after hundreds and hundreds of hours of listening testing and comparisons of all of these earbuds here my picks as an audio engineer for the best true wireless bluetooth earbuds now I'll share my picks for earbuds of the year in various categories from value working out open ear design gaming transparency mode ANC sound quality and overall experience or my personal choice if you wish to purchase any of these earbuds the links are in the description and help support the channel when you buy throu
gh those links let's start with the best value option after introducing myself my name is m Brandon Lee and I've been a professional audio engineer for live productions and more for almost 15 years I have some insane immersive reviews with audio samples of earbuds and headphones you should check out the playlist for them after this video now let's get into the first one my choice for the best value earbuds is the nothing ear 2 often bluetooth earbuds with an excellent overall package and set of
features is quite expensive and if you go for a more affordable option the options are kind of lacking the nothing ear 2 punches way above its weight for the price and stands out as the best bang for the book with some decent ANC and transparency but some great software and features an iconic design and shockingly fantastic sound it even has Android fast pair to connect to your Android phone easily it's one downside is its battery life it only lasts about 4 hours with a andc turn on and so if th
ey could double that battery life per charge they'd be easy to suggest without any sort of caveats it'd be nice to be able to wear these when I'm going traveling and last me as I get into my Uber and fly on the plane and get into the hotel or wherever I'm going it's also not an industry leader in ANC or transparency mode but at $150 normally and $100 on sale it's pretty dang good as for a runnerup it goes to the Google pixel buds a series you can often find these things for about $60 and shockin
gly they sound better than the Google pixel buds Pro if you're confused about that my review for them are located up here the a series sounds surprising L decent quite comfortable it's small enough for me to lay down with them in my ear on a pillow at least for my ears and they have some pretty decent battery life you certainly miss out on a ton of features which the Pro Models do provide but if you're going for something that sounds decent and is Affordable 60 bucks is not bad my pick for the b
est gaming option goes to the JBL Quantum twws earbuds the key factor for what makes these a great earbud for gaming is this little thing right here this little USBC dongle that you can plug into just like about everything your computer your console steam deck your smartphone including your iPhone with that USBC Port love that and with that you just have really low latency audio which is really important for when you're playing you know games like Apex or rocket League or whatever and this is my
pick because of the sound quality it's really solid from the get-go but the app allows you to have some really insane EQ customization options that any audio engineer or Tinker would love and the runner up goes to the razor Hammerhead Pro hypers speed while it has far more features than the JBL Quantum t ws and like those um LEDs and the sound quality is it's a major step below even with some EQ adjustments it's hard to get a sound quality that's even close to the range of the jbls so if you ne
ed to hear things like your footsteps and other sounds while gaming a good Sound Stage and clean sound is crucial and because the sound quality is not as good as jbl's it's the runner up my pick for the best earbuds for working out goes to the Bose Quite Comfort earbuds Ultra and two because they're the same design whether you're lifting weights running or working through a high intense workout the most annoying thing to have happen to you is having your earbuds falling out constantly I've often
joked that you could have these in your ear and it could fall down a hill and these earbuds would still be in your ears and your shoes just flying off with their oval ear tips and stability wings of various sizes these things fit into your ears very snugly they're surprisingly one of the most comfortable earbuds out there and you really just don't feel them in your ears much at all on top of that it has industry-leading features which we can talk about later on and Android quick pair which is r
eally important because on the twos the connectivity is a bit infuriating on the Ultras they fix that so it's a little bit less of a headache as a runnerup the Beats fit Pro is a great choice not only do they stay in your ears well because they have those little wingy tip guys there but has pretty decent sound that is far more tasteful and clean than the Beats sound of old they also have ANC that helps a little bit fast pair on iOS and a fast pair like feature on Android if you have the Beats ap
p open my pick for the best open ear bone conduction earbud goes to the sound core aoit Pros many want to be able to hear their surroundings while going for a run both for awareness and safety and a lot of people don't like having things in their ear while bone conduction is an option it often lacks lowend and sounds pretty anemic due to the means of transferring sound but it is very good for those who may have certain forms of hearing loss there's a whole science behind how that whole thing wor
ks there's a video that you can check out up here if you want to learn more about bone conduction earbuds but the AIT Pros offer a lot of the similarities of bone condu conduction earbuds without a lot of the downsides of bone conduction earbuds because they're open ears that have a deeper sound they're still not as good as traditional earbuds but they're definitely not as bad as bone conduction earbuds in terms of sound quality it stays on your ears by looping it around your earlobe but you can
use the headband for extra support if you wish I guess that kind of makes a bit of a cheat since it's kind of like a headphone but you know whatever as for the runner up the shocks open fit is the next best I've used and also feel really comfortable my pick for the best earbuds that do not go into a canal goes to the Apple airpods 3 these are definitely better than bone conduction or air conduction but they don't actually go into your ear canal but sits kind of outside of it I'll be honest when
these first came out I had low expectations for them I expected to really think that they sucked and didn't like them and was ready to write a scathing review but uh I put them in my ears and gosh darn it Apple I don't know how you're doing it these sound pretty dang good and they have a surprise in amount of low end to them they sound full and really Punchy and I just really don't have any problem suggesting these to anyone who want an option that does not actually go into the ear canal they o
bviously work better with Apple devices but you can connect them to non-apple devices by holding the button down on the case right here which is really helpful these are just so dang good that there's no runner up now if you're using airpods you should definitely check out a skin or case from Channel sponsor dbrand these are their x-ray skins and cas es we have the Black Version right here that lets you see inside of what the actual airpods looks like and here is the light version I think I like
the light one a little bit more because of the contrast against the case but it seems like there's more detail on the darker one I don't know which one to pick from but at least they give you both of them when you order that's pretty sweet they also have a bunch of cases and skins available for smartphones as well so go ahead and check out a dbrand skin or grip Case by clicking the link Down Below in the description and thanks to dbrand for sponsoring this portion of the video my pick for the b
est ear earbuds for transparency mode goes to the Apple airpods Pro 2 one of the downsides of using earbud is the feeling of isolation many earbuds have an added transparency mode that gives you awareness of your surroundings without having to take your earbud out and that's great for running talking to someone else or you know whatever else in most cases when you see transparency mode on the earbud they don't really sound natural or seamless or the same as what it would sound like if you had to
remove your earbuds and the airpods pro gets a lot right to feel genuinely transparent the volume level change between your earbuds being in your ears and out of them is non-existent you have an accurate placement of sounds as you move around or they move around you and it manages to reproduce most of the frequencies of your environment accurately even down to lower frequencies typically transparency modes don't have a lot of high-end or lowend so it sounds unnatural and even the runner up the
bows quite come for earbuds Ultra and two do not have the ability to reproduce that low end that you can on the airpods Pro 2 honestly the bows would have been my choice if it wasn't for the missing low end as I find the high and reproduction to be even more natural than the airpods Pro 2 but it also has a slight electronic his that most other earbuds don't have if these uh two areas were fixed uh the Bose would be my pick over the airpods pro two they're that close my pick for the best active n
oise cancellation goes to the Bose quiet Comfort earbuds Ultra active noise cancellation or ANC is a prominent feature in earbuds nowadays but not all of them are the same and not even close if you want that real ANC that feels like an anechoic chamber where you don't hear any flections and as little sound as possible you're honestly lucked with only the industry leaders which are Apple Bose and Sony and they all have their different approaches to it such as removing more of the higher frequenci
es or the lower frequencies no matter the philosophical approaches to ANC the Bose Quite Comfort earbuds Ultras definitely Stand Out above all while they focus on removing the highend more than the mid-range the reduction across the entire frequency range is so much better than Sony and apple that it is shocking I had to like double check to make sure that I wasn't like confused using something it was dramatic what makes it even more surprising is how the ultas are noticeably better than my prev
ious pick they Quite Comfort earbuds to which also does a substantially better job than the rest if I were to pick a follow-up to the followup which is the Bose Quite Comfort earbuds 2 I would choose the Sony wf1000 xm5 which does a fantastic job as well just not as crazy good as the bows but just a heads up both of the models of the bows are not perfect you can hear slight electronic hiss when audio is not playing which heard is part of the way that they're able to get insane reduction and they
don't have wireless charging at like over $300 it's kind of crazy but if you really need wireless charging and you can't handle that hiss the Sony wf1000 xm5 is definitely the one to check out if you prioritize andc above all it has better connectivity too my pick for the best sound quality which is honestly really shocking even to me goes to the nothing ear 2os while there are great options for many other brands out out there they often have an area or two that make them a bit too harsh or tre
bly or bloated in the low end it's just something that I I want to adjust from the sound the nothing ear TOS Feel clean detailed and balanced without sounding boring and they have a Harmon Target tuned sound profile that's all thanks to my friend DMS who partnered with nothing to help uh with their tuning of their earbuds before then there are some misunderstandings of the philosophies of tuning earbuds and what he did made these things sound amazing they did a fantastic job with this but if you
want to adjust the sound more to your preferences you do have in-depth control over the EQ to get the tuning that fits you and this is legit audio engineer approved level control there's also a community that helps making sharing your settings easy and there's gestures on the earbuds themselves easy and fast connection with Android fast pair on your Android and wireless charging on the case it's still pretty dang good for you know $150 or $100 on sale that's that's that's insane so definitely d
efinitely worth looking at that battery life though as a followup this one requires some tweak tweaking with my custom EQ in the wavelet app on Android but the Sony wf1000 xm5 is a blast to listen to Once those tweaks are in if you want to get your hands on my custom EQ for the wf1000 XM 5S other earbuds and headphones or simply want to support my content set up for the channel membership for Access that helps pay for editing of some of my videos as well as being able to purchase additional earb
uds for review like I did with the ultas thanks to the members for that now for the moment you're waiting for which one is my personal pick this pick I would consider is the uh best allrounder or holistic package as typical with all products it's hard to find any product that is the best in every category that takes part in so you often find one that overall does at least everything solidly and has certain aspects that make it Excel compared to others and even more so when the some of its parts
are combined so the pick for the best allinone allrounder that I personally use every day goes to the airpods Pro 2 with the USBC version there are so many reasons why the airpods Pro 2 are my personal pick the sound quality is quite solid where it doesn't feel overly scooped or tubby or congested in a lowend like many consumer audio products the mid-range and high-end might be a touch more forward than what I would prefer but overall I enjoy the sound it holds a third place spot for the bestc a
fter Bose in Sony so that means that it's still really dang good and it has the crown for transparency mode what makes it truly Stand Out is the ecosystem it has mag safe to make it easier for it to lock into your wireless charger overnight before I had to place it down only to realize it wasn't in the right spot and didn't charge overnight I personally use this Nomad charger here it just locks in and it could lock in right it's just look at it's just great the case also gives you an audible fee
dback when it starts charging and is helpful when trying to find it that's because you can use the find my network to make it chirp for you and that find my feature is fantastic because the airpods pro has a built-in air tag so to speak so you can quickly locate it I've used that feature so many times when I've lost it in my house and it makes me wish that every sing single earbud out there had a find my feature I can't wait until Google launches their own because I would say that is a table Sta
kes feature that needs to be in every single earbud in the feature but while that ecosystem is amazing it has its sfalls I absolutely hate the automatic transferring between devices when you're using your earbuds like it'll swap to my laptop when I actually want it to stay on my phone and and all these different things so it's actually more frustrating than helpful if you're not using an iPhone or moving between devices my next choice would be the Sony wf1000xm 5S this is Sony's latest earbud of
fering and the sound quality is far more mature of an approach than in the past with less of that base cannon sound that made it sound really tubby and dark and and flubby it's just way more balanced and with my custom EQ settings I absolutely love the way that they sound it sounds really Punchy and and just forward and clear combine them with the second best a ANC after Bose and without any electronic hiss you have a fantastic performing alternative I always have the airpods Pro 2 and the Sony
wf1000xm 5S whenever I travel those are my picks for the best earbuds within various categories what do you think about my picks any thoughts any earbuds that you think I should check out there are any Brands out there that want to be considered in the future can't consider your earbuds if I don't have them so my email is in the description of course if you want to purchase any of these earbuds there are links in the description those are affiliate links they help support the channel so I can pu
rchase more of these earbuds to review if you want to see what my best headphones are go ahead and click the video up here once I've posted it thanks for watching this is Tech today until next time
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