Top 3 Wireless Over-Ear Headphones | Articles | Audio and video equipment

Pho­to: cnet.com

Head­phones have become an inte­gral part of the life of mod­ern peo­ple — they are used dur­ing sports, stud­ies, trans­port and even at work. But the abun­dance of man­u­fac­tur­ers and mod­els on the mar­ket com­pli­cates the choice. In this arti­cle, we’ll take a look at 3 wire­less over-ear head­phones that fea­ture great sound, excel­lent noise iso­la­tion, and a vari­ety of smart fea­tures. Read on to find out which head­phones made it to our top.

How was it evaluated

The max­i­mum score for each cri­te­ri­on is 5 points. Each mod­el was eval­u­at­ed rel­a­tive to oth­er head­phones from the rat­ing.

Bluetooth version

The Blue­tooth ver­sion pri­mar­i­ly affects data trans­fer speed and pow­er effi­cien­cy. Accord­ing­ly, the high­er the ver­sion, the more reli­able and faster the data trans­fer.

Please note that for a cer­tain ver­sion to work, both head­phones and a smart­phone must sup­port it. That is, if your phone has Blue­tooth 5.0, and the head­phones have 5.2, then the con­nec­tion will be via Blue­tooth 5.0.

The high­est score will be for head­phones with the lat­est ver­sion of Blue­tooth — 5.2.

Codecs

The sound is affect­ed by which audio codec is used when trans­mit­ting sound (both devices must also sup­port it):

• SBC is the stan­dard codec for Blue­tooth. In terms of sound qual­i­ty, it is dif­fi­cult to dis­tin­guish it from aptX or AAC, but it has a delay in the trans­mis­sion of sound (100 or more ms), which means that when watch­ing a video, the image and sound are out of sync. Can work with dif­fer­ent data rates.
• LC3 is the suc­ces­sor to SBC (only avail­able in Blue­tooth 5.2).
• AAC is the main and only (except for SBC) codec for Apple devices, for Android users it does not make sense.
• aptX is the base codec from Qual­comm (man­u­fac­tur­ers must buy a license to use it). The syn­chro­niza­tion of sound and pic­ture when watch­ing a video or play­ing games is bet­ter than that of SBC (less than 120ms laten­cy). The data rate is always 352 kbps.
• aptX LL — not wide­ly used. The main focus is on reduc­ing delays in sig­nal trans­mis­sion in games and videos (delay up to 40 ml).
• LDAC is a pro­pri­etary codec from Sony, sim­i­lar to aptX. Most often found in head­phones from Sony and in devices run­ning Android 8 and high­er.

Battery

The longer the head­phones last on a sin­gle charge and the faster they charge, the high­er the score.

Sound

We ana­lyzed user reviews and got a sub­jec­tive para­me­ter.

Noise suppression

All mod­els from our selec­tion are equipped with Active Noise Can­cel­la­tion (ANC) and a “trans­paren­cy” mode. The first muf­fles envi­ron­men­tal noise using exter­nal micro­phones, the sec­ond, on the con­trary, allows exter­nal noise to pass through (a use­ful fea­ture, for exam­ple, when cycling around the city). There­fore, when eval­u­at­ing mod­els, we will also focus on user reviews.

When ANC is enabled, the bat­tery drains faster.

Sen­si­tiv­i­ty is respon­si­ble for the vol­ume of the sound, the diam­e­ter of the speak­er is respon­si­ble for the bass. You can read about how these and oth­er para­me­ters work and what they affect here.

The best wireless over-ear headphones

Sennheiser Momentum 3 Wireless

Sennheis­er Momen­tum 3 Wire­less is the only mod­el in the rank­ing with sup­port for aptX and aptX LL. Pho­to: techradar.com

Blue­tooth ver­sion:

Blue­tooth 5.0. Range — 10 m. Excel­lent qual­i­ty of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, with­out breaks. While watch­ing a video, there is no desyn­chro­niza­tion between the pic­ture and the sound.

Codecs:

SBC, AAC, aptX, aptX LL (Low Laten­cy).

Bat­tery:

Bat­tery capac­i­ty — 700 mAh. Music play­back time with ANC enabled is 17 hours. Charg­ing time (via USB Type‑C port) — 3 hours. There is sup­port for fast charg­ing — 1.5 hours of music play­back after 10 min­utes at the out­let.

The bat­tery charge can be found by hold­ing the play but­ton for 2 sec­onds or in the appli­ca­tion.

Sound:

Bal­anced and ener­getic sound. The cor­rect con­struc­tion of the scene, excel­lent detail. There is a slight empha­sis on low fre­quen­cies.

Noise sup­pres­sion:

4 micro­phones, 3 noise reduc­tion modes and 2 “trans­paren­cy” modes. 3 ANC modes:

• Max — cuts off low-fre­quen­cy rum­ble, pub­lic trans­port noise;
• Anti-Wind — for out­door use;
• Anti-Pres­sure — for rooms.

You can select noise reduc­tion modes in the appli­ca­tion. Direct­ly on the head­phones them­selves, there is only switch­ing between ANC Max, the “trans­paren­cy” mode (Trans­par­ent Hear­ing) and turn­ing off both func­tions. The noise can­cel­ing works great, espe­cial­ly in the low-fre­quen­cy range, feels com­fort­able (does­n’t put pres­sure on the ears) and does­n’t affect the sound.

Pecu­liar­i­ties:

• fre­quen­cy range — 6–22,000 Hz;
• sen­si­tiv­i­ty — 118 dB;
• imped­ance — active mode: 470 ohms, pas­sive mode: 100 ohms;
• speak­er diam­e­ter — 42 mm;
• 3 ways to con­nect to the source: via Blue­tooth, via an audio cable (remov­able 1.4 m long) or via USB;
• sup­port for the “Mul­ti­point” func­tion (work with two devices);
• quick source pair­ing (NFC);
• auto­mat­ic on / off func­tion when fold­ed;
• smart pause func­tion (pause play­back when removed / resume when put on the head);
• there is a pro­pri­etary appli­ca­tion for iOS and Android (equal­iz­er, head­phone search);
• con­trols are locat­ed on the right cup (vol­ume con­trol, mul­ti­func­tion key, ANC / Trans­par­ent Hear­ing mode switch, pair­ing / call­ing a voice assis­tant);
• fold­ing design;
• weight — 305 g.

Sennheis­er Momen­tum 3 Wire­less cost 23,490 rubles. Avail­able in black and white.

Pros:

• detailed and pow­er­ful sound;
• good noise sup­pres­sion;
• com­fort­able fit (soft ear cush­ions, com­fort­able clamp­ing force);
• smart func­tions;
• high-qual­i­ty com­mu­ni­ca­tion with­out breaks.

Minus­es:

• auton­o­my (less than com­peti­tors);
• no pro­tec­tion against mois­ture;
• high price.

Sony WH-1000XM4

The Sony WH-1000XM4 has excel­lent noise can­cel­la­tion. Pho­to: soundguys.com

Blue­tooth ver­sion:

5.0. Oper­at­ing range — 10 m. Inter­fer­ence min­i­mum.

Codecs:

SBC, AAC, LDAC.

Oper­at­ing time / bat­tery:

Bat­tery life on a full charge is up to 30 hours with noise can­cel­la­tion and 38 hours with­out it. Charg­ing from 0 to 100% takes 3 hours. A 10-minute charge pro­vides 5 hours of music play­back.

Sound:

Good sound with­out dis­tor­tion. Mod­er­ate­ly pow­er­ful bass, smooth mids, not bright high fre­quen­cies, excel­lent detail.

Noise sup­pres­sion:

Pow­ered by the HD Noise Can­cel­ing Proces­sor QN1 and the new SoC, the WH-1000XM4 deliv­ers near-com­plete iso­la­tion of music from the out­side world with one of the best noise can­cel­la­tions on the mar­ket. More­over, ANC auto­mat­i­cal­ly adjusts to the sit­u­a­tion. The more often you vis­it the same places, the bet­ter noise reduc­tion works, thanks to remem­ber­ing the coor­di­nates of places (can be con­fig­ured in the appli­ca­tion).

The noise of trans­port (train, plane, bus) is sup­pressed very effi­cient­ly.

Pecu­liar­i­ties:

• fre­quen­cy range — 4–40,000 Hz (wired con­nec­tion); 20–20,000 Hz (wire­less);
• sen­si­tiv­i­ty — 104 dB;
• imped­ance — 47 Ohm;
• speak­er diam­e­ter — 40 mm;
• pos­si­bil­i­ty of wired con­nec­tion (detach­able cable 1.2 m long);
• the abil­i­ty to con­nect two devices;
• NFC for one-touch source pair­ing;
• there is a pro­pri­etary appli­ca­tion (equal­iz­er, noise reduc­tion adjust­ment);
• real-time music analy­sis with Edge-AI for accu­rate sound;
• “Speak to Chat” — auto­mat­i­cal­ly stop play­back when you start talk­ing (recog­ni­tion sen­si­tiv­i­ty can be adjust­ed in the appli­ca­tion);
• pause play­back when head­phones are removed, auto resume when re-putting on;
• adap­tive sound con­trol (set­ting the sound depend­ing on the loca­tion, for exam­ple, indoors or on the road);
• con­trols are locat­ed on the right side (the “Cus­tom” but­ton switch­es between noise reduc­tion (“NC”) modes, ambi­ent sound “Ambi­ent Sound” and launch­es NC Opti­miser for auto­mat­ic sound cal­i­bra­tion, it must be turned on before using the head­phones for the first time);
• fold­ing design;
• weight — 254 g.

Sony WH-1000XM4 cost from 22,999 rubles. Avail­able in 4 col­ors: sil­ver, white, blue, black.

Pros:

• detailed and dynam­ic sound;
• excel­lent noise sup­pres­sion;
• excel­lent auton­o­my;
• many smart func­tions;
• light and com­fort­able.

Minus­es:

• no IP rat­ing;
• aptX is not sup­port­ed.

Huawei FreeBuds Studio

Huawei Free­Buds Stu­dio fea­tures fast charg­ing. Pho­to: Ben Sin, forbes.com

Blue­tooth ver­sion:

5.2. Sta­ble con­nec­tion with the source with­in a radius of 10 meters, even if there are sev­er­al walls between the head­phones and the sound source. No pic­ture and sound out of sync.

Codecs:

AAC, SBC and pro­pri­etary Huawei L2HC codec (the lat­ter only for com­pa­ny phones on EMUI 11, such as Huawei P40)

Oper­at­ing time / bat­tery:

Bat­tery capac­i­ty — 410 mAh. With noise can­cel­la­tion turned on, they can work for 20 hours on a sin­gle dis­charge (and 24 hours with­out active noise can­cel­la­tion). It only takes 70 min­utes to ful­ly charge, and a 10-minute charge gives you 5 hours of use. The pack­age does not include a pow­er adapter.

Sound:

Qual­i­ty sound. Bal­anced, with a slight empha­sis on low fre­quen­cies. Com­pared to the rest — sim­pler, but over­all good.

Noise sup­pres­sion:

There are 6 micro­phones (4 — from the out­side, 2 — inside), 3 lev­els of noise reduc­tion (com­fort­able for the office, nor­mal for a cafe and ultra for air­planes), “trans­paren­cy” mode and auto­mat­ic adjust­ment. Does­n’t affect sound.

Qual­i­ty, works well in the low and medi­um fre­quen­cies. At the lev­el of oth­er options, it is worse than the lead­ers of the seg­ment (for exam­ple, Sony WH-1000XM4), but more effec­tive than the Sennheis­er Momen­tum 3 Wire­less (it cuts off a lit­tle more mid-fre­quen­cy noise).

Pecu­liar­i­ties:

• fre­quen­cy range — 4–48000 Hz;
• the man­u­fac­tur­er did not spec­i­fy the sen­si­tiv­i­ty and imped­ance;
• speak­er diam­e­ter — 40 mm;
• the abil­i­ty to con­nect to two devices;
• there is a pro­pri­etary appli­ca­tion, not avail­able for iOS (equal­iz­er, noise reduc­tion adjust­ment, con­trol ges­ture set­ting);
• auto­mat­ic pause when remov­ing the head­phones and resume play­back when put back on;
• on the left cup there is a but­ton for turn­ing on the noise reduc­tion mode and “trans­paren­cy”;
• on the out­side of the right cup there is a touch zone (not marked in any way), you can adjust the vol­ume, switch tracks, acti­vate the voice assis­tant, answer calls;
• weight — 265 g.

The cost of Huawei Free­Buds Stu­dio is from 18,990 rubles. Avail­able in black and gold col­ors.

Pros:

• uni­ver­sal high-qual­i­ty sound;
• com­fort­able fit;
• fast charg­ing;
• smart func­tions and touch con­trol;
• good noise can­cel­la­tion.

Minus­es:

• aptX is not sup­port­ed;
• awk­ward design;
• no wired con­nec­tion option and NFC;
• no pro­tec­tion against mois­ture;
• no app for iOS.

Results

The reviewed wire­less over-ear head­phones received the fol­low­ing rat­ings:

The high­est score for the Sony WH-1000XM4. In sec­ond place is the Sennheis­er Momen­tum 3 Wire­less. Both mod­els pro­vide excel­lent sound. Sony head­phones are brighter, vocals are loud­er, and Sennheis­er has more ener­gy in the upper bass range. The sound­stage of both options is volu­mi­nous, leaves a pleas­ant impres­sion.

Huawei Free­Buds Stu­dio sound a lit­tle sim­pler, but the sound is also high-qual­i­ty and detailed. In addi­tion, Huawei head­phones have the lat­est Blue­tooth ver­sion and faster charg­ing.