The Best Noise-Canceling Headphones to Drown Out Your Surroundings

If you’re traveling by plane or train, it’s likely you’ve seen noise-canceling headphones. Used to tune out ambient noise, this type of headphone can help you to better enjoy your music, podcast, or other audio content. But noise-canceling headphones aren’t only for traveling or commuting. If you work in an open office, these may help minimize distractions so you can focus. Even if you work from home, noise-canceling headphones might be a way to drown out your housemates’ chatter so you’re more productive. Here, we’ve rounded up some of the best ones available now, as well as provided some background on the tech.

Best Noise-Canceling Headphones

The Expert: As a devoted audiophile of a few decades’ standing, I have been listening to high-end headphones since the dawn of the compact disc [1984 for those not familiar]—so I’ve got a reasonable idea of what sounds good and what doesn’t. I’ve applied the same standards to the newest generation of noise-canceling earbuds and headphones, testing them in everything from the back of a creaky regional jet to the cockpit of a McLaren GT3 race car.

What to Look for in Noise-Canceling Headphones

In a perfect world, you’d be able to buy a set of headphones or earbuds that provide top-flight sound quality and eliminate external noise. In this world, you’ll have to choose. The very best audiophile headphones on the market are “open-back”, meaning they don’t isolate you from your surroundings. There’s a reason for that: with “closed-back” or sealed headphones, unwanted reflections from the inside of your headphones can impair sound quality. Furthermore, the Active Noise Cancellation feature, or ANC, of modern noise-canceling headphones works by listening to external noise and producing sound waves that are the opposite of that noise, canceling it out like two waves in a pool colliding. This, too, has an effect on the quality of the sound you want to hear.

In anything short of a home listening room or professionally soundproofed environment, most people find that noise reduction does a lot more to improve their experience than, say, the last one percent of sound quality possible in a $2,000 set of open-back audiophile headphones. On a plane or train, noise-canceling headphones are hard to beat. Once home, however, you may want to consider different options.

Portability

Bigger headphones tend to sound better, last longer between charges, and offer better sound quality. Don’t let that fool you into buying something that you can’t comfortably carry, store, or use in all conditions. And don’t assume that your headphones will fold, because many noise-canceling options don’t.

Comfort

The advantages of earbuds over conventional headphones are obvious. They are lighter, easier to carry, less visible to others, and often provide superior levels of noise isolation due to their ability to seal the ear canal. Not so obvious: many people cannot tolerate earbuds for long periods of time, time between recharges tends to be lower, and it’s a lot easier to lose them while being jostled on the subway or street.

How We Evaluated Noise-Canceling Headphones

We’ve listened to and solicited user feedback on dozens of headphones and earbuds, with particular attention to usability, convenience, and the ability to isolate a listener from the outside world. We also prioritized durability and value, because unlike audiophile headphones these items tend to be used and abused without much mercy.

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