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.
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 big.
