Best Earbuds for Phone Calls for 2024

The Galaxy Buds 2 Pro offers improved noise canceling along with very good sound and voice-calling performance, plus support for high-resolution wireless audio streaming if you're a Galaxy device owner with the right setup. Their biggest upgrade may be the design and smaller size, which make them a better fit for more ears. Aside from their somewhat high price tag, their only drawback is that some of their key features only work with Samsung Galaxy devices.

Status Audio's earbuds aren't exactly the sleekest or most attractive earbuds you can buy, but if you don't mind their utilitarian look and giant stems, you are getting an excellent-sounding set of earbuds. The Between 3ANC, the company's first noise-canceling earbuds, also do a good job muffling ambient sound, although they aren't up to the level of the Bose QuietComfort 2 earbuds for noise-canceling prowess. They did perform very well in my voice-calling test, reducing much of the background noise around me in the streets of New York while picking up my voice clearly, or so callers told me.

They have multipoint Bluetooth pairing — you can pair them to two devices simultaneously — but they are missing a few features, including ear-detection sensors. They also only support the AAC audio codec (they're equipped with Bluetooth 5.2), not LDAC or aptX. Some people with Android devices that support those codecs may not be thrilled with that, but they sound quite good using AAC, offering clean sound with punchy bass and good clarity. That's partly due to their driver design, and why the buds are on the larger side. They feature two balanced armature drivers, plus one 10mm dynamic driver in each earbud.

Despite being heavier than earbuds like Apple's AirPods Pro 2, they fit my ears comfortably and securely. Their case charges wirelessly and battery life is very good, at up to 8.5 hours with ANC on. There's also a transparency mode that sounds only OK, not great (a physical button on the earbuds activates it) and they have an IPX5 water-resistance rating, which means they can withstand a sustained spray of water. The companion app for iOS is fairly basic, but you can upgrade the firmware and tweak the sound profile with a customizable EQ option.

Take one look at the new design of the third-gen AirPods ($179), and the first thing you'll probably think is: "Those look like the AirPods Pro without ear tips." You wouldn't be wrong. While they're more fraternal than identical twins, the AirPods 3 are shaped like the AirPods Pro, with the same shorter stems and pinch controls as those of the Pro. Aside from the design change, which should fit most ears better than the AirPods 2nd Generation (though not very small ears), the biggest change is to the sound quality: It's much improved. Also, battery life is better, and the AirPods 3 are officially water-resistant.

Since they're open earbuds, they let some sound in, so they're not as good as the AirPods Pro 2 for both listening and making calls in noisy environments. They do a nice job reducing background noise during calls and picking up your voice well.

When Sony's WF-1000XM4 earbuds came out in 2021, we awarded them a CNET Editors' Choice. And while they're excellent, we had some quibbles. They're on the large side and aren't a good match for certain ears. Clearly, Sony took those gripes to heart when it set out to design its next-generation WF-1000XM5 flagship noise-canceling earbuds. Not only are the XM5s smaller, but they also offer improved performance pretty much across the board, with better noise canceling, sound and voice calling. Are the XM5s perfect? Not quite. At $300 — $20 more than their predecessor — they're also costly. Overall they're really impressive, and easily among the very top earbuds on the market.

The Pixel Buds Pro are Google's first earbuds to feature active noise canceling. It's nice that they finally have a feature that a lot of true-wireless earbuds have had for a while, but what ultimately sets the Pixel Buds Pro apart and makes them worth considering -- particularly for Android users -- is their distinct design and winning fit. That helps enhance their performance on both the sound quality and noise-canceling fronts. While not quite elite for voice-calling, they did perform well as a headset for making calls. A couple of features were missing at launch -- spatial audio and a five-band equalizer -- but both have now been added with firmware updates along with some additional extra features.

Available in four color options, the Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 hew more closely to the newer Galaxy Buds Pro and Galaxy Buds Live, both of which have eye-catching glossy curved designs and the same compact charging case as this new model. It's the Buds 2's design and fit — they're 15% smaller and 20% lighter than the Buds Plus — that make them a potentially more likable alternative to the slightly better-sounding Buds Pro.

Like the Buds Pro, the Buds 2 are equipped with active noise canceling. That means all the latest Galaxy Buds models now feature some form of active noise canceling, though it's slight with the Buds Live, which have an open design sans ear tips. The Buds 2 look more like shrunken versions of the Buds Pro, but I found them more akin to the Buds Live in that they barely stick out of your ears and are fairly discreet. Because they sit more flush with your ears — and have that curved design — they also pick up less wind noise.

I found the Buds 2 to be very good for voice calling, with excellent noise reduction during calls. They don't have pipes sticking out of them like the AirPods Pro, but their microphones manage to pick up your voice well. They're also IPX2 sweat-resistant.

Over the years, JBL has put out some decent true-wireless earbuds, but nothing that really got me too excited. That's finally changed with the arrival of the Samsung-owned brand's new Live Pro 2 and Live Free 2 buds. Both sets of buds — the Live Pro 2 have stems while the Live Free 2 have a pill-shaped design — offer a comfortable fit along with strong noise canceling, very good sound quality and voice-calling performance, plus a robust set of features, including multipoint Bluetooth pairing, an IPX5 splash-proof rating and wireless charging.

The Live Pro 2 and Live Free 2 are equipped with the same 11mm drivers, six microphones, oval tubes and oval silicon tips. Aside from the design, the biggest difference between the two buds is battery life. The stemless Live Free 2 is rated for up to seven hours, while the Live Pro 2 is rated for 10 hours. The Live Pro 2 is available in four color options.

There are a lot of new gaming earbuds out there, but what makes the Sony Pulse Explore earbuds special is that they feature planar magnetic drivers, a speaker technology typically found in high-end over-ear audiophile headphones but rarely in earbuds. They're missing some other features found in typical premium earbuds (noise canceling and ear-detection sensors), that they're as good as they are for listening to music and making calls is a revelation. They sound clearer and more articulate than Sony's flagship WF-1000XM5 earbuds and have tight, powerful bass. That doesn't necessarily mean they sound better than XM5s, which sound a little fuller, but I wasn't expecting them to compete at all with the XM5s for music listening.

Alas, for those of you who bought the original Beats Studio Buds, which remain on the market for now, I'm sorry to report that these new Plus buds are significantly improved, with better sound, noise canceling and battery life. Additionally, they now deliver top-notch voice-calling performance.

The transparent version is getting a lot of attention (who doesn't like transparent electronics?), but the big changes are on the inside. Beats says 95% of the components are new and improved, and the buds' "acoustic architecture" has been revised. The speaker drivers remain the same, but the Studio Buds Plus are powered by a new, more powerful custom chipset and have three new microphones in each bud, which are three times larger and more sensitive than the ones found in the Beats Studio Buds.

Apple's second-generation AirPods aren't as feature-rich as the third-gen AirPods or the AirPods Pro 2. That said, the AirPods 2, which came out in 2019, are down to just $89 on Amazon, or $40 less than their list price. While they don't sound as good as the AirPods 3 and have a longer stem, they fit some people's ears better (those with smaller ears may prefer these older AirPods due to their slightly smaller design).