Here’s a list of the best wireless headphones you can buy right now, as reviewed by Engadget editors…
Audio gear with non-replaceable batteries bothers me so much
My old Sony xm3, while not having officially yser-replaceable battery, is somewhat easy to open and replace batteries.
Anyone found any decent wireless ones with replaceable batteries? I was interested in the Fairbuds XL but it’s not well reviewed.
For a while I had a pair of Sennheiser TV headphones that took AAAs, but they required a dedicated transmitter and weren’t great for music anyway.
One sort-of semi solution is to use a bluetooth dongle with wired headphones. Usually still not easily replaceable batteries, but at least when the thing dies or becomes outdated due to codecs changing, you’re not wasting as much money and material as you are when you need to replace a whole headset.
There are a lot of decent dongles nowadays. When last I checked I think the Qudelix-5K was the one to beat.
I love mine, and the battery management on the qudelix is phenomenal. Built in 80% mode, doesn’t pull from battery while plugged in. And it looks like it could be opened with a screwdriver though I haven’t tried.
The qudelix is stupidly powerful for how tiny it is, especially if you run it with balanced cables.
So these probably aren’t audiophile grade audio, but I have the Steelseries Nova Pro Wireless, which come with two hot-swappable and replaceable batteries. Always charging one while the other is in use, so I never have to worry.
Main reason I got it was the dual/simultaneous USB and Bluetooth. I’m on Discord or calls on my phone a lot for personal, but want to stay connected to PC via USB for audio (either Teams for the work pc or gaming on my desktop).
I’ve heard the newer version is slightly better, but probably still below audiophile standards. Either way my ears are pretty wrecked and I can’t really pick up fine notes. They’re fine by me!
If I search for Fairbuds XL reviews most of them seem very positive and hardly point out any major flaws. What are some of the negative aspects?
It’s really just about the sound. Jon Porter’s Verge review is one of the ones I read. He calls them “competent”, but:
Fairbuds XL don’t offer a particularly detailed sound… Listen to a layered track like Paranoid Void’s “Null,” and the Fairbuds XL make it harder to hear the separation between guitar and bass. It’s the same with Max Richter’s “On the Nature of Daylight,” where all the string instruments feel less distinct.
LTT (video) didn’t like the emphasis on bass, especially at the expense of the mids, and the measurements at 11:05 seem to back that up.
My own taste is somewhat the opposite of this profile. Sometimes I want bass, but I often find it overwhelming and every Bluetooth headphone I’ve tried is a little too warm for me out of the box. I’m losing some hearing in the upper mids, so having them drawn back like this isn’t good for me.
Not a fan of AAAs. They just don’t hold enough power.
My approach is just to get ones where the battery last far longer than you need. I’m not entirely happy with that, but my several year old pair has gone from about a week and a half to about a week as the battery has aged. I’m fine with that.
Not a terrible list. But there are much better sources out there for audio reviews and opinions.
Crinacle.com
Head-fi.org
Soundguys.com
Soundstagehifi.com
Stereophile.com
Whathifi.comI’m sure there’s a few others.
We need a new list every year because the fucking things don’t have replaceable batteries :/
Maybe EU will make a legislation about headphone batteries too…
They should focus on electric cars. Replacing tiny batteries in thin phones or thinner headphones is silly to legislate compared to gigantic batteries in big cars. The rest of the car could easily have a 20 year life with no internal combustion engine, but most get scrapped after 6-8 years.
If they want to pretend that they’re saving the planet with legislation, go for the real volume.
User replaceable batteries in earbuds would make them thicker and heavier - exactly what consumers say they don’t want.
Electric Cars have replaceable batteries? No one’s throwing away that much money in precious metals. Recycling companies are spinning up to handle EV batteries as they start to fail, which they haven’t in large numbers yet.
Yeah every EV has a replaceable battery, lol. The actual issue is the amount of shops that do battery replacement is little to none. On top of that, EV battery recycling isn’t at the scale it will need to be in 10-15 years. Those issues will solve themself after a while though.
Are they really impossible to replace, though?
Probably not.
But most wireless headphones would be destroyed in the process of taking them apart.
I imagine some of the larger models above have (skilled) user replaceable batteries.
They are not designed to be replaced
I’ve been rocking my Sony WH-1000XM3’s for going on 5 years now and have had absolutely zero issues with battery life (or anything else for that matter). I wear them several hours a day, every work day for Zoom calls, etc. They’ve traveled with me and are great for flights.
I’d buy another pair (of the newer model) in a heartbeat.
Same here- best headphones I’ve ever owned!
🙋🏻♂️ Sony WH-1000XM2 owner here, and I’m equally as happy. They’re still going strong after years of heavy daily use.
To add to that, I have a pair of the same headphones and I replaced the battery in them this year. I won’t call it easy, but it was a lot easier than replacing a cell phone battery. Here’s a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh1cPCjfh34
The process really isn’t too bad, I also replaced my charging port because I was having issues with that. Lots of parts available on eBay
That is encouraging but the fact remains that there is a point of failure in the battery which has a known lifetime of charge cycles. I’m wouldn’t tell you not to buy them I’m just a stickler for that kind of thing I guess.
That’s fair. Getting 5+ years of heavy use (thousands of hours) out of a $400 pair of headphones is worth the investment to me. Not worth it to everyone, though.
I always go to rtings if I wanna buy something. They make such detailed reviews!
i like wirecutter too!
I’ll stay wired for the foreseeable future. Headphones I have to charge just seem like an extra inconvenience to me.
When you use them for work, not being tied to your computer is really nice.
You should try some. I’ve got the Sony XM4s, the battery lasts for an eternity and I never want to faff about with wires again!
But the latency for music games is the issue, since that’s typically when I’m reaching for headphones.
Good wireless headphones come with a cable, so you can have your cake and eat it too with zero latency and zero battery consumption when you need that.
It’s pretty rare that I’ll plug in that cable to be honest. Mind you, mine have lower latency than most brands.
Yeah, I have a pair of AudioTechnica ATH-M50xBT (the -BT is for “bluetooth”) that I usually use in wireless mode to connect to my PC, and I really like them. I’ll use the cable when the battery dies and I really don’t want to use my screen’s built in speakers. They’re on-ear with closed backs, so they do a decent job of blocking noise even without ANC. I like the sound quality, but I’m not an audiophile or anything.
I use them in wired mode with the in-line mic for my work computer (which disallows bluetooth connectivity) for Teams/Zoom calls.
Sony XM series have wired mode. Although the noice cancel feature still needs battery
I use my XM4’s wired with my PC every day because I don’t like Bluetooth latency but love these headphones. The flexibility of wireless when I need it occasionally is great though! (Like today I’ll use them on a flight later)
Exactly. Wireless headphones all have an expiration date, they are all future e-waste. A good pair of weird headphones Will last a lifetime if taken care of
You know you’re getting old when even the “budget” item on a list like this seems expensive.
The idea that people are just dropping $300+ on a a headset is crazy to me.
I use a Beyerdynamic Custom Studio One and a Bluetooth adapter, when the adapter dies, I just change the adapter, much cheaper and better sound.
I went about the same route with DT880 pros and then a FIIO BTR5. I can then use my BTR5 with my Moondrop Arias IEMs or in my cars.
I also use a BTR5 with my HD 6XXs for my remote work, or my KPH30is when on-the-go. It even drives my Anandas just fine, if I want a little more ‘oomph’ to my music but still want to be able to stretch my legs a bit. Great little device.
I wear my headphones about 40 hours a week, and I think the current pair is over four years old and still in as new condition (some slight cosmetic wear and I’ve replaced the padding a couple times).
They’re approaching 10,000 hours which would be 3 cents an hour if they were $300 (actually can’t remember what I spent, but probably about that much).
I’ve spent a lot of money on cheap headphones that ended up in the trash in no time, because they weren’t well made. Buying those is crazy.
I’d love to spend less money, but they better be durable. I do have some wired headphones that are durable and were cheaper, but the cable makes them uncomfortable to wear. They’re ten years old and I haven’t worn them since I bought my wireless pair (originally intended to be for the office, but I ended up liking them so much I take them home every night).
Headsets and headphones are not the same thing and have very different market demographics.
… and the budget one does not even have ANC if I understand it correctly.
Honestly the average user should probably go wireless. The convenience factor is huge, and most of these new headphones come with active noise cancelling.
The average pair of wireless headphones is also good enough for casual listening (depending on codec) and can come pretty close to wired solutions.
That said, I would never go for wireless on ear/over ear headphones again. The more features something has, the harder it is to fix when something breaks.
My wireless solution is a set of mmcx in ear monitors connected via Bluetooth adapter. Even without active noise cancellation, they block out sound well. For desktop my job requires critical listening, and I like neutral signatures, so I’d rather stick to desktop monitors and wired solutions.
The convenience of wireless is great but it also means you’ll need new headphones right around ever 5 years.
Wired is still the best option hands down imo. I can buy headphones that last for decades not years.
See I’ve had the opposite problem. Every single pair of wired headphones I’ve ever owned, except for my current pair, has failed when the wire had flexed too much. I suspect the current pair has lasted so long because I’ve almost entirely switched to wireless.
Some really expensive small ones I’ve used can fail after single digit hours of use (luckily work pays for those… and they’re willing to make that compromise for nearly invisible cables). I keep a box of a dozen new sets ready to go under my desk, they’re several hundred dollars each. We don’t allow the wearer to put them on or take them off - an assistant carefully does it and tapes the cable to their skin under their clothes to try to reduce the risk of failure.
Obviously there are wired headphones with thicker / stronger cables, but those come with serious comfort compromises which most people just are not willing to make. There are jobs where you need a wired pair. I work one of those jobs. For any other situation though, I think wireless is better, and I use wireless as much as I can.
You can just buy headphones with a replaceable wire.
Every pair of headphones I currently own has a replaceable wire. It’s still a failure point.
I still don’t understand how the cable fails so often especially if they are multiple hundreds of dollars. What kind of work are you doing
@abhibeckert @ArtificialLink I’ve got many pairs of wired headphones, and I’ve had exactly one pair fail due to the wire. Most of them are still working, barring physically breaking apart.
I feel that. I have a pair of Shure SRH940s that are perfect in every way, except the material was so fragile, that the band split in half completely. I really need to get around to transplanting the internals of that…
Destpite how shitty apple is I fuck with the airpods pro so hard
Even though I own a pair of nice noise cancelling Sony headphones, I’ve stopped using it completely. I now only use my airpods pro. I think it’s because I hated Sony’s app. The airpods pro are just so much easier to use.
I forgot my sony earbuds have an app, I really enjoy the sony earbuds but the mic is completely useless, I tried to be cool like my coworker and use earbuds for meetings and I can hear him clearly through his apple earbuds but no one can understand me, I had to order a headset to use for meetings in order to participate
I think the terrible microphone quality on Bluetooth headsets is down to limitations in the Bluetooth protocol itself.
For all the hype around wireless headphones, I really wish they’d fix the potato quality microphone audio. It seems so odd to me that it hasn’t been fixed by somebody yet.
I would use the beats fit pro instead if the case wasn’t twice the size
I haven’t tried those I wonder how they compare?
Something I whine about a lot is that the Bose QC45 is one of my least favourite device upgrades ever. I owned a pair of QC35 II’s and I loved them, but I had an opportunity to get the QC45s through my work and figured it’d be nice to have USB-C, so why not. The QC45’s are exactly the same in pretty much every way with the exception of USB-C — not an exciting upgrade, but whatever, boring is fine if they work well. But they inexplicably decided to remove the mid-level noise cancelling option that the QC35 II’s had. That was an option that would essentially turn down the sensitivity a bit for windy conditions, which I need to wear the headphones outside. On the QC45’s, there’s only full noise cancelling or off, both of which result in enormous amounts of noise if there’s any wind, making them completely unusable outdoors. I’ve reached out to Bose a few times just to try and understand the decision, but they’ve never even replied to me. It’s a shame, because the QC series are the most comfortable headphones I’ve ever worn, but I can’t justify buying anything from Bose again.
Someone knows some <$100 over ear headphones with solid anc?
I find poorly implemented anc on cheap headphones to be painful. You’d be better off looking for good sound isolation.
I got no experience with ANC in over-ears. It’s weird: with in-ears, you get pretty good ANC even in the cheaper <$50 ones. But it seems like you can’t get decent quality anc in cheaper over-ears…
Slightly rephrasing my question: what’s the least I have to spend for over-ears decent quality and?
Probably Anker soundcore Q20
I got the Sony WH-CH720N’s. They’re pretty great.
Thanks I will check them out!
I have tried several, and been thoroughly unimpressed. My advice is to save up and spend the extra money on ANC that’s actually good. Sony and Bose both make EXCELLENT cans with great battery life. QuietComfort from Bose, and the WH-1000XM series from Sony. Don’t cheap out, you’ll get an inferior product.
You can get them used if you want, usually for under $200. Just replace the ear pads if you’re paranoid about germs. I got a used set of WH-1000XM3’s from a friend and they’ve been amazing, for two years now.
You can find similar prices on eBay, or here: https://www.unclaimedbaggage.com/collections/headphones#/filter:vendor:Bose/filter:vendor:Sony/filter:ss_filter_type:On$2520Ear$252FOver$2520Ear
Unclaimed Baggage is a cool website, they sell stuff that people left on airplanes. Looks like there isn’t much in stock at the moment, but check back periodically and you’ll see a lot of good Bose deals.
And here I am mourning the soon to be death of my Bose QuietComfort 35 WIRED earbuds with the insanely soft comfortable silicone ear tips with WINGS that fit super snug & comfy, never fall out.
I’ve yet to find a sub 120-150 dollar replacement for them. I’ve been using them daily for like 10+ years :(
Honestly, you’re in for a treat once you find a good replacement. “Comfort” and “wired” are an oxymoron. Wireless headphones can be so much more comfortable.
Is there a reason you’re not willing to spend a bit more? I’m on my third set of padding for my current headphones. Good headphones last a very long time and it’s worth spending a bit more money.
I’ve never had a problem with wires on my headphones, I don’t really get why it bothers people so much. 30 foot headphone cable plugged into my PC = bliss. Basically as good as wireless.
I have the WH-1000XM5 and had the XM4s before that (gifted them to a friend) and have been very happy with both. My only gripe is in wish the “white” XM5s where more white and less cream.