The best noise cancelling headphones for all budgets, all real-world tested

Welcome to TechRadar’s guide to the best noise-cancelling headphones. Since you’ve come to this specific page, I’m going to assume that your biggest priority for your next headphones is their ability to block outside noise the most effectively using active noise cancellation (ANC) – so good news, that’s exactly what I’ve tested here, along with essentials such as sound quality, battery life, smart features and comfort levels.

At a glance: the best noise-cancelling headphones:

We’ve tested hundreds of pairs of noise-cancelling headphones here at TechRadar, so I’ve whittled the list down to 17 pairs of headphones, ranging in price from over $400 / £400 down to around $30 / £30. These are the models most likely to be worth buying for their respective prices, so I compared them all against each other in tough real-world noise-cancellation tests.

I chose these tests to be consistent, but to still really help me see how well these headphones work for how you’ll use them at home, not how well they perform in a lab. You can read my explanation of the tests here.

One thing to note about prices in this guide: I’m going to discuss both official prices and the real-world prices you should aim to pay, which I call the ‘target’ price – I’m mainly judging these headphones on their target prices, as there’s no point giving you buying advice for a pair of Sony WH-1000XM4 headphones at their official price of $349 when they regularly drop to $220 or lower. My target prices will be be based on price drops we’ve actually seen in the past, so they’re real-world guidance.

I’ll start with a quick run-through of the products I rate the highest at different price tiers, but read on for more depth on why I’ve chosen them – and later, I’ll dig deeper into the features of each product I recommend (as well as the best alternatives).

My history as an audio reviewer

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Matt Bolton

I lead TechRadar’s audiovisual channels, home to our TV, home theater, headphones and hi-fi articles, and manage our team of editors and writers who produce those articles. I’ve been with TechRadar since 2022 (though it’s my second stint here, having worked on it in 2009), and before that I managed the AV and home technology channels of our sister website, T3.com. Before that, I ran T3 magazine. I’ve worked in technology publishing since 2009.

I started testing and reviewing audio products in 2011, and at that time I was focused mostly on iPod/iPhone dock speakers and wired earbuds. In that time, I’ve seen the world of wireless headphones and speakers completely take over mainstream audio.

That takeover includes the rise of the first mainstream wireless noise-cancelling headphones from the likes of Bose and Sony in 2016. (Is it just me or does it feel strange that wireless ANC headphones arrived the same year as AirPods?)

I’ve tested a huge range of headphones of all kinds over the year, including a vast range of noise-cancelling models, ranging from the cheap options you find on Amazon, up to super-elite models from Dali, Bowers & Wilkins and Bang & Olufsen.

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I led the development of TechRadar’s process for testing headphones, including our headphones testing track list. When writing this guide, I expanded on the testing we’ve already done with a new set of specific noise-cancellations tests, based on my decade of experience testing these types of products.

You can read more about these tests later, but to arrive at the recommendations in this guide I performed new real-world testing and direct comparison of the headphones we identified as the best candidates. I had them all in one place, I connected them all to my phones, I swapped between them, and made frantic notes and rankings, then I changed those rankings, then I checked the headphones some more and changed the rankings again.

Oh, and if you’re thinking that trying to have around 20 pairs of headphones all paired to your phone at once sounds like a recipe for chaos and frustration, you are right.

My #1 pick to buy today

Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (1st Gen)

Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones on a gray surface with a pink background, showing the logo on the outside of the earcup

(Image credit: Future)

The 3 key reasons why

✅ Noise cancellation as good as anything else, but cheaper
These scored joint-top in my noise-cancellation tests, matching the Bose Ultra 2nd Gen and marginally beating the Sony WH-1000XM6, but can be found for around $100 less than those models.

✅ Comfortable and portable
I love the design of the Bose Ultras. They’re very light, you can wear them for long periods without any fatigue, and they fold down small for travel.

✅ Fun and energetic sound
These give you really punchy and dynamic audio, with big (but not overly heavy) bass, zinging treble, and great clarity through the mid-range. I’ve loved the sound since their launch.

2 reasons to choose something else

❌ The battery life isn’t great
The 24-hour battery life is below average. If you want 30 hours, the Sony WH-1000XM6 or Bose QuietComfort Ultra 2nd Gen will give this to you with the same level of noise cancellation.

❌ You want a more refined sound
The Sony WH-1000XM6 offer a little more detail, a balance of bass/mid/treble that’s closer to ‘neutral’, and a little better cohesion from bass through to mids.

See today’s best prices for the alternatives:

Sony WH-1000XM6: today’s best deal
Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones 2nd Gen: today’s best deal

The best noise cancelling headphones I tested for different budgets

Bose QuietComfort Headphones SE in black Best under $250

Bose QuietComfort Headphones

The 1More Sonoflow Pro HQ51 over-ear noise-cancelling headphones Best under $100

Amazon Basics Noise Cancelling Headphones on a white background Best under $50

Amazon Basics Hybrid Active Noise Cancelling Headphones

The headphones I tested for this guide

A large pile of headphones on a table – there are headphones from many different brands, including Bose, Sony, 1More, Soundcore and Sonos

(Image credit: Future)

Here’s the list of headphones I was testing directly against each other to settle on my recommendations for this guide:

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Price and specs for these headphones
Model	Target price	List price	Battery life (ANC on)	Weight
1More Sonoflow HQ51	$69 / £69	$89 / £89	65 hours	246g
Amazon Basics Hybrid Noise Cancelling Headphones	$37 / £29	$42 / £31	45 hours	260g
Apple AirPods Max	$429 / £450	$549 / £499	20 hours	386g
Audio-Technica ATH-S300BT	$99 / £95	$149 / £99	60 hours	258g
Bose QuietComfort Headphones	$199 / £210	$349 / £299	24 hours	240g
Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones	$329 / £299	$429 / £449	24 hours	250g
Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen)	$449 / £449	$449 / £449	30 hours	250g
Cambridge Audio P100 SE	$279 / £249	$299 / £249	60 hours	330g
Nothing Headphone (1)	$254 / £199	$299 / £299	35 hours	329g
Runolim WH301A	$19 / £23	$23 / £29	40 hours	230g
Sennheiser Accentum Plus	$170 / £119	$249 / £199	50 hours	227g
Sonos Ace	$299 / £269	$399 / £399	30 hours	312g
Sony WH-1000XM4	$199 / £179	$349 / £349	30 hours	254g
Sony WH-1000XM5	$249 / £219	$399 / £379	30 hours	250g
Sony WH-1000XM6	$428 / £375	$449 / £399	30 hours	254g
Soundcore Q20i	$39 / £32	$69 / £49	40 hours	245g
Soundcore Q30	$53 / £53	$79 / £79	40 hours	260g

Why only these headphones?

Obviously, there are a lot more headphones than these in the world – and not only that, there are a lot of good headphones that are not in this list. There are even entries in our list of the best headphones that have active noise noise cancellation, but that I didn’t put through this testing process.

Why? Well, I knew based on the testing we’ve done on those headphones before that they wouldn’t actually win in a battle that focuses on noise-blocking power first and foremost, and I only had so much time I could spend testing.

Take the Bowers & Wilkins PX7 S3, for example. They’re five-star headphones, and are excellent – but I’ve compared them to the similarly priced options from Bose, Sony and Sonos before, and I know that their noise cancellation is a clear level below.

I focused on choosing the most likely candidates for delivering strong ANC results across different pricing bands, from the premium of the Sony WH-1000XM6 down to the tiny price of the Runolim WH301A, ensuring that we had several options competing at the same price level.

This not only helps me to ensure that I’m only picking the ones that stand out among their peers, but also means I was doing direct comparisons between any cheaper models that punch above their weight and the models just above, for a complete picture of where the best value can be found.

How I tested the best noise cancelling headphones

There’s obviously a lot to test in these noise-cancelling headphones, from sound quality to smart features to how comfortable they are to wear – but the most important thing is their active noise-cancellation power.

I decided that I wanted to test in real-world conditions, which means I’m not taking scientific measurements of the levels of noise reduction here, based on artificially created sound from a speaker.

While that kind of test is obviously a good way to measure with absolute consistency, it doesn’t reflect well the nuances of how well noise is cancelled in practical use, because there are multiple factors involved.

For example, I tested two pairs of Soundcore headphones while compiling this guide, and the noise cancellation power was very similar on them both – this applied with no sound coming through, and when listening to music that covers a wide range of frequencies.

However, when listening to a podcast, one was much weaker, because its mid-range reproduction wasn’t as strong as the other pair, so voices sounded more muted and were much harder to make out over the background sounds. There was similar noise reduction in most cases, but a clear difference in how well you could make out what you were listening to.

But I still wanted to create some consistent testing conditions so that I could fairly compare all the headphones to each other for noise cancellation, and dig into where their strengths and weaknesses are.

So TechRadar’s audio team came up with the idea of four noise-cancellation tests. Two of them target droning noises (which are easier for ANC headphones to deal with), while two target chaotic and unpredictable noises (which are harder to cancel out).

Similar, two of the tests target higher-pitched noises (harder for ANC headphones to deal with), and two target lower-frequency noises (easier to deal with).

Here are the four tests I did, all using real-world sound. In all cases, I tested all the different pairs of headphones in one big session, switching back and forth between them, making direct comparisons and ranking them.

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Row 0 – Cell 0	Droning sound	Chaotic sound
Higher frequency	Hair dryer	Café
Lower frequency	Microwave	Road traffic

Hair dryer

I placed a hair dryer on a table on full power (with no heating – I’m not made of money), facing me. I measured 2m away from it, and marked the floor. I faced the hair dryer directly while testing each pair of headphones.

Microwave

I took over the office microwave for several hours (I am not kidding, that’s exactly what I did) and marked the floor 1m away from it, and tested the headphones facing it directly. I had the microwave on full power, normal microwave use, for short periods at a time so I could listen to the headphones.

Café

I set myself up on a table in a busy city-center chain café for a few hours over lunch. The noise of the espresso machines, the clinking of cups and cutlery, and the chatter all combine into a cacophony of higher-pitched sound that rises and falls, and has sudden sharp peaks. This is basically the toughest kind of sound for ANC headphones to deal with.

Road traffic

While road traffic certainly can produce higher-pitched sounds, the rumble of engines and friction of tires tends more towards the mid- to lower-frequency range. I stood on the side of a busy intersection with traffic going in three directions, testing all the headphones one after the other. This is easier than the café test, but can still easily overwhelm the podcast, and will be quite audibly over the music on weaker headphones.

How I make my comparisons

When comparing headphones, I try them with nothing playing just as a bit of a base line, then I try them with music playing, then I try them with a podcast playing to see if I can easily make out what’s being said.

For consistency, I use the same piece of music: Let It Happen by Tame Impala, from 1:45 on. I found this to be a good balance drowning out noise, because it has a consistent melange of sound across a wide frequency range, but with just enough space among the sound for audio to leak through, if it’s going to.

I also use the same podcast episode – an episode of The Eye of the Duck, with two men with fairly lower-frequency voices, which can be easily overwhelmed by higher-frequency outside sounds leaking in, so this is providing the toughest test.

The audio is played from my iPhone 16 Pro to the headphones – this means that some of them are playing in limited standard Bluetooth quality rather than the higher quality they’re capable of over aptX or LDAC, but again this is important for consistency. They all get the same input, which make it easier to compare the output.

Volume levels are also important when it comes to noise cancellation, of course – the louder the better for drowning something out. But that’s not good for your hearing, and doesn’t tell me too much about how well the sound is being actively cancelled, so I stick with a reasonable real-word listening volume.

This is where it gets hard to be truly consistent: I have to just estimate the volume as being equivalent between the different headphones. I can’t just set my iPhone volume to 35% and say that’s the right level, because that 35% means very different levels of actual volume depending on the headphones. I’ve been reviewing audio gear professionally since 2011, so I’m confident in my ability to equalize the volume suitably, but you should know that this is the biggest variable.

Testing the rest of the headphones’ skills

I’ve made noise cancellation the dominant factor in this guide, but obviously it’s not the only thing we test for. Sound quality is a significant factor, as is comfort for long sessions while traveling or working.

I take battery life into account, and any key features that make a pair of headphones easier to use, or generally more useful, in the long term.

I’m also looking at build quality and how easy the controls are to find and use – and while nice aesthetics don’t make or break my picks, it’s nice for things to look nice.

The test scores of these headphones

After completing the testing described above, I ranked the headphones from best to weakest in each individual test, and assigned a score out of 5 to each (including half marks).

I didn’t just go with a system of ‘5 for the best one, 1 for the worst one’ – I started with 5 for the best one, and then dropped a mark or half a mark whenever there was an obvious step down in effectiveness between models. This means that in some cases, no headphones scored right at the bottom of the scale.

First, here’s a table purely of the scores I gave, including the total across all tests.

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Unweighted scores
Model	Total score	Hair dryer	Microwave	Traffic	Café
Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen)	19.5	4.5	5	5	5
Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones	19.5	4.5	5	5	5
Sony WH-1000XM6	19	5	5	4.5	4.5
Sonos Ace	18.5	4.5	4.5	4.5	5
Bose QuietComfort Headphones	18	4.5	4.5	4.5	4.5
AirPods Max	17.5	4	5	4	4.5
Sony WH-1000XM5	16	4	4	4	4
Sony WH-1000XM4	15.5	4	4	3.5	4
Cambridge Audio P100 SE	15	3.5	3.5	3.5	4.5
1More Sonoflow HQ51	14.5	3.5	3.5	3.5	4
Nothing Headphone (1)	14.5	3	4	3.5	4
Sennheiser Accentum Plus	13	3	3.5	3	3.5
Amazon Basics	11	2	3	2.5	3.5
Soundcore Q30	10	2.5	2	2.5	3
Soundcore Q20i	10	2.5	2.5	2	3
Audio-Technica ATH-S300BT	9.5	3	2.5	1	3
Runolim WH301A	6.5	1	2.5	1	2

However, I think the Traffic and Café tests are more important than the Hair Dryer and Microwave tests, because they’re more like the environments in which you’ll mostly rely on ANC, and at the same time are harder tests. If you agree, then here’s the same table as above, but with the Traffic and Café scores doubled when counting the total score, to increase their importance.

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Weighted scores
Model	Total score	Hair dryer	Microwave	Traffic (2x)	Café (2x)
Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen)	29.5	4.5	5	5	5
Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones	29.5	4.5	5	5	5
Sony WH-1000XM6	28	5	5	4.5	4.5
Sonos Ace	28	4.5	4.5	4.5	5
Bose QuietComfort Headphones	27	4.5	4.5	4.5	4.5
AirPods Max	26	4	5	4	4.5
Sony WH-1000XM5	24	4	4	4	4
Sony WH-1000XM4	23	4	4	3.5	4
Cambridge Audio P100 SE	23	3.5	3.5	3.5	4.5
1More Sonoflow HQ51	22	3.5	3.5	3.5	4
Nothing Headphone (1)	22	3	4	3.5	4
Sennheiser Accentum Plus	19.5	3	3.5	3	3.5
Amazon Basics	17	2	3	2.5	3.5
Soundcore Q30	15.5	2.5	2	2.5	3
Soundcore Q20i	15	2.5	2.5	2	3
Audio-Technica ATH-S300BT	13.5	3	2.5	1	3
Runolim WH301A	9.5	1	2.5	1	2

My list of the best noise-cancelling headphones, in-depth

The best noise cancelling headphones overall

Image 1 of 5

Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones held in a man's hand — (Image credit: Future)

The best noise-cancelling headphones overall right now

Specifications

Acoustic design: Closed

Weight: 250g

Frequency response: Not listed

Drivers: 35mm

Battery life: 24 hours

Reasons to buy

Best-in-class noise cancellation for cheaper than the competition

Excellent audio quality

Light, comfortable and folding design

Reasons to avoid

–

Limited hi-res audio support

–

Low battery life

–

Sony XM6 have a more neutral sound profile

Let me sum this up quickly: Bose’s first-gen Ultra Headphones offer noise cancellation that’s basically indistinguishable from newer premium models, but can be bought for around $100 / £100 less than them. That’s it, that’s the tweet.

These were first released in late 2023, and since then Bose has released its own Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen) and Sony has released the Sony WH-1000XM6, both of which should in theory overtake these the noise-cancellation stakes, being newer and fancier.

But, having compared the three extensively – swapping between them maybe ate up more time than any other testing I did – my conclusion is that they’re still best-in-class for blocking noise in a meaningful sense. I think the 2nd Gen are marginally superior, but only if you spend ages looking for differences because you’re writing a long guide to the best noise-cancelling headphones (for example).

As you can see in the tables above, I actually think these are even marginally better than the Sony XM6, based on superior performance for more chaotic real-world sounds, particularly with higher-frequency noises – I felt that that the Bose Ultra clamped down on sound better across all frequencies, while the Sony cans leaked in a little more hiss, although again I’m talking about very minor differences.

I love the design of the Bose Ultra too – they’ve very light, very comfortable for long periods, and fold up for travel use, which I always appreciate.

There are good reasons to choose the other two big competitors over the original Bose Ultra, though: the main two are battery life, and your sound profile preference.

Battery life is simple: theBose Ultra only manage 24 hours with active noise cancellation turned on, compared to 30 hours each for the Bose Ultra 2nd Gen or the Sony XM6. And let me clear: the 24 hours of the Bose is a real-world figure that I’ve tested – you won’t secretly get more out of them.

If you’re good about staying on top of charging your devices, this won’t be a problem; but 30 hours leaves more margin for error, in my experience, and generally means you won’t find they need charging halfway through a lengthy session of use.

The sound profile issue is more complicated. I love the sound of the Bose Ultra – they’re so dynamic, they have a huge range, with every frequency well-represented and offering plenty of detail, and they’re punchy and fun. But they lean on having more energy in the bass and treble, and some people prefer a sound that’s a closer to neutral.

Both the Bose Ultra 2nd Gen and the Sony lean more this way – I think the Sony is the superior option when it comes to sound fidelity, especially with its tighter representation of lower mids and the detail within them, creating a slightly more cohesive soundstage than the Bose Ultra, just without the extra bass depth the Bose offer.

(Though I’ll mention here that the best sound in this kind of price range is offered by the Bowers & Wilkins PX7 S3, which blows away the Sony in this regard – but the noise cancellation is far behind the three options I’m talking about, which is why I dismissed it from my testing list after early comparisons. The AirPods Max are also incredibly strong for people who like a neutral sound, and have great ANC that’s a bit weaker than these in the high frequencies.)

The other reason you might choose the Sony WH-1000XM6 are the superior smart features compared to Bose’s headphones. Both have a spatial audio option and the ability to customize your levels of noise cancellation, but the Sony have a few other useful options – one we particularly love in practice is the ability to just hold a hand over the earcup to active transparency mode temporarily, so you can speak to someone quickly without finding the button. And speaking of buttons, the controls are a little easier to use on the Sony, in my opinion, but Bose’s are fine.

Despite all this, for me, it comes down to bang for your buck. I regularly see the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones drop to around $300 / £300, and I think the huge saving of up to $150 compared to the newer models more than negates any small advantages those have. For elite noise cancellation at a reasonable price, these are my favorites after testing all the options.

The best noise cancelling headphones under $250 / £250

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Bose QuietComfort Headphones held in a man's hands — (Image credit: Future)

High-end noise cancellation for a step down in price