparent case that, while wide, is slim enough to slip into a shirt or jacket pocket. Crucially, they’re also about half the price of our top picks from Technics and Sennheiser, making these an excellent pair of everyday earbuds. If you want an even more affordable pick, Nothing also makes the more budget-friendly Nothing Ear (a) earbuds, which are my top pick for earbuds under $100.

Bowers & Wilkins’ Pi8 earbuds live up to the brand’s reputation for quality — and price. At $399, these are an expensive pair of earbuds; they’re $100 more expensive than our other picks from Sennheiser, Technics, and Bose.

As for audio quality, you get crisp performance, with clarity and detail across genres, and the stylish design feels luxe. The earbuds feature Qualcomm’s aptX Lossless codec and Snapdragon Sound for high-resolution audio. One of the most unique features is the charging case. It allows you to plug an audio source into the case and transmit it to the earbuds (a 3.5mm to USB-C cable is included for this purpose). This comes in handy for flights, for example; you can connect to the in-flight entertainment system without a separate Bluetooth accessory.

The battery life is adequate, though not outstanding. You get up to 6.5 hours of battery life on a charge, plus 20 with the case. They also support wireless charging and fast charging to quickly top off the battery.

The biggest issue I had with these earbuds was the app. I had difficulty getting the earbuds to reliably stay connected to the app, even when I had a stable Bluetooth connection. This seems to be an issue for Android users in particular; the Bowers & Wilkins app has a 4.4-star rating on Apple’s App Store, but a 2.7-star rating on Google Play. The audio quality is excellent, but Bowers & Wilkins could stand to improve its Android experience.

Bose gets knocked sometimes for its bass-forward sound, but the brand nails active noise canceling better than the competition. The QuietComfort Ultra earbuds effectively cut out background noise, including conversations, traffic, or the roar of a jet engine while traveling, better than other earbuds I’ve tested.

The Bose QC earbuds play a custom tune that’s designed to map the shape of your ear canal for better noise reduction. How much impact this feature has is unclear, as you can’t turn it off, but there’s no question that the utter silence of Quiet mode speaks for itself.

Crucially, unlike other brands, the sound quality remains solid whether you have ANC on or off. Bose also lets you set up to four ANC presets if “Quiet” mode is overkill; I have presets set to “Quiet,” “Aware,” and a halfway point I called “Relax”.

As for audio performance, Bose utilizes Snapdragon Sound for high-quality audio and connection stability, and the audio sounds great across a variety of genres. That said, this isn’t my top pick for phone calls, as the call quality can sound warbled on the other end.

If you’re a Samsung user looking for a pair of earbuds that sound great and play well with Android, the Galaxy Buds3 Pro are more than up to the task. Whether Samsung, which owns Harman Kardon, JBL, and AKG, learned from its subsidiaries, or they simply have a deep bench of audio experts in-house, the Galaxy Buds3 Pro sound impressively crisp. They’re also some of the best-sounding earbuds I’ve tested for phone calls.

The stemmed design may be derivative of AirPods, but Samsung took some steps to make these stand out. The triangular shape, transparent case, and light-up stems add some visual flair, although the color options are limited to gray or white. The earbuds are integrated with Samsung’s Wear app, getting you features like lost device tracking, plus customizable EQ and 360 audio.

One quirky design choice is the earbud placement in the case; unlike AirPods or Bose earbuds, the eartips face outward, meaning you have to rotate the buds to place them in the case. It’s an admittedly minor quirk, but the extra step led me to drop the earbuds on more than one occasion. Another flaw is the ANC, which isn’t on par with the earbuds these are designed to rival, the AirPods Pro 2.

As is the case with AirPods, Samsung designed these to play well within their ecosystem and not so well outside of it, but if you use a Samsung smartphone and want seamless pairing and excellent audio, the Galaxy Buds3 Pro are an excellent option.

AirPods Pro 2 remain a go-to option for iPhone users, and with good reason. They seamlessly pair with Apple devices, offering features like Find My to easily locate them if they get misplaced. After all, how good can your earbuds sound if you don’t know where they are? The case is also slim and easy to take on the go, and the earbuds’ shape fits comfortably in the ear.

The sound quality is impressive as well, even if higher-priced options offer richer detail and greater customization. There’s no custom EQ, but they still sound great out of the box, without excessive emphasis on bass.

AirPods Pro 2 also offer innovative features like hearing protection, and they can even function as a hearing aid. The active noise-canceling is surprisingly robust, effectively dimming distracting noises. The controls are also straightforward and dependable, with a pinch that controls playback and a slider underneath the stem to adjust the volume.

Ultimately, while there are more impressive-sounding earbuds on the market, the AirPods Pro’s winning combination of performance and features continues to justify them as a no-brainer for iPhone users.

A Word on Codecs

You’ll hear a lot about Bluetooth codecs, particularly when you start digging into questions of audio quality, and the alphabet soup of names — aptX, AAC, LDAC — don’t exactly make things easier. To help clear things up, we spoke to Dino Bekis, Vice President and General Manager, Wearables & Mixed Signal Solutions for Qualcomm, a leading brand known for developing codecs like aptX. 

Bekis said codecs can be thought of like a highway. “That road can only handle so many cars, right? Bluetooth, like any other technology, has a limitation on bandwidth. So audio codecs are algorithms that compress and decompress audio to send over that link to try to make the most efficient use of the available capacity.” The bitrate, in this analogy, would be the cars, or the amount of data that can travel across the highway, with a higher bitrate translating to less “lossy” audio.

AAC is standard on iOS devices, Qualcomm offers a range of codecs, including aptX HD, Adaptive, and more, while Sony’s codec is LDAC. SBC is a lower resolution codec, and is available on any device that supports Bluetooth. Bekis explained, “AptX is the foundational codec that we use within Snapdragon Sound, and it’s based on advanced pulse code modulation. It’s a non-destructive codec, which means that the audio that you get is very similar to the original, uncompressed file.” 

With some codecs, there can be a tradeoff between audio quality and stability. Codecs like aptX Adaptive are designed to adjust automatically between higher resolution and greater stability, depending on the situation. Bekis explained that codecs like aptX Adaptive can “lower the quality so it’s almost imperceptible to you as a user, while still maintaining that robust link,” to prevent dropouts and interference in environemnts with a lot of signals. Likewise, according to Sony, LDAC automatically adjusts the bitrate depending on the environment.