Best Headphones for 2025! 🤔 (Budget to Premium)
In this review, I’m going to share my top three headphones that I’ve tested in the past year. One budget, one midrange and a premium one. In my opinion, these are the best in terms of performance and features.
It’s true that there are many older headphones still worth buying, but in this review I’m going to focus on those launched recently because those are not as likely to be replaced with a new model soon.
Best Budget Headphones — Earfun Wave Pro
The best budget headphones this year is the Earfun Wave Pro. They’ve got a nice blend of features that will even appeal to audiophiles because these are Hi-Res certified and supports LDAC codec streaming, something you don’t usually get in this price category. These are also some of the most customisable headphones offering lots of options to tune them to your liking. Having tested their performance, they do have clean voice pickup for phone calls, great sound quality and active noise cancelling.
The only downside is their Transparency mode, but if that’s not a critical factor for you, these are very compelling at this price, of 80 US dollars.
Best Mid-range Headphones — Sony ULT Wear
For best mid-range headphones, I was most impressed by the Sony ULT Wear. It’s not only a bass monster, but in many areas of its performance such as mic pickup and active noise cancelling, it can match and even exceed the premium WH-1000XM4 headphones, which used to be Sony’s flagship.
In terms of sound, the biggest reason to get them is of course, bass. Other headphones typically impose a hard cap on bass response at high volumes to control distortion. With these, the bass could go as loud as you want. For those who prefer a more tame quality to the sound, the ULT Wear can be easily customised to sound pretty good. I’ve even posted a guide on how to make them sound close to the XM4 and XM5 headphones.
While they lack Hi-Res certified drivers and just having the basic level of DSEE upscaling, and the build quality is not going to be premium level, but by and large, I’m confident that most people who pick these up are going to be pretty satisfied.
Premium headphones — Bose QuietComfort Ultra
For Premium headphones, the Bose QuietComfort Ultra has been the most impressive. It’s got the top noise cancelling, amazing mic pickup and transparency mode. The sound is very clean and detailed, with tight, rich bass and crisp vocals. It’s foldable and pretty comfortable, making them perfect for travel. I brought it with me on my recent trip to Indonesia and its noise cancelling was top notch.
What I really like about them is that you can have great Spatial Audio with head tracking playing audio from any source, and this is at a point in time when most headphones either don’t have Spatial Audio, or restricts it to certain devices and apps.
Besides that, several things that aren’t in its favor is that it doesn’t support streaming over LDAC, its sound customisation is limited to basic adjustments for bass, mids and treble, and you can’t turn ANC off to save battery. However, if those aren’t dealbreakers, the Bose QC Ultra is the best premium headphones I’ve tested in the past year.
Best Sounding Headphones — Cambridge Audio Melomania P100
In terms of sound quality, I was most impressed by the Cambridge Audio P100’s sound. It quite possibly is the best sounding headphones I’ve tested recently. The audio is incredibly detailed, has fantastic dynamic range, very low distortion, and it presents layering very well.
But on the same token, it also has some issues related to software and UI, otherwise it would have been the nominee. Nonetheless, its sound quality is so impressive that it still deserves an honorable mention.
But what do you think? Are there any headphones which you think deserves to be the top headphones in the past year? Let’s have an open discussion about this in the comments. Links as below if you want to check their latest prices on Amazon
Check latest price:
Earfun Wave Pro - https://amzn.to/4cU5c1Z
Sony ULT WEAR - https://amzn.to/3xVBObU
Sony WH-1000M4 - https://amzn.to/3UL9YID
Sony WH-1000XM5 - https://amzn.to/4bIqJtZ
Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones - https://amzn.to/3UecNzS
Cambridge Audio Melomania P100 - https://amzn.to/4f8HmAL
(Affiliate Links Disclosure)
When you make a purchase through the Affiliate Links on this site, the site earns a small commission at no cost to you. Thank you for your support!
