Best Open Earphones, Tests and Reviews (2025): Bose and more

Open earphones support many of the same features found in traditional earphones, such as multi-point pairing, allowing them to connect to multiple devices at once, or to sensors for automatic stages, water resistant, and even spatial audio. In most cases, when you provide apps for extras, such as EQ or Earbuds Finder, you will have onboard touch or push controls. Due to physical design limitations, open earphone controls are often more restrictive or less effective than traditional earphones, but the best pairs avoid these constraints for convenient control

One feature you shouldn’t look for with open earphones is noise cancellation. This relies on the mixing of passive sound isolation and microphones to measure the environment and “cancel” it by inverting the polarity of the outer sound frequency. The basic physics of the process require proper seals to function effectively. It’s true that some half-open earphones are like that AirPods 4 And even some fully open earphones offer noise cancellation, but it is generally very limited and the frequency at which you see noise reduction is low. If you need noise cancellation, AirPods ProBose’s top rank QuietComfort Ultraor any other Noise cancellation favorites.