2025's Best Call Quality Earbuds RANKED! Budget to Premium (Spring Edition) 🌸
Now this is not going to be one of my usual call quality test videos. This one’s different in the sense that we get a bigger picture of where these earbuds rank, rather than trying to find the best ones in a shootout. So I’ve made a list, ranking the microphone pickup of the most recent earbuds that I’ve tested, from C which is not great, to S rank, which are the best earbuds for phone calls. You can see that out of this list only a few made it to the top. Of course when new earbuds arrive there will be another comparison test video. Check here for the updated list.
C Rank
C rank earbuds have mic pickup that has a combination of these traits when taking calls or trying to use the mics in noisy situations. Muffled and soft voice, poor voice filtering, noisy background and bad wind noise reduction. Obviously when the microphones are not challenged by noise they’re going to sound okay, but for people constantly on the move, it’s not a good idea to use them for calls. And these earbuds are not necessarily cheap, we have the B&W Pi8, Sennheiser MTW4, and the Bose Open Ultra earbuds among them.
B Rank
B rank earbuds are more serviceable for calls, but still not there yet. Their mic pickup has a combination of traits like voice pickup that sounds loud but muffled, even in quiet conditions, a moderate level of voice filtering from outside noise, slightly noisy background which means the person on the other side of the line can still hear a bit of the noise around you. The Sony WF-1000XM5 belongs here, the Denon PERL Pro, as well as the different versions of AirPods when using them with Android devices.
A Rank
A rank earbuds have great mic pickup, and they all share one thing in common, which is silent background even in noisy situations. They may also have traits like voice pickup being well amplified but slightly muffled, and moderate voice filtering from background noise. If mic quality is important, you can use any of the buds on this list and you will have no complaints from the other side that they can’t hear you well. All the earbuds from Nothing are like that, as well as the new Bose QC Earbuds, the Technics AZ100, and of course, the Jabra Elite 10 Gen 1 and Gen 2. Rest in peace because these are Jabra’s last earbuds.
S Rank
Under the S rank, well, they are just a little better than the A ranks, only that instead of voice being muffled, voice pickup sounds clearer, or even just as clear in noisy situations as they are making calls in the quiet room. In this very exclusive list we have the Huawei Freebuds Pro 4 and Pro 3, the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro… But hey, didn’t I rank the AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4 rank under B? Why are they S rank also? Turns out that if you’re using them with an Apple device, iPhones and iPads, they’ve got a feature called Voice Isolation which vastly improves mic quality compared to using them on non-Apple devices.
So those are the rankings! I’ve tried to include as many as I can for the past year, but if there’s any product you want me to add to the list, let me know in the comments. Become a member so you can compare the mic samples yourself, and check here for the updated list.
