The Best Bluetooth Headphones to Buy in 2024

Over-ear, on-ear or in-ear?

Let’s begin by taking a step back: Which headphone design is right for you? In this article, we’ll focus on models that cover your ear as over-ear headphones. This provides better insulation against ambient noise and better-wearing comfort. At the same time, over-ear headphones are relatively large and can make your ears feel warm in the summer after wearing them for a prolonged period of time.

On-ear models are quite rare in 2023, but they do have advantages with a smaller form factor. In return, they are inferior to other models in terms of sound and ANC effectiveness.

In-ear Bluetooth headphones are particularly compact and can even fit in a pocket in most cases. While they can also offer very high quality in terms of ANC and sound, the wearing experience can be uncomfortable in the long run. In addition, battery life is usually limited to six to eight hours when actively listening to music, and the tiny earbuds tend to get lost.

Sound quality and flexibility

Thanks to large drivers and good passive noise isolation, you can look forward to high sound quality when buying over-ear headphones. As a rule of thumb, the more money you spend, the higher the sound quality is the end result. You can pay attention to some of the technical specifications when making a purchase decision, which you can then use to evaluate the sound quality without trying it out.

Among them are the size and material choice of the drivers, their frequency response, and the support of high-quality Bluetooth codecs. However, this has never been able to replace a listening test in the technology market or reading reviews that carry detailed descriptions of the sound. You can also adjust the sound to your preferences via equalizers and sound profiles in the companion apps to tweak it further.

Active Noise Cancellation (ANC)

Active noise cancellation, abbreviated as ANC, is available in most Bluetooth headphones. Here, the headphones pick up ambient noise via its microphones and play it back in your ear in reversed polarity. The so-called anti-noise cancellation compensates for the surrounding noise and you no longer hear it.

With a good pair of headphones, the ANC level can be controlled in a flexible manner, even fully automatically as an ideal, and there should also be a transparency mode. This allows you to listen to the ambient noise using microphone support, which is very practical in the midst of traffic or during conversations.

Battery life

Another advantage that over-ear models have over true-wireless headphones is the length of their battery life which is often several days long with active noise cancellation. The small in-ear models only last about one working day without additional charging in the charging cradle. Check whether the battery life is sufficient for you when buying a new pair of headphones.

The Sony WH-1000XM5 is the flagship of Sony’s consumer audio headphones. Its predecessor, the Sony WH-1000XM4, and its predecessor, the WH-1000XM3 were considered the best references on the market.

The Bluetooth headset relies heavily on sound quality thanks to Sony’s LDAC codec, but also on the effectiveness of its active noise canceling (ANC). The Sony WH-1000XM5 also marked a breakthrough in terms of design, with a more refined and streamlined look.

When the Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless arrived in the editorial office, I was torn. This is because the headphones were almost devoid of the value and charm of the previous model. Sennheiser has adapted strongly to the design of the competition—but has done the same with the features.

If you have just under $550 to spare and are deeply entrenched in the Apple ecosystem, you should set your sights on the AirPods Max. The company’s first over-ear headphones shine with an ultra-high-quality finish alongside a metal casing, offering particularly high sound quality and automatic detection of which Apple device you are currently using for listening to music or podcasts.

Bose added another to its established and popular QuietComfort series with the Bose QC Ultra headphones. At $430 (MSRP) a pop, the over-ear headphones from the audio professionals cost a pretty amount of money, but they also offer the best ANC you could ask for. The “Immersive Sound”, which is Bose’s 360° feature, proved to be particularly impressive in stationary mode.

The expected supported codecs including aptX adaptive are part fo the deal, with Bluetooth multipoint connectivity being available as well. Bose continues to up the ante with wear detection for that added touch of class. If you don’t mind parting with $430, then this is a very good buy. However, if you’re concerned about the price, you might want to take a closer look at the Sony competitor mentioned above.