The popular Sony MDR-EX15AP offer decent audio and an attractive design but are unlikely to excite you.

With a comfortable design and impressive microphone quality, the SteelSeries Tusq are excellent wired gaming earbuds.

Sony fills a mid-range gap in its headphone lineup with the ULT Wear, which offers good sound and plenty of features but isn't quite best-in-class.

Everyone’s idea of ‘mainstream’ is slightly different, of course, but in the case of the Dali IO-8 wireless noise-cancelling headphones it would seem to mean ‘really quite expensive’...

The Anker Soundcore C40i sound pretty good, but they aren’t the most comfortable or feature-rich pair around.

The JBL Tune 310C are cheap, feature-rich and comfortable, but they’re unlikely to blow you away with next-level audio.

JLab's Go Air Pop deliver build quality, battery life and connectivity they've no business reaching for this money.

A clever solution for people who are constantly in video meetings and need to switch between phone and laptop.

The AONIC 3 make a statement with sharp separation and nifty passive noise isolation.

LG’s latest earbuds aren’t the most suave, but their broad feature-set and solid sound still makes them worth a look.

The Jabra Elite 10 Gen 2 are Jabra’s last-ever true wireless earbuds, but their high price, tinny audio and unimpressive feature set means it’s a raspy swan song.

The Canyon Doublebee GTWS-2 earbuds falter with a shoddy low-end, but you can do worse for the price.

The Austrian Audio Hi-X20 continue the brand’s extraordinary strike-rate in the affordable wired over-ear headphone market

The CMF By Nothing Buds lack great ANC and reliable software, but they look cool and they’re incredibly cheap.

The Edifier LolliClip are a great pair of open ear headphones with ANC and health monitoring and are only let down by a few small hiccups.

Super stylish and a pleasure to wear for hours on end, the Panasonic RB-F10s are otherwise winning open earbuds let down by really irritating controls.

These in-ear Creative headphones are stylish, and perfectly good for the price, though some advanced features could have been implemented better.

Sound quality, comfort and pricing issues mean Dyson is way off track from the competition.

A pair of open-ear buds that are perfect for busy offices and making calls.

With silicone tips and fins and a lightweight design, these are easily some of the comfiest workout buds we’ve ever tested.

These light and comfortable in-ear monitors plate up meaty audio with elegance.

The first earbuds to use the much-hyped xMEMS drivers sound great, but have a fair few issues beyond the audio, including screaming noise cancellation and tough-to-use controls.

The Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 3 wireless headset doesn’t sacrifice features to hit a low price point.

The JBL Reflect Aero are doing something that many other waterproof headphones struggle with, and win in features as well.

Super-lightweight, comfortable, with superb audio quality for the price.

Top-tier cans that go some way to justifying the price

Beats' successor to the Solo 3 on-ear wireless headphones offer extended battery life and extra features – but are the improvements enough when other headphones are so good?

The JLab Go Pods ANC are the cheapest noise cancelling earbuds that you should genuinely consider buying.

Shanling HW600 wired over-ear planar magnetic headphones look to be even more disruptive than usual in a competitive market, and succeed up to a point...

The Status Audio Pro X cost a little more than the AirPods Pro 3, but take on Apple's heavyweights with a more refined audio set-up.