When I was younger I had a high-adrenaline running playlist that I carefully curated to pump up my heart rate: Arctic Monkeys, Jay-Z, Rage Against the Machine. As my preference shifted toward podcasts, I seized the opportunity to explore ideas while chasing my weekly mileage goals. What remained constant was my appreciation for the best sports earbuds on the market. I’ve tested dozens of pairs, ranging from wired to wireless, with features like active noise cancellation and customizable tap-activated controls. Here are the seven sport earbuds we liked best, whether indoors or out, on land or in the water, on city sidewalks or remote trails.
Update July 2025: We’ve tested the best new sport earbuds tailored to every activity, awarding a place to four new models—including our new best overall pick, the Beats Powerbeats Pro 2—and updated prices and availability for all.
At a Glance
Best All-Around
Beats Powerbeats Pro 2
$250 at Amazon $250 at Best Buy
Pros and Cons
⊕ Secure fit and comfort
⊕ Push buttons that you control
⊗ Too trebly at times
⊗ Heart-rate device pairing takes some work
The second generation of the Powerbeats Pro is a big step up from the first, and it quickly gained go-to status for every member of our test team. “Actual buttons you can feel and click, paired with rich sound, comfy fit, and a microphone that canceled the noise of the windstorm I was walking through while talking on the phone? Wow,” enthused one tester.
This model is loaded with features not seen on the first—notably active noise cancellation (ANC) and heart-rate monitoring capability. Battery life is a superb 10 hours on a charge, which adds to their everyday-wear appeal. The case, which now allows wireless charging, supplies a total of 45 hours before you need a plug-in.
As with everything Beats (and parent company Apple), the acoustics shine: Adaptive EQ on the Pro 2 reads the environmental factors around you and adjusts the frequencies in your music for optimal sound. That sound is full and rich, without too much bass—but a bit too harsh on the treble end for some testers.
The ANC in the Pro 2 shows just how far that tech has come. “Noise canceling made the city disappear until I had to cross traffic, then—pop!—full awareness,” one tester noted. We also appreciated the push-button controls, which not only provide a satisfying haptic response so you know when the button has been pushed, but also eliminate accidental pauses when you brush your finger against the earbud (a huge annoyance for many users). The buttons also make it easy to toggle from one connected device to another without swiping to your Bluetooth controls, and they can even be pressed with a tilt against your shoulder, which comes in handy in the kitchen or whenever both hands are occupied.
The IPX4 rating stands up well to sweat and rain, and the lighter profile (vis a vis the first gen) and soft rubbery coating makes them comfortable through long hours of use. The flexy ear hooks—one of the big attractions for any athlete—are extremely well designed, fitting each tester’s ears perfectly and not budging a millimeter during HIIT workouts. Even the new color palette is alluring, with new orange and purple options. All told, the Powerbeats Pro 2 represent the state of the art in active-user earbuds. As one tester reported, they “transition seamlessly from workout to travel to urban navigation.”
Best for Audiophiles
Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 In-Ear True Wireless Earbuds
$399 at Amazon $399 at Best Buy
Pros and Cons
⊕ Pristine sound quality
⊕ Non-frustrating touch controls
⊗ Not cheap
“The most audiophile worthy of all the earbuds I’ve tested,” one of our veteran reviewers gushed after a month with the Pi8s. Through hours of listening sessions on planes, on trails, on couches, and on city sidewalks, this was the pair that invariably impressed everyone on our test team, with their “incredibly balanced and musical” sound quality.
The $400 price—$150 above Apple’s ubiquitous AirPod Pros and $100 north of the Bose QuietComfort Ultras—means you have to be serious about your music, and about taking good care of them. They’re IP54-rated, able to handle sweat and a misty rain, but are not the pair you want to bring to the gym each day. While the four sizes of ear tips help them sit pretty securely and comfortably, they will fall out on occasion. All the same, we won’t discourage you from ever bringing them on a run on a sunny day, where their high-fidelity clarity is sure to put a little more oomph in your step.
The active noise cancellation on the Pi8s is excellent, similar to that on the Bose QCII, with touch controls for toggling between on, off, and transparency mode. The touch controls work better than in most earbuds we’ve seen, with a satisfying light noise that’s akin to a mouse click. We also love the pearlescent finish on the outer surface of the Pi8s, which come in four colors. A robust companion app lets you turn off the touch controls and has a five-band equalizer so you can tweak the sound profile to your liking. Battery life here is an average 6.5 hours, and the charging case holds two additional charges (13.5 hours).
Another nice feature is something called retransmission. This allows you to use the included USB-C-to-3.5mm cord to plug the unit’s charging case into an external device like an in-flight entertainment system and the case will send the signal into the buds, so you’re not stuck listening on that plastic-wrapped pair the flight attendants hand out with the peanuts.
One reviewer reported, “I listened to an album with two double basses—“But Who’s Gonna Play the Melody?” by Christian McBride and Edgar Meyer—and I could hear their fingers and the pull of the bow on the strings in ways I hadn’t before.” That’s a good example of what makes these shine like few have before them.
Best for Runners
Shokz OpenFit2
Pros and Cons
⊕ Great volume despite open ear design
⊕ Long battery life
⊗ Sound not as rich as high-end models
⊗ Might not fit large ears
“So comfortable, I forgot I was wearing them,” said one fan of the latest release from Shokz. This, and the smart minimalist design of the ear hooks, made them our favorite trail companions this year—on both shorter runs and longer hikes. And they’re another entry in the fast-improving open-ear category.
One distance runner in our test group said, “These are my new favorite for running: no distracting foot-thudding sounds resonating through an earbud, no whooshy wind sounds, and full awareness of the aggro downhill bro bombing up behind you.”
The soft rubber on the ear hooks, combined with the open design, make them one of the most comfortable to wear for long hours—and the OpenFit 2 will play for up to 11 hours per charge and 48 hours from the charging case.
It’s clear that Shokz put a lot of thought into this model. The handy companion app allows you to equalize treble and bass or customize the controls—both push-button and touch can be turned on or off. Where the Bose Ultra has one speaker, this one comes with a pair of speakers that get more volume into your ears, making them louder than Bose, if a touch less refined. Like the Bose Ultra, they have multipoint pairing so you can switch between devices with a single push or tap.
IP55 water resistance is a notch higher than most models here, keeping water and dust at bay. And the nicely compact case and overall superlight package make them even more appealing for runners with limited pocket space.
Best Open Ear
Bose Ultra Open Earbuds
Pros and Cons
⊕ Deceptively rich sound
⊕ Impressive companion app
⊗ Microphones were subpar
⊗ Bass is underwhelming
When I first saw this newfangled design—a mini speaker held in place by clamping around the side of your ear —I didn’t know what the Bose people were thinking. Is this an earbud or jewelry? Turns out, they put plenty of thought into these surprisingly powerful earbuds. The Ultra Open Ears, small and featherlight as they are, somehow grab onto your ear and stay there even in high-impact sprints or multi-position yoga—all while churning out the dynamic blend of sound you’d expect from Bose.
For audiophiles, the ongoing problem with open designs has been inadequate volume reaching our eardrums—we’ve enjoyed them for podcasts, but for music, not so much. By shifting the design, Bose has managed to get the speaker a bit closer to the ear canal, while also leaving an ample gap for ambient sounds to get in. Which, of course, is the whole idea: enjoy your audio while also hearing that tourist on an e-bike coming up from behind.
Bose’s excellent app goes a long way toward making this possible. An easy-to-adjust equalizer lets you dial in the bass, mids, and treble to your exact preferences. The app also has an Immersive Audio setting that shifts the sound profile from left to right as your head moves around so it feels like the sound is coming from the same source the whole time. One tester called it “downright supernatural, making music sound like it’s coming from a speaker somewhere around you.”
The IPX4 rating gives it good water resistance, whileand the seven-hour battery life (total of 48 in the case) is only average,good and (although immersive mode will reduce this). (If you’re looking for longer battery life in an open-ear model, consider the OpenRock X, which goes for 12 hours per charge.When we want crazy long battery life, we turn to Raycon’s Fitness Earbuds, which run for 38 hours on a single charge.)
For runs, walks, and bike rides, testers found the extra awareness of their surroundings worth the trade-off in volume, which probably isn’t the best thing for your ears in the first place. Open designs will never provide the same fullness for music-philes as in-ear, but nothing before this has come so close.
“Even my wife, who is allergic to trendy tech, was won over,” said one user.
Killer Value
Back Bay FirstClass 50
$40 at Back Bay Currently Sold Out
Pros and Cons
⊕ Excellent noise canceling
⊕ Robust sound quality
⊗ Slipped out of some users’ ears
⊗ Touch controls aren’t the most intuitive
“Seriously: $40,” said our Aspen-based tester. “That’s less than a hamburger in this town.” While we don’t envy those restaurant prices, we all concurred that the Back Bay FirstClass 50 is one of the best sport earbuds for the price.
Boston-based Back Bay has created something like a day-for-night version of Apple’s AirPods: similar size and shape but in black, and with sound quality that comes eerily close to that perennially pricey fave. Since Back Bay cuts out a lot of costs by selling straight to consumers, their quality products—all certified carbon-neutral, to boot—don’t bear any of the marks of cheapness, unlike many similarly priced items.
Even at the bargain price, they deliver excellent sound quality and also offer active noise canceling. Seriously: One itinerant tester said, “Sitting in the noisiest seat on the aircraft—aft of the wing, and in front of two worked-up toddlers—I could make it all disappear with a click.” The company claims these earbuds block 97% of noise. We’re not sure how that’s possible, but they do the job as well as almost anything we’ve put to the test for a fraction of the price.
While battery life is an average five hours per charge (with 25 hours overall in the case), they offer a 15-minute quick charge to add two hours of playtime. The IPX5 water protection keeps them going in a storm, and while the fit isn’t as secure as others in this review, they one-up AirPods in this regard by adding rubber tips to help them stay secure.
Best for Water
H2O Audio TRI 2 Pro
$199 at Amazon $199 at Best Buy
Pros and Cons
⊕ Totally waterproof
⊕ Onboard memory
⊗ Song transfer is slow
⊗ Can cause tickling
Have you harbored dreams of funneling techno into your auditory nerve while windsurfing on San Francisco Bay, then voice-commanding to switch over to an incoming business call? One member of our review crew put three models of waterproof earbuds through this very test and, while the process stands to be improved through future innovations, it worked fairly well, with the TRI 2 Pro coming out on top.
H2O Audio has been selling good products for swimmers and the like for years—it takes a special approach, not least because they need to be IPX8, able to go 12 feet underwater for as long as you want them to—like this model can. And, of course, a Bluetooth signal won’t travel under the waves with you, so tracks need to be stored locally, either on a waterproof MP3 player or an even better solution, like this unit’s 8GB of onboard memory that can store 130 hours of tracks. (It can move your own mp3 files over or “record” music from a streaming service like Spotify, though this is a slow process.)
The TRI 2 Pros employ bone conduction technology, which makes them great for podcasts while out on a run or bike ride, but a little less ideal when trying to rock out in said open-air activities: Then they can start to tickle. Still, H2O Audio and other companies are making these units sound better every year. And it’s underwater that they really shine: When you use the included earplugs to neutralize the water noise in your ears, it’s surprising how smooth music sounds, and at much more moderate volumes. They’re a minor godsend for lap swimmers, snorkelers, and triathletes (presumably the core audience for the Tri line) who like to enhance their life aquatic by playing their favorite symphony or devouring an audiobook. The headset will play for up to nine hours in Bluetooth mode and six hours in memory mode and comes with a zip case (which is rather bulky) that provides two and a half refills.
Back to our windsurfer: The TRI 2 Pro worked under a helmet (and this success was replicated on the ski slopes), which also secured them in the event of a fall. Playing tunes when the wind was low was enjoyable, but in high wind it was a challenge: “I could hear the music, but the output of the headphones had to compete with the roar of wind in my ear canals. It’s simply a matter of physics.” This also meant the tester’s hopes of “turning sales meetings into sails meetings” by joining conference calls were largely dashed. Listening worked fine, but the microphone couldn’t pick up his voice from deep inside his helmet. Maybe one day.
Most Innovative
Denon PerL True Wireless Earbuds
Pros and Cons
⊕ Rich, dynamic sound
⊕ Impressive app
⊕ Customizable sound profile
⊗ Chunky size
“Each product is hand-tuned by our sound master,” Denon says of the PerLs, and while we don’t know exactly what that means, it speaks to the Japanese DNA in these premium-sounding buds. Take the accompanying software, for instance: The first thing you do with these wireless buds is download an app that streams a series of sounds and frequencies into your ears to measure how you hear, then creates a personalized profile that transforms how good music sounds. It’s one of the best uses of a headphone app we’ve seen.
The PerLs came across as lively but not piercing on the high end, with realism and verve. There’s even a high-gain option on the app that boosts volume for quiet recordings, which one tester called “a welcome feature that I would love to see in a lot of sometimes anemic Bluetooth earbuds.” These capabilities are made possible by a series of ultra-sensitive microphones, which probably explains their rather enormous size—one reviewer called them “sharp-edged Alka-Seltzer tablet earbud bodies” and noted, “I had to remove the supplied fin attachment before these felt okay.”
Others liked the fit and found them great for running, where they kept the adrenaline flowing with some of the best full-on rocking-out sound in the test. “St. Vincent and Spoon sounded like I was listening to vinyl,” one tester said. The active noise cancellation is decent, the six hours of battery is average (with two more charges from the case), and an IPX4 rating means they can handle a light rain. Given the quality and attention to detail, we consider these a true bargain at $139 or less.
The Hottest Trend in Sport Earbuds
This year, for the first time in our testing history, open earbud models outnumbered traditional in-ear ones among our test candidates. The open design allows you to hear far more of what’s going on around you, and I’ve been slow to take a liking to them. There’s no doubt that they make a lot of sense for people who run along the roadside or, even more so, cyclists who go anywhere near cars—generally a very bad time to be canceling the noise around you.
Since I live in the desert and rarely pass another living soul on the trails, I don’t prioritize hearing what’s going on around me, and open earbuds will always be challenged to sound as good, or as loud, when they’re handicapped by having to reach your hearing by alternative methods. So for music, they’re not my favorite; for the spoken word, I’ve learned to appreciate them.
During this year’s tests, one of my fellow reviewers said he appreciated that the open design allowed him to hear not just passing cars but songbirds. Which sent me into a brief panic: Am I missing all the birdsongs? Sadly, there aren’t a lot of birds on my trail, but this summer when I’m hiking above 10,000 feet and the dark-eyed juncos are chirping in the high branches, I’ll be putting that theory to the test.
Open earbuds work in one of two ways: either with the transmitter positioned near your ear canal but not in it (the Beyerynamic VERIO 200, a previous winner, is a prime example) or through bone conduction (found in the H2O Audio TRI 2 Pro, named Best for Water this season), which bypasses your eardrum, sending sound directly to your inner ear by way of your skull bones. More recently, a new design has popped up, which I refer to as the clip-on earring style: these fall into the first category but use a more diminutive design that grabs onto the lower part of your ear. The Bose Ultra Open Earbuds that won the category this summer is one example, but lower-priced models from Soundpeats and Shokz use the same concept, all with good results—meaning they manage to get enough clear sound into my ears that I enjoy hearing music on them.
In the meantime, many closed-ear models these days (see Bowers & Wilkins’ Pi8s) let you employ a transparency (or awareness) mode that enhances ambient sound. This can be a nice in-between solution if your need for awareness isn’t so much life-and-death as it is a courtesy to the runner or biker “on your left.”
How to Choose Earbuds
Earbuds are more like shoes than most other gear categories: so much depends on the right fit. What comfortably fits one person’s ears may not suit another’s, and there’s more to it than size. The internal anatomy of the ear makes certain designs actually sound better to one person than the next. If you can’t try them out at a store or borrow them from a friend, it may be best to buy them from a retailer with a good return policy. Once you have them in hand, do some real-world tests with the different tip sizes, and trade them in if you aren’t in love.
If you want to get serious about the perfect fit, consider aftermarket foam eartips, like these from Comply. In addition to helping with a more secure fit, they provide passive noise isolation, which can improve the experience with both ANC-equipped and ANC-less earbuds. Should fit issues persist, consider a model with behind-the-ear hooks like the Powerbeats Pro 2.
Also give some thought to which features do it for you: Some people like sleek touch controls, others prefer old-school push buttons; some like to tap for quick pausing, others would rather forgo that feature and pull out one bud to ask for directions, so as to avoid the annoyance of unwanted pauses every time your fingers go near them. And if you live in a rainy climate, be sure to choose ones with an IP (ingress protection) rating ending in 4 or higher (as all the models here do).
Finally, be aware that there are more specialized designs emerging and getting better each year–like these earbuds for swimmers, others for cyclists and skiers, and open-ear designs for those who want to stay more tuned in to their surroundings.
Also see: How to Clean Your Earbuds
How We Test Sport Earbuds
- Hours of Testing: 419
- Test Environments: Running, hiking, dog walking, cycling, windsurfing, swimming, skiing, rock climbing, HIIT workouts, plane rides, gardening, shoveling gravel, grocery shopping, making dinner, car camping, conference calls, video calls, video streaming, noisy coffee shops
- Highest Elevation: 10,152 feet, Leadville, Colorado
- Lowest Elevation: 5 feet underwater in Lake Pleasant, Arizona
- Most Listened-To Tracks: Bon Iver: “Dijon,” Charli xcx featuring BB Tricks: “Club Classics,” Childish Gambino: “Lithonia,” Drugdealer and Kim Bollinger: “Pictures of You,” Flock of Dimes: “Day One,” Fontaines D.C.: “Favourite,” J Dilla: “Workinonit,” Kenya Grace: “Strangers,” The Hold Steady: “Stuck Between Stations,” Magdalena Bay: “Image,” Prince: “Electric Chair,” Puentes: “Amor y Unidad,” Kathleen Smith: “I Can See for Miles,” Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross: “Challengers”
The first thing we do with any earbuds, headphones, or speakers is attempt to pair them with our phones without consulting the user manual: the quicker, more intuitive, and easier the Bluetooth setup, the more points scored. Then we put them through rigorous hours of testing doing the kinds of things Outside readers do—from dog walks to HIIT workouts, from fireside listening to our day jobs, which for one of us is at the local woodworking shop. Our testers, who range in location from Alaska to Berkeley to Aspen to Santa Fe to New York City, spent hours in them, bouncing up and down on trails, treadmills, and trains.
Our team turns in reports on each product tested, providing a score from 1 to 10 for five different measures: sound quality, pairing and connectivity, fit and comfort, rain and drop protection, and user friendliness. Scores are averaged, with more weight given to sound quality and (knowing our audience) how well they stand up to the elements. Note: Battery life estimates in these reviews are based on manufacturer specs; it’s difficult to confirm those numbers, given the time involved and variances among user habits (different volumes, different uses, different functions enabled). Actual results may be 10 to 20 percent lower, judging from averages experienced in general testing.
Meet Our Lead Tester
Will Palmer has been testing gear for 21 years for Outside, where he was managing editor and copy chief for nine years. Based in Santa Fe, he has been a runner since 1984, and while the mile counts have decreased over the years, he’s kept motivated to head out the door on the hottest, coldest, and wettest days by the opportunity to test the best new products—and to commune with the junipers and piñons.
