The Best Noise-Cancelling Headphones for 2025

PCMag editors select and review products independently. If you buy through affiliate links, we may earn commissions, which help support our testing.

Headphones are great for enjoying your favorite music, podcast, or audiobook in peace, but sometimes the outside world can bleed through. If you want to avoid all the noise, you need headphones or earphones with active noise cancellation (ANC). We've been testing noise-cancelling headphones for around 15 years, so you can trust that our analysis is comprehensive and informed. Our coverage is and always has been free of manufacturer influence, too. Bose's QuietComfort Ultra Headphones and Earbuds, both Editors' Choice winners, still offer the most effective ANC overall. At the more affordable end, the Editors' Choice-winning Anker Soundcore Liberty 4 Pro earphones outpace everything else around $100. It's still worth clicking through to our detailed reviews of each model to find which best suits your needs since they all have particular strengths. We also cover everything you need to know during your search further down.

What's the Difference Between Active Noise Cancellation and Passive Noise Isolation?

Plenty of headphones and earphones claim to isolate or reduce noise, but that doesn't mean they offer proper ANC.

Passive noise isolation, sometimes called passive noise cancellation, is a fancy term for what earplugs do. Simply, when an object (such as a thick earpad with memory foam) blocks sound, it passively (without any battery power) reduces the ambient noise you hear. Putting your fingers in your ears when a loud siren goes by is a form of passive noise isolation.

Active noise cancellation is much more complicated. It involves microphones that actively sample the noise in an environment and then produce an inverse wave that cancels out those sounds. Think of it like this: If you have a perfect sine wave and play it along with its inverse wave—the mirror opposite—the result would be no wave at all. It works in theory on a graph, but the results are messier in real life. Regardless, modern ANC implementations are quite effective at (nearly) eliminating low and midrange frequencies. This all requires battery power to work, of course.

Nearly all ANC headphones and earphones use some degree of passive noise isolation in addition to their active circuitry, primarily because it's an easy way to improve performance against high-frequency noises, which tend to give headphones more trouble.

What Noise Cancellation Can and Can't Do

If you haven't used noise-cancelling headphones before, you need to understand that they don't fully eliminate noise and are notably less effective at eliminating inconsistent noise. It's not like going into a soundproof chamber every time you put them on—it's more like using highly effective earplugs.

What does this mean in practice? Most of the headphones and earphones worth their price can tamp down the low, consistent rumble of an airplane or a train quite well. The same goes for the ongoing whir of a loud AC unit or fan. That's because these are consistent, relatively unchanging noises. But noise like music, conversation, or dogs barking—anything that is more complex than a constant drone—is usually more problematic. The best noise-cancelling models eliminate these sounds to a degree, but you're still going to hear some of them.

What Is Adaptive Noise Cancellation?

Adaptive noise cancellation refers to active noise cancellation that adjusts to environmental sounds it measures with mics in real time. Technically, all ANC must be adaptive to a degree or it wouldn’t work—after all, as the sound around you changes, so too must the ANC’s inverse response. However, the term adaptive ANC refers to models that adjust not only to surrounding noise changes but also to shifts in your head’s position. Apple's Adaptive Audio mode is one of the best we've tested and can protect your hearing.

With plenty of adaptive models, you can quite literally hear the noise cancellation changing in real-time when you turn your head slightly or even feel pressure changes in your ear canal. For some users, adaptive ANC represents a crucial advancement, and to others, it’s quite distracting. As such, some apps now let you switch between adaptive or manual ANC modes. You might even be able to set the ANC to focus on a specific frequency range or use a fader to change its overall intensity.

What Is Hybrid Noise Cancellation?

Hybrid ANC is the combination of feed-forward (exterior mic-based) and feedback (interior mic-based) noise cancellation technology. While many of the most effective (and expensive) models use hybrid technology, that feature doesn't guarantee top-notch performance. Even within hybrid ANC implementations, the number of mics and their placement (to highlight only two of many factors) can have a tremendous impact on the system's effectiveness. Hybrid ANC implementations are present on both in-ear and over-ear models.

Should Noise Cancellation Add Hiss?

Some noise cancellation modes add an audible hiss—think white noise—to the signal. It doesn't sound awful, but it serves to mask the high frequencies that the circuitry is less effective at eliminating. As mentioned, active noise cancellation works far better against lows and mids than highs, so reducing some of the high-frequency noise passively is essential. The hiss adds another layer that can enhance the sense of quiet you get but is actually somewhat deceiving.

You can tell if a hiss is present when you enable the ANC mode in a quiet room. If it's there, the hiss will have the opposite effect of noise cancellation in this scenario—it will sound louder than the room itself. Most hiss is not a deal breaker, and it (hopefully) won't even be audible when your music is playing. But generally speaking, the better the noise cancellation mode, the less it relies on a masking hiss.

We should also note that some people feel pressure inside their ears with powerful ANC, while others don't notice a thing. It's worth trying on multiple pairs of headphones in a store before you invest in an expensive product that can potentially cause you discomfort.

Should You Get Noise-Cancelling Headphones or Earphones?

Over-ear (circumaural) headphones typically offer the most effective ANC. Their earcups can create a tight seal, and the earpads act as an additional barrier. That said, the less-common on-ear ANC models can still eliminate plenty of surrounding noise, are often far more comfortable, and stow away more easily.

ANC-capable earphones have also improved dramatically in recent years. The greatest advantage of these models is their passive isolation; their eartips seal off your ear canal and effectively eliminate high frequencies even before you enable the ANC.

The advantages one style may present over another are less about ANC performance at this point and more about your preference and comfort. You can find class-leading active noise cancellation in each category.

How Do Noise Cancellation Apps Work?

Many noise-cancelling headphones work with free apps that can alter the experience to better suit your environment. Most ANC models feature an ambient mode that allows you to hear your surroundings and talk with someone nearby without removing your headphones. The latter is a useful, nearly ubiquitous feature, but some manufacturers go further and let you blend ANC and ambient levels to your preference. When this is available, you can usually adjust the levels with a slider in a companion app.

Is It Worth Buying Noise-Cancelling Headphones?

Noise cancellation circuitry isn't cheap. If a model has been around for more than a year or two, you might find some deals, but a quality pair of headphones rarely sells for less than $200. If they do, the ANC on offer is probably acceptable for the price but not on the same level as the top-tier options. If you're looking for the best of the best, prepare to pay between $350 and $400. Earphones are the exception, and you can get good performance for less than $200.

Whether it's worth spending that much depends on your typical listening environment. If you can't focus in the wake of noisy people, pets, or machines, then noise-cancelling headphones are absolutely worth the sense of quiet they can provide.

But if noise cancellation isn't a big deal to you, focus on other characteristics with our lists of the best wireless headphones, the best earphones, and the best headphones overall. And if you're on a tight budget, check out the best headphones for under $50.

Once you find the right pair of headphones, make sure to take good care of them. To start, explore more of our audio coverage: 5 Easy Tips to Extend the Life of Your Headphones and 8 Ways You're Using Your Headphones Wrong.