2024 Earbuds Awards - Unexpected Winners!

0:00 so on the table in front of me I have the very best Bluetooth earbuds of 2024 and I have to say of the past couple years there were like subtle iterations for 2024 that was a big year we have so many different things every company seems to be coming out with wildly different open design earbuds every companies adding great active noise cancellation better sound quality and the checklist that I used for earbuds for the past probably like 4 years basically is irrelevant now cuz almost all of the earbuds include all the best features and are adding wild new features as as well which made this video both really difficult to choose which ones are the best but also really fun like these are fantastic earbuds but rather than just going through them like one through five or whatever everybody has different needs for earbuds some people use them for work and they value microphone quality some people care

0:46 about sound quality some people work out a lot with them and some people want the best value or the best at kind of everything so in this video I'm breaking these down by category so these are my 2024 earbuds Awards I've reviewed hundred of earbuds over the past several years I've tested dozens and dozens of earbuds this year and starting off with the very first category in this video the best value earbuds now I got to preface this one a little bit like what is best value are we talking about the lowest price that hey like if they turn on that's a good value or are we looking at what delivers the most like flagships at a little bit less than flagships well I was kind of going somewhere in the middle the best value earbuds in my opinion are the best earbuds that really deliver a lot of Flagship caliber earbuds Bud quality at about $100 and

1:32 this year it was none other than the nothing ear a when these came out I was beyond impressed with these earbuds and I have regularly used them instead of flagships just because I really like how they fit I I love the design of these I love the app for these the sound quality is just unparalleled at this price point and even though they don't have a tier microphones in ANC it's like a really solid beter like it definitely gets the job done and so I think anybody who is looking to spend like a 100ish dollars on a pair of earbuds even if you're looking at like $70 to $150 just like consolidate that just get the nothing eara these earbuds are absolutely solid so impressive and like I said the sound quality on these is really just punching way above its weight class but moving into the second category these are the

2:19 best open earbuds I have two categories here the first one is like genuinely open which is something that I've seen a lot of companies kind of neglect in the past couple years but this year seems to be a big adoption year for this format because I think people are finally realizing that a lot of consumers don't always want the silicone ear tips to go in their ears whether it is for hygienic reasons for Comfort reasons for hearing your surroundings while you're like biking or anything like that there's a lot of reasons that open earbuds are fantastic earbuds and this year like I said we've seen a lot nothing came out from open earbuds of course shocks is always a really big one Apple and Samsung both came out with some that I'll talk about in a second but the winner in my opinion for this category is just a wildely different design design that I really appreciated that also sounded really good I could wear them for many many hours and not even

3:05 realize they were on my ears these are the bows quiet Comfort open earbuds like I said delivering a lot of the best of bows but in an open format they look more like an earring so they're almost like a style thing and I think a lot of people kind of appreciated that with these earbuds and surprisingly the sound quality was still really quite good so these work well if you're outside and you need to hear your surroundings on a busy road for example or if you're riding a bike and you don't want like wind noise or anything like that these do a great job or what I was actually using them for was just working all day uh so I could always hear if somebody came over to my desk or of course they're just not uncomfortable like they they sit in your ears and you forget that they're even there but kind of a little sister category of these I'm adding another category to this video the best semiopen earbuds and by this I mean earbuds that go in your ear but

3:52 don't have a silicone seal on them typically these will also include active noise cancellation so it's kind of a nice benefit of still being very hygienic and and very comfortable for people who don't like the silicone ear tips but they're able to block a little bit more of the Ambient sound and for these we have two winners the Apple airpods 4 ANC I know they don't fit everyone's ears they fit my ears really really well though so I have to say these are a winner for me and the active noise cancellation considering they don't actually seal off your ears is shockingly good but also here if you're not an Apple user are the Galaxy buds 3 delivering basically the same thing as the airpods 4C with that open design and shockingly good active noise cancellation considering that these also do not plug your ears like just a really cool design from Samsung and from Apple

4:38 but dialing that up even more the next category the best active noise cancelling earbuds yeah these are sealing off your ears these are blocking everything around you when I go on a flight what am I wearing without a doubt for me it is the Bose quiet Comfort Ultra earbuds and there are a lot of different aspects to active noise cancellation of course not just who can like have the most powerful ANC that blocks like a jet noise some people care a lot more about blocking voices and other things well the Bose quiet Comfort Ultra earbuds really are a jack of all trades when it comes to a andc very very powerful engine in them that can block out way more sound than basically any other earbuds I've tested however if you really care a lot about blocking higher frequencies you may want to consider getting the Sony WF 1000x Mark 5S they foam ear tips that can block out more of

5:24 those higher frequencies but like I said if you just have to pick one here both quiet Comfort Ultras definitely deliver for active noise cancellation moving into the next category the best for workouts this is one that I never expected to win this category I thought this company would never really have a winner here and in the past I've always said the Beats fit Pro were my favorite here because they have physical buttons they have a wing tip on them they have good active noise cancellation good microphones they're basically airpods with a wing tip which is why I always liked the Beats fit Pro and if you can get them for a discount they're still a good pick but my new pick here is a company that really dialed in on this and I was just really shocked these are the Sennheiser momentum sport earbuds they have a really solid fit they also have that wing tip there which makes them great for all types of workouts

6:10 they have obviously they're made by saniser so they have great sound quality they have very impressive active noise cancellation for this class and they added some new features in here as well including a body temperature sensor and a heart rate sensor so you're able to track more metrics of your workout using your earbuds and I know we've kind of seen this in the past a little bit and it's not like the most reliable way to measure your body temperature and your heart rate so if you're doing any sport where your hands are constrained or you're wearing gloves or anything that a watch just isn't really right it's just kind of nice that you're able to track using your earbuds just as like another way to track things again you don't have to do this but it's something that kind of adds extra functionality to workout earbuds but the main focus here is they fit well they stand my ears very very well they sound good and I love the features with them but the opposite of

6:57 working out I would say probably the opposite here is is actually if you're wearing earbuds when you're sleeping again a new category I really wanted to add to this video this year because I know a lot of people like to sleep with airpods or whatever in their ears and if you live in like a louder place it can really make a big difference in how you sleep being able to block out that sound around you but there's actually an entire category of earbuds out there that are designed just for sleeping and my winner this year are actually this little pair right here these are the soundcore sleep a20 I made a video about them I thought it was a really Niche video I thought very few people would really care about it it was something that I thought was interesting and I just wanted to make the video but it actually resonated with a lot of viewers and people were really happy about it so I decided I would include it in this video as well these earbuds are very

7:43 very slim so they have the tiniest profile they have a great battery life as well and so you can sleep like I'm a s sleeper I've slept on my side with these earbuds many many nights and they never get uncomfortable my ears don't get too hot uh they have a nice little double layer silicone ear tip so that kind of reduces the pressure on your ears even less ear fatigue than any other earbuds I've tested in the past and these do have some sleep tracking as well based on a little accelerometer that detects how much you roll around so again a really cool feature that if you want to play White Noise or just block out other sounds these can totally do it and you can actually play anything from your phone unlike the older Bose ones that originally just had white noise these if you want to listen to like uh I don't know music or classical jazz whatever or just like ASMR or something

8:28 on your phone you can totally do that with these moving on to the next category I mentioned this earlier anyone who works a lot you probably care a lot about the microphone quality that you're getting and unfortunately this one is a little bit limiting if you're in an ecosystem I think you know where I'm going with this one the airpods for active noise cancelling earbuds are the best with microphones in my opinion these just sound absolutely incredible on any kind of phone call of course they work best paired with the Apple ecosystem they could definitely work with Android phones you just won't get updates and and you kind of limit some of your features so if you're using Android phones maybe consider like some Bose earbuds they usually have some pretty good microphones but here's an example right here of the airpods 4 with ANC and the microphone quality that they have a lot of people ask me why you would want ANC on open earbuds um they

9:15 say it like defeats the purpose but honestly I don't think that's true I thinkc is pretty nice on these because it just kind of takes out the subtle hums and drums in a room while still giving you a nice open pair of earbuds that for some people is more comfortable and more hygienic and now of course the best sounding earbuds now I'm going to spend a little bit of time on this category because I think it's one that is definitely subjective and I think a lot of people like I've searched a bunch of blogs to see what other people think as well sometimes I'm just curious to see if other people agree with me on this you're not going to find the same answer in any two blogs so just from my own experience here what I would say are the best sounding earbuds kind of have a couple things tied in one is going to be customizability and the other one is going to be kind of a natural neutral tone and for me this one has to actually be the new nothing ear earbuds not the nothing ear a the nothing ear like

10:03 that's just what they're called they're the squl to the nothing ear 2 the naming is confusing I'm not sure exactly why they didn't call them the threes but these earbuds are $150 which is really quite nice considering you're getting hands down like this is not subjective the best equalizer you can get on any pair of earbuds like it literally has a full equalizer full spectrum frequencies and Q values as well so you can choose how wide that actually is when you're lifting or dropping different frequencies in addition they have really good detail really natural neutral sound to them and of course a really high resolution codec as well uh so you can listen to like tile or apple music or other highresolution audio output um that you know if you're not just using Spotify for example so that's my pick right there there are other good ones out there a lot of people really like

10:48 Sony's I'm a big fan of Sony as well but I just thought that the EQ on the nothing ear just kind of put them a little bit ahead of Sony there for the sound quality in my opinion and then of course the final category here before we get into honorable mentions of course the best overall earbuds kind of if you say all right Mike all of those categories you said were great but nothing really resonated with me as my main priority I want something that's like the best at everything right maybe it's going to be like number two Inc in microphone and audio quality but like across the board it's near the top for all of those and so unfortunately I have to give you three picks here because some of the winners just I don't know I hate when they do this Samsung and Apple both really like Niche down into their ecosystem and they kind of are a little bit limiting which is annoying but of course the airpods pro for iPhone users

11:35 that's your pick there like these are going to be a really solid Choice across the board like I said probably number two in like every category uh number one basically in microphone quality but great active noise cancellation great microphones the sound quality is very neutral it sounds really nice for most genres of music they have a lot of cool features in them including some new accessibility features and hearing Health features uh you can use them as a hearing aid you can use them for hearing Health tests uh different things like that you can use them to uh kind of protect your hearing as well so an example that I use is I saw a bartender at a wedding it was a really really loud wedding and that's a that's an environment where you're definitely doing some damage to your hearing and if you wear earplugs you can't really hear people placing their orders this guy had airpods in which at first I thought oh this that's kind of rude like why you listening to music at a wedding when you're the bartender but then I realized

12:21 he definitely had this feature enabled so he can hear everyone talking but it's also limiting the total volume so he's not damaging his hearing kind of a cool feature that Apple added to the airpods pro but if you're not in the Apple ecosystem say you have a Samsung phone or really any other Android phone but but specifically Samsung phones the Galaxy buds 3 Pro are a really great pick here these have great sound quality now with the Dual driver architecture uh they have really good active noise cancellation compared to the past the design kind of polarizing some people think they look a little bit too much like knockoff airpods um but if you get like the grayish metal silver looking ones they definitely don't they look like cyber truck ear buds but I actually really like the white ones I think these look nice um I think that the features on them like the light up stems is really convenient if you drop them on a plane and it's dark and you're not going

13:07 to hear like a little beeping like a plane's loud but you can look down on your seat and you can see like a little flashing light on your earbuds that's a feature that I know for a fact I will be using a lot and in addition Samsung adds a ton of other features on these but the reason I'm not saying they're the best for everybody out there like really they are the best for Samsung users but they don't really have true multi multipoint connectivity so if I'm using a non-samsung laptop or if I'm using a non Samsung literally anything you don't have the ability to seamlessly switch between them where every other pair of earbuds basically that I talked about in this video does have multi-point connectivity Samsung is gatekeeping that and I kind of wish they would just add that feature so I can connect to an HP laptop and my phone and if I get a phone call it'll automatically switch but no

13:53 Samsung wants you to be in the ecosystem and so they add that feature in there but if you're okay with not having multipoint yeah these are a really solid choice if you're not my recommendation then as the third best overall earbuds and I hate that I have to do three best overall earbuds these are the Sony wf1000x Mark 5S again these are like very very top tier for ANC top tier for sound quality top tier for basically everything and all the features that everybody's adding this year uh like speak to chat and all these other things Sony's had them for years so Sony is really kind of the king of adding features before they become cool for everyone else so I don't know I'm a big fan of Sony 1000x Mark 5S I didn't put them ahead of the Samsungs just because Samsung seems to fit a little bit better for me I really like a lot about the

14:39 earbuds uh a little bit more than the Sony it's really subtle maybe it's a personal preference thing and then we have our honorable mentions these are earbuds that I kind of almost have their own category but it wasn't quite enough to make it its own category in this video starting off with the smartest earbuds these are the pixel buds Pro too with Gemini live you're able to talk uh kind of constantly with your your earbuds and just ask questions and research things I'm not the biggest fan of of like llms sometimes they hallucinate they're not perfect so I don't really use that feature a ton but all things considered they're very smart earbuds and across the board just I don't know Google did a lot right they're solid earbuds that are really easy to recommend especially if you're in that Google pixel ecosystem the second honorable mention here just a solid all round pair of earbuds the Jabra Elite 10 Gen 2 I've been a big fan

15:26 of Jabra earbuds for a while and these again are just kind of like second or third place across the board at everything making them a solid recommendation then the third and final is actually the most futureproof pair of earbuds these are earbuds that have things like orac cast in them the latest Bluetooth codec good sound quality they do a lot right but I didn't give them any kind of specific dedicated award here because they're still really chunky and they feel like just a small iteration over last year's design to make them more feature proof these are the Sennheiser momentum true Wireless fours I've always been a fan of Sen ERS and I think the true Wireless fives if we get the redesign that I really am looking for that make them smaller and fit better in your ears then yeah next year they will definitely be on this list as something that I think most people should be buying but at least for

16:12 now kind of a weird little iterative Improvement that makes some future proof but still not my favorite earbuds so those are my categories for the best earbuds of 2024 leave a comment down below and let me know what your favorites are of course there are a ton of other ones that I really absolutely love that just didn't make it in this video sound Liberty 4 Pros a bunch of other ones like that just great earbuds but let me know which one you like the best