A good pair of headphones can be a wonderful thing, allowing you to slip into a world of sound unbothered by events outside your cosy bubble.
With soft padding on the earcups and headband, a pair of over-ear headphones allows you to enjoy your music or other media without the fear of an earbud falling out or the feeling of hard plastic in your ears.
There are many types of headphones available, though the lightweight on-ear type that once shipped with shiny new Walkman cassette players is much less prevalent than it used to be. The larger over-ear type is ideal for comfort and comes in both wired and wireless configurations. They’re ideal for watching TV or listening to music in bed or at your desk and are still easily slipped off if you need to get up or have a conversation.
That’s not to say wireless earbuds don’t have their uses. There's nothing more convenient than popping them out and keeping them in their charging case until the next time you want to use them, and the ability to use them for making calls, plus more recent innovations such as noise cancellation and water resistance, make them perfect for travel and the gym.
As with many electronics purchases, particularly audio ones, headphones can become very expensive as you move up the tiers of manufacturers. In the budget sector, there are familiar names such as Sony and Sennheiser, but there are plenty of up-and-coming manufacturers too, such as Anker’s Soundcore offshoot, which produces a broad range of headphones at reasonable prices.
With that in mind, here are some of the best budget headphones out there.
Best cheap headphones at a glance:
- Best for over-ear noise cancellation: JBL Tune 660NC - £80, Amazon
- Best for ergonomic design: Sony WF-C500 - £90, Amazon
- Best for super cheap earbuds: JLab Go Air Pop - £25, Amazon
- Best for noise-cancellation on a budget: Soundcore Q20i - £50, Amazon
- Best for pure sound quality: Audio-Technica M20x - £50, Amazon
- Best for on-ear comfort: Sony WH-CH520 - £43, Amazon
- Best for home listening: Austrian Audio Hi-X15 - £75, Amazon
- Best for long battery life: Sennheiser CX True Wireless - £120, Amazon
JBL Tune 660NC
Best for: over-ear noise cancellation
With adaptive noise cancelling, a wired or wireless connection, as much as 70 hours of battery life and some bassy sound, these are the ideal budget buy.
A lightweight pair of over-ear headphones, the JBL Tune 660NC offers reasonable sound quality out of the box, which can be further improved to your taste by tweaking in the app, from where you can also adjust noise-cancellation strength and set up voice assistant support.
There's quite a lot of padding on the earcups, meaning they’re comfortable to wear for long periods (though note there's no water resistance), and the battery life is impressively long.
Buy now £80.00, Amazon
Sony WF-C500
Best for: ergonomic design
A comfortable and straightforward pair of wireless earbuds from Sony, the WF-C500s are light, water-resistant (IPX4) and an ideal shape for your ears. There's no noise cancellation, which helps keep the price down, but you do get three choices of tip size in the box so you can ensure they fit securely.
The charging case doubles the earbuds’ battery life of 10 hours - it’s a small case, so you’ll need to top it up yourself if you need more. There are easily found buttons on the back of each earbud, and an app that allows you to tweak the sound balance.
Buy now £70.00, Amazon
JLab Go Air Pop
Best for: super cheap earbuds
At just £25 or thereabouts, you may not expect much from the JLab Go Air Pop earbuds. You may think they’re more like earplugs, not actually designed to make a pleasing noise. But, you’d be wrong, as despite the price these are surprisingly competent.
You’re not going to get the bass-heavy sound and effective noise-cancellation (there’s none) seen elsewhere, but they do detect when you’re wearing them so they can pause your music if you take them out, and the on-bud controls are easy to use.
The charging cable is an oddity, being attached to the case with a slim Type-A USB plug on the end, so you can’t leave it at home, but as a basic pair of music-listening earbuds for a reasonable price, you won’t go far wrong.
Buy now £25.00, Amazon
Soundcore Q20i
Best for: noise-cancellation on a budget
Given the list of features the Soundcore Q20i headphones come with, you might expect them to sell for a higher price tag. But no, these are bargain-priced and sound pretty good too. There are 40 hours of ANC-enabled playback to be had from the battery and a rather bass-heavy default sound that can be tweaked to your liking with the accompanying app.
You can switch the Bluetooth connection between two devices without having to re-pair, and if you connect using the 3.5mm cable they’re capable of hi-res audio playback too.
Buy now £50.00, Amazon
Audio-Technica M20x
Best for: pure sound quality
These are wired headphones that don’t come with a built-in mic for taking phone calls. They’re a bit of a throwback, and have no wireless connectivity, meaning you’ll need an adapter to use them with the recent crop of smartphones that don’t have a built-in headphone socket. Do that, though, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how good a £50 pair of headphones can sound.
Buy now £50.00, Amazon
Sony WH-CH520
Best for: on-ear comfort
These wireless on-ear headphones from Sony don’t have noise-cancellation or hi-res audio support, but still sound great. On-ear headphones like these may not be to everyone’s taste, as they fit directly on your ears and depending on the shape of your lugholes will either feel great or deeply annoying, but thanks to some upgraded padding around the earpads they’re largely comfortable to wear.
They use the standard Sony app, which is a great place to start for sound balance and equalisation, and there's multipoint pairing too if you’ve got multiple devices. One thing you don’t get is the ability to use a 3.5mm cable, meaning they’re completely dependent on their internal battery, which will give you around 50 hours of use from a charge.
Buy now £43.00, Amazon
Austrian Audio Hi-X15
Best for: home listening
More expensive than the other wired headphones on this list but still reasonably priced, these headphones from Austrian Audio - a company formed in 2017 after veteran audio manufacturer AKG closed its Vienna office - sound very good indeed.
The headphone cable terminates in a standard 3.5mm jack, but there's an adapter in the box for the 6.3mm standard too, depending on what your playback equipment uses. Made of plastic but with a metal hinge to enable them to be folded up, the Hi-X15 headphones look great, but it’s the sound quality you get for your money that really makes them stand out.
Buy now £75.00, Amazon
Sennheiser CX True Wireless
Best for: long battery life
More expensive and larger than other earbuds on this list, Sennheiser’s CX True Wireless offering gives you nine hours of battery life that’s boosted to 27 hours by the charging case, so you won’t have to charge them too often.
You don’t get noise cancellation, but the 7mm drivers inside the earbuds produce a great sound, and there's enough codec support to enjoy high-res recordings. There are touch controls on the earbuds themselves, allowing you to change volume, skip tracks, answer calls and invoke a voice assistant.
You can also rearrange these in the Sennheiser app, along with applying some equalisation to the sound to get it just to your liking. While their size may not endear them to all listeners, the sound quality and features surely will.
Buy now £120.00, Amazon
Verdict
You don’t need to spend a lot to enjoy music or speech through some well-priced headphones. The JBL Tune 660NC offers a lot of sound quality and comfort for comparatively little outlay.
Some may prefer to spend more, to get bells and whistles such as full high-res music support, premium materials or noise cancellation that can quieten a jet engine, but for general use or travelling, you don’t have to spend a fortune to get some excellent headphones.
