Best Noise Cancelling Headphones: 9 Ranked, Where the Battery Numbers Fail

It takes the top spot on volume of evidence rather than any single headline figure: 17,274 ratings at 4.4 stars, the largest sample in this round-up of the best noise cancelling headphones. Bose quotes up to 24 hours of battery, and a 15-minute charge returns up to 2.5 hours of playback — a useful top-up, though not the fastest on this page.

The practical case is the box contents. A 3.5mm cable with an in-line microphone is included, so the pair still works when the battery is flat or when Bluetooth is not an option. Two listening modes, Quiet and Aware, let you switch between full cancellation and full awareness, and an adjustable EQ covers bass, mid-range and treble. In practice, that combination covers both a flight and a walk to the shops without changing headphones.

The catch is that Bose has moved on. This model's Best Sellers Rank is 17 in Noise Cancelling Headphones, behind two cheaper pairs on this page, and it offers no USB-C lossless audio and no spatial audio — both of which the £299.95 Bose 2nd Gen at position seven does offer. If you want the newest Bose features rather than the best-reviewed ones, this is not the pair.

Position two on hardware and spec detail, with one caveat worth catching. The bullet claims 30 hours of battery and says a USB-PD AC adapter, sold separately, gives 3 hours of playback from a 3-minute charge. However, the specification table reads 'Battery Charge Time: 30 Hours' — the same figure as the listening time. Charging cannot take as long as playing, so one of those two numbers is wrong on the listing itself.

In practice the hardware is why it sits this high. Four microphones on each earcup feed an Auto NC Optimizer that adjusts cancellation to your surroundings, LDAC supports high-resolution audio, and multipoint pairing holds two Bluetooth devices at once. It also ships with a collapsible hard case, which the cheaper Sony at position four does not. That is why it remains at number two among the best noise cancelling headphones here despite the spec-table error.

That said, 4.3 stars from 12,040 ratings is the lowest score in the top three, and this is the more expensive of the two Sony pairs by £155.42. If you mainly want quiet on a bus route and rarely make calls, the WH-CH720N runs the same V1 processor for a third of the money. Buy this one for the microphone array and the case.

The priciest pair on this page, and the battery claim splits inside a single bullet: 'Up to 30 hours of play time (23 with Immersive Audio)'. Meanwhile 2,742 ratings at 4.2 stars is the lowest score of all nine products and the second-thinnest sample. If you want reassurance from a large crowd of owners, this is not where it lives.

What the money buys is spatialised audio. Immersion Mode, Cinema Mode and Aware Mode sit alongside Quiet Mode, and USB-C two-way voice handles calls and video conferencing through the built-in mic. That makes this the clearest example of bluetooth noise cancelling headphones with mic for desk work rather than phone calls alone. It also weighs 480g, more than any other model here that publishes a weight.

Either way, £326 for 23 hours of immersive playback is a specific trade. Anyone who mainly wants quiet on a train should look at the £196 Bose at position one or the £99 Sony ULT WEAR at six. Buy the Ultra for spatial audio and USB-C lossless, not for battery life — and check the price again before you do, because it is £130 above the next most expensive pair on this list.

The value pick, and the clearest case of a title disagreeing with a bullet. The title reads 'up to 35 Hr Battery Life'; bullet five says 'up to 50 hours of battery life (NC off)'. Crucially, both can be true — the 50-hour figure applies only with noise cancelling switched off, so the 35-hour headline is the honest one for anyone who actually uses ANC. Quick charging gives up to 60 minutes of playback from a 3-minute charge.

At 192g it is Sony's lightest noise cancelling overhead model, which makes it the obvious answer among lightweight noise cancelling headphones for a long commute. It carries the same Integrated Processor V1 as the WH-1000XM5, a 5-band EQ in the Sony Sound Connect app, DSEE upscaling and multipoint pairing. As a result, the £155.42 gap to position two buys microphones and materials, not the core processing. For anyone comparing the best noise cancelling headphones under £100, that gap matters.

That said, the box contents are listed only as 'Cable', with no carry case, and the spec table reads 'Headphone Jack: No Jack' while connectivity is given as wired and wireless. It also carries a 1-year limited warranty against Bose's 2 years. If you need reliable call quality in a noisy office, the six-microphone TAGRY at position eight is the better fit.

In theory this is the cheapest pair that gets the arithmetic right: £45.85 for up to 70 hours of battery and a 2-hour charge time, the only charge figure here that is a small fraction of the playback claim. Adaptive noise cancelling keeps some awareness of your surroundings, and the foldable frame helps if you want noise cancelling headphones for commuting and need to pack them away.

Bluetooth 5.3 with multipoint connection, JBL Pure Bass tuning, and a detachable audio cable in the box. There is no app-based EQ and no spatial audio listed. At the same time, 12,403 ratings at 4.6 stars is a larger and better-scoring sample than every pair above it except the Bose at number one — which costs £150 more.

Even so, the cancellation here is adaptive rather than adjustable, and no ANC-off battery figure is published, so 70 hours is the only number you get. The box includes a cable but no carry case. If your priority is maximum cancellation on a flight rather than battery life per pound, the £196 Bose or the £99 Sony ULT WEAR will do more for the extra money.

It is the highest-ranked model on this page — Best Sellers Rank 13 in Noise Cancelling Headphones, above the Bose at number one, which sits at 17 — and one of the strongest candidates for the best noise cancelling headphones under £100. The charging figure also makes sense: 3.5 hours to charge against a 30-hour playback claim. Which means Amazon is shifting more of these than of the flagship.

Two sound modes sit behind the ULT button. Deep Bass adds weight to the lower frequencies and Attack Bass raises the energy, driven by 40mm drivers and the same processor as the WH-1000XM5. Beam-forming microphones with Precise Voice Pickup handle hands-free calls, and the box includes a protective carry case, a USB-C cable and a 3.5mm audio cable, so wired listening is covered.

However, 4,112 ratings at 4.4 stars is a much thinner sample than the Sony WH-CH720N's 16,265 at 4.5, and this pair costs £30 more. There is also no published ANC-off battery figure, so 30 hours stands alone with nothing to check it against. Skip it if you want neutral tuning — ULT WEAR is built around low end, and the EQ is not described as adjustable.

This is the thinnest evidence on the page: 119 ratings at 4.6 stars, against 17,274 for the older Bose at position one. Worth noting, though, that 4.6 is higher than the £196 model's 4.4 and the £326 Ultra's 4.2. Best Sellers Rank 107 in Noise Cancelling Headphones is the lowest rank here, which suggests very little of this model has moved yet.

What is new: pill-shaped earcups and a wider, more padded headband, Bose TrueSpatial Technology, and high-fidelity lossless audio over USB-C. It adds Immersion and Cinema modes plus an ANR-off setting on top of Quiet and Aware, and background noise reduction is improved for calls. These are over ear noise cancelling headphones aimed at video as much as music. Battery is up to 24 hours — the same claim as the older, cheaper QuietComfort.

The catch is arithmetic. £299.95 buys the same 24-hour battery as the £196 pair, with 119 reviews instead of 17,274 — roughly 145 times less owner data. Buy this one for lossless USB-C audio and the new headband. If you simply want proven Bose cancellation, the older model costs £103.95 less and has been checked by far more people.

Here the numbers line up. The title says 120H playtime, bullet two says up to 120 hours, and the spec table gives 'Battery Average Life: 120 Hours' against a 'Battery Charge Time: 1.2 Hours'. That internal agreement is rare on this page, where two listings contradict themselves on battery and one lists a charge time equal to its playback time. It also claims hybrid ANC reducing noise by up to 45dB, and six microphones with ENC for calls — the most on this list.

It carries the longest warranty in the group at five years, against 90 days for the £28.04 pair. Bluetooth 6.0 is quoted with a 15-metre range, there is a 3.5mm jack for wired listening, and the headband folds for storage alongside memory foam cushions. As a result it makes a reasonable case as one of the best anc headphones for travel, where battery life matters more than brand recognition.

That said, 63 ratings at 4.6 stars is a thin sample, and the 45dB cancellation figure is self-reported with no independent measurement. TAGRY is not a brand with a service network behind it in the way Sony and Bose are. Even so, the battery claim is at least consistent from title to spec table — which is more than the cheapest pair here manages.