Best Headphone and Earbuds Deals – CNET

When they were released last August, Jabra touted its $80 Elite 3 earbuds as its most affordable true-wireless buds to date. Now they’re even more affordable, with select colors dipping to $74 right now at Amazon.

The Elite 3 have a fairly basic feature set, though they offer strong sound and call quality for the money. They have 6mm drivers, four microphones for calls and Jabra’s HearThrough transparency mode. Qualcomm aptX HD audio is supported for aptX-enabled devices.

You can shop discounts on several pairs of Samsung’s Galaxy earbuds right now, including the Galaxy Buds 2, which I tend to like the best of the current crop of Galaxy Buds. You can save up to $50 on the olive green variant right now at Amazon, though other colors also have various discounts. Read our Galaxy Buds 2 review.

Not quite as nice as the Z7 Pro headphones but still worth it are the Z2 over-ear headphones. These are made to withstand jerk movement while you workout and have active noise cancellation. They can run for 35 hours without dying and are great for running and the gym. These headphones are made sturdy and can withstand a drop or two. Both styles (black with silver designs and all-black) are $90 (save $30).

The Treblab Z7 Pro headphones offer comfort and noise cancellation along with premium sound quality. With 45 hours of playtime and fast USB-C charging, you can use these headphones all day and night without worry. Touch controls line both sides of the headphones, so you can simply tap on the side to pause a song. Volume controls are also on the headphones themselves.

The Beats Solo3 wireless headphones are now down to $130 from their usual price tag of $200. These headphones come with the Apple W1 chip, Class 1 Bluetooth, and 40 hours of listening time. A built-in microphone allows you to make phone calls wirelessly. There are discounts of around $80 at Amazon right now. 

These over-ear Soundcore headphones earned a spot on our list of the best wireless headphones for 2023 thanks to their premium noise-canceling capabilities and budget-friendly price. They’re a more affordable alternative to high-end pairs like the Sony WH-1000XM5 or Bose QC45, and offer many of the same features for less. In addition to adaptive noise-cancellation, they also boast an impressive 50-hour battery life, support for LDAC Hi-Res audio and multipoint Bluetooth pairing. You can snag a pair for $20 off right now when you activate the on-page instant coupon at Amazon. 

This is essentially an upgraded version of the Elite 75t Active and includes Jabra’s new ShakeGrip coating technology that’s “designed to give the ultimate fit while moving around and to stay put when you sweat.”

This model has adjustable active noise canceling, Jabra’s HearThrough transparency mode and four built-in microphones for “clear call quality,” with two additional microphones for “personalization.” 

While this model is missing the step-up Elite 7 Pro’s MultiSensor Voice technology, Jabra says it delivers the same “premium experience” as the Elite 7 Pro with many of the same specs, including IP57 water- and dust-resistance, and 9 hours of battery life with noise canceling on.

Don’t expect the Elite 7 Active to deliver quite the same voice-calling performance as the Elite 7 Pro, but it should offer the same sound and fit, albeit just a little grippier in your ear. You can also use either bud independently in a mono mode. 

If you want the simple, traditional headphones that can plug into your iPhone, then you can save on these headphones that typically retail for $29. I have a pair of these as a backup and as a good option when I don’t want noise cancellation. Something about these headphones just looks good to me, and they fit snugly. Though they aren’t the loudest, making phone calls are easy and clear.

While the C500’s design sensibility has more in common with the high-end WF-1000XM4 than their predecessor, the WF-XB700 Extra Bass, the C500 don’t have noise canceling and are pretty basic as far as earbuds go, with no ear-detection sensors or transparency mode. But the buds are compact, lightweight, fit comfortably and sound good for an entry-level model. Read our Sony C500 first take.

Released in mid-2020, the Jabra Elite 45h were essentially billed as the best on-ear headphones for the money and among the best headphones for work. While there’s nothing terribly fancy about them, they are a great value for on-ear headphones, with good sound quality, a sturdy design and comfortable fit — for on-ear headphones, anyway.

They perform well as a headset for making calls too, and include a sidetone feature that allows you to hear your voice so you don’t talk too loudly. Battery life is also good and it has multipoint Bluetooth pairing so you can connect to both your computer and your smartphone at the same time, and easily switch between the two should a call come in on your phone.

We’ve seen these headphones on sale for as much as $50 off, so it may be worth it to wait and see if the price drops even further. 

Coming in at 16% smaller than the Elite 75t, the Elite 7 Pro are Jabra’s top-of-the-line earbuds in its new range and include the company’s new MultiSensor Voice technology with a bone-conduction sensor, four microphones and intelligent algorithms to deliver new “ground-breaking call quality,” Jabra says. The voice calling performance doesn’t quite live up to the hype, but Jabra has updated the buds’ firmware, adding multipoint Bluetooth pairing and slightly improving sound quality, noise canceling and headset performance. It took a while but they’re now excellent all-around buds.

These have adjustable active noise cancellation, Jabra’s HearThrough transparency mode and Bluetooth 5.2. They offer up to 9 hours’ play time at moderate volume levels with noise canceling on, and nearly three additional charges in the charging case — total battery life is rated at 35 hours. The charging case has wireless charging capabilities.

The earbuds’ IP57 rating means they are dust-resistant and fully waterproof (they can be submerged in up to 1 meter of water). For those who like to use only a single bud, you can also use either one independently in a mono mode.

The QuietComfort 45 have virtually the same design as their predecessors, the QuietComfort QC35 II, which many people considered among the most comfortable over-ear headphones — if not the most comfortable. They have the same drivers, according to Bose, and the buttons are in the same place. However, there are small but notable changes, including USB-C charging instead of micro-USB and an improved microphone configuration that boosts their voice-calling noise-canceling performance (they’re both excellent). The QC45 also include multipoint Bluetooth pairing, so you can connect them with a PC and your phone simultaneously. Read our QuietComfort 45 review.

The WH-XB910N are Sony’s midlevel noise-canceling headphones and since they’re an Extra Bass model, they do have a preponderance of bass. While the noise canceling isn’t up to the level of the WH-1000XM4 or new WH-1000XM5, it is improved over the previous model and it does have some of the extra features found on those higher-end models, including speak to chat, wearing detection sensors and Sony’s Precise Voice Pickup technology. There’s also multipoint Bluetooth pairing, so you can pair it with your phone and computer simultaneously, and it supports Sony’s LDAC audio codec.