i have been a skullcandy stan since like 2010, they have always been a solid budget choice and last a long time. my very favorite pair of theirs has been the Push Active. the fit, quality and price hit for me and i have used them for several years. however, the last couple pairs i had have stopped pairing, only showing up as “Tile” in the BT menu.
i replaced them with some Smokin Buds due to my tightened budget, and they worked alright for a month or so, but now there is no media audio. they still produce audio because when i put one in i get the “connected” message.
i just want a comfortable pair of earbuds for work that are sweat resistant, noise blocking, preferably with the over-ear hooks. i dont need outstanding audio quality, i primarily listen to audiobooks and podcasts while working. my budget is 50 bucks give or take.
i havent had the need to look outside of skullcandy til now, and looking at options online is very overwhelming for me. any reliable brands would even be a great starting point for me.
cheers!
The best I’ve ever had is soundcore x20. They can take a beating, comfortable with adjustable hooks, have sound that’s enough to get you in the range between goregrind and dub, and have a decent anc, and usb-c charging port . The only downside is that battery is weakish.
Earfun make some pretty good budget earbuds. Great value.
Missing the tile tracking feature which was honestly fire. Idk how sweat resistant
Airpods are great, just connect and just works reliably
I’ve tried various Bluetooth earbuds and nothing else is as hassle free unless something changed in last couple of years
My sound isolation mic failed though after around 5 years and I’ve went back to wired earphones lol. Tired of charging them and dropping them
I actually keep coming back to Sony earbuds, because they seem to be the only brand that still makes the earbuds controlled by buttons instead of capacitive touch. Had the Sony WF-C500 for a couple years and they still work perfectly fine, but I recently bought a pair of WF-C510 because I wanted multi-connection Bluetooth (so that I can use my PC, tablet and phone audio without fiddling around and re-pairing all the time). They were like 35 bucks.
I’ve had good experience with JBLs, using a Live Beam 3 rn. Cheaper ones might be around your price range.
Take a look at Scarbir’s website he has a really extensive list of earbuds, often the more lesser known and cheaper bang for the buck brands.
Oh boy I love how Lemmy thinks that we need to have a system for handling users posting relative links for some reason. But specifically for relative links that change based on the viewer’s instance. Because under no circumstances will someone put in a URL without https://
This isn’t a Lemmy thing per se. Lemmy just takes the URL you enter and renders it into HTML; in HTML a
hrefwithout a protocol is treated as a link relative to the current domain (i.e. your instance).
You can usually get some late-model Soundcores in that range, and I’ve always found the ones with 4.6 stars or higher to be solid. Their ANC isn’t fantastic, and for music they aren’t great, but they’re my go-tos because I’m a podcast guy and the battery life is pretty good for the price. The Soundcore Life earbuds are the ones I might avoid, but Soundcore Liberty and Soundcore P##i series have been “fine” across the board.
Fairphone have some that are repairable and have replaceable batteries. I haven’t tried them, so can’t couch for sound
I have a pair of Fairbuds, I’ve had them about a little over a year. I’ve been meaning to write a review but I have not come around to It yet. But the short and sweet is, They are neat. I love the repair ability of the hardware but they feel like a “beta” product due to the software/firmware. Within 2 months of getting them I had sent them for warranty service. That after doing all the troubleshooting available without a second pair available.
The reason for the warranty service was that the left earbud just stopped responding, this after; randomly disconnecting, complaining about low battery(even with a brand new battery), randomly lowering volume until completely silent(only the left earbud, device volume did not change).
Came back after they replaced left earbud, now it worked but still have the same issues before, except now it responds. I want to say that they work most of the time. But things bugg out way to often to say that with confidence. I’m pretty sure all the issues are software or firmware relates but since no new firmware has been released since I got them I can’t say for sure. I would not recommend them, based on my experience to someone who isn’t in it for the support of the fairphone project.
Last couple of earbuds I got that are cheap, comfortable, worked well were TOZO. Found them.on Amazon. They have ANC but no over the ear hook. About $30.
KZ AN-01 earhooks paired with pretty much any KZ IEMs of your choice (buy from AliExpress). It fits your budget nicely and you still get outstanding audio quality whether you need it or not.
I like a lot of bass, so I use mine with a pair of KZ Decet with Tangzu Sancai wide bore eartips. The KZ Duonic is also a great choice.
Cheap shitty ones , you wont care about loosing.
Agreed, at this price point brand shouldn’t matter much. I would even ignore the “nice to haves” and try to save another $10-20.
EarFun Airpro4 Plus
I’ve been very happy with my JBL 130. Nothing fancy, but good sound, excellent noise canceling for the price. For me few earbuds are comfortable but these fit well for me.
My all time favorite was Jabra Elite 7 Active (or something like that), but sadly they went out of production.
These days I use Sennheisser Momentum TW4, and they’re pretty great. I just miss the fact that my Jabra pair was waterproof.
I bought Jabra Elite 8 Active earbuds and they’ve been the best ones I’ve had so far.
Sadly Jabra decided to leave the earbud market after 8
😭 Thank god I managed to snag one of their last pairs, then!
thank you but i need ear buds not over ear headphones :)
They come in both formats
try soundcore… it’s owned by amazon so you may not want to. i have a pair of the space a40 and they are comfortable and have ANC… they make a number of different styles and then have different price points in each style
Woah back up, no they aren’t. They are sold heavily on Amazon but Amazon doesn’t own any part of them.
I came here to mention sound core as well. I got ones that after like a month wouldn’t hold a charge. I was just going to throw them out but I made a Reddit post at the time and everyone told me they have great customer service so I reached out. They just sent me the same set but a new one. That was 3 years ago and I use them a lot Monday-Friday and they’re still phenomenal. They work great.
I have the sport x20 and while they’re above your budget ($80) I just wanted to add my recommendation to soundcore. They’re my favorite over the ear earbuds that I’ve tried so far. They’re super comfortable, they stay in my ear whether I’m running or laying down with my head against a pillow, and the sound is pretty good. The only thing I don’t like is that the charging case is really finicky and if I’m not paying attention sometimes I dock them to charge and go to use them the next day and they’re completely dead. But I like them enough that when I can find a spare $80 I’m hoping to buy a second pair because I’m tired of constantly transferring this case around between my different backpacks for work, school and normal life and then having to go on a treasure hunt to figure out which bag I had them in last when I want to use them at home.
definitely want to avoid amazon if possible, but thanks!
For the record Soundcore is not owned by Amazon. They are sold heavily there but that’s it. And I also recommend their products, they are what I consider the best bang for your buck when it comes to audio equipment. Anker charging products are also the same company and also good cost to quality ratio.
i do like anker, lemme check that out!
Soundcore is owned by Anker, who also own eufy. While I wouldn’t trust Anker any further than I could throw them, I have owned Soundcore products since they were still branded as just Anker.
I keep a pair of Liberty 3(? Maybe) as my “kitchen” ear buds and I took my Q30s around the world with me (and it absolutely shows, they’re thrashed). They’re fine audio products but for the price - Amazing.
Any specifics on why you’re anti-Anker? If the quality sucks, that can be improved. If they’re actively trying to destroy democracy and the middle class, that’s kind of different.
Anker’s eufy brand claimed all local storage for their security systems but they were routing everything through AWS for displaying the feed - hence not trusting them but as far as I know no major, flock-enabling scandals or anything.
Also, they’re a company. Yet another reason not to trust them. By the time I’m finished writing this post they could’ve done a bunch of terrible stuff.
Search for anker recalls. They have had plenty of dangerous recalls for bad batteries. I have multiple of their products and have been pretty happy overall, but there is a risk.
I have heard a bit of that. I’m somewhat wary of the overall commoditization of cheap, dubiously sourced batteries in general. I feel like they’re getting big enough that maybe their brand is becoming valuable enough to raise their standards, but it’s a hard thing to measure. I think outside of the standard AA/AAA form factors, even Energizer is putting out some shaky quality these days.
