We’re living in a golden age of headphones. More specifically, we’re very much in the halcyon days of wireless headphones and earbuds. Despite talk of how Gen Z are turning their backs on Bluetooth in favour of traditional wired in-ears, the wire-free train continues to roll on at breakneck speed.
Not only are wire-free headphones more popular than they’ve ever been, but they’re also improving in terms of their sheer quality.
That self-evident truth was thrown into sharp relief following our 2026 What Hi-Fi? Awards testing, during which the bar was once again nudged ever-upwards by a diverse spread of class-leading options from the likes of Sony, Focal and Sennheiser.
Rising standards
Standards continue to climb across the board. The Sony WH-CH720N felt like unbeatable value at their £100 / $100 price tag, yet the follow-up WH-CH730N proved that canny sonic tuning – plus a few new features – could elevate excellence to new heights.
The Sennheiser HDB 630, meanwhile, might be the best pair of wireless headphones we’ve yet heard at the £400 / $500 / AU$1000 mark, while the Focal Bathys MG are stretching the limits of wire-free performance for those lucky enough to be able to afford them. £999 / $1299 / AU$2300 isn't exactly pocket change.
Those are just the 2026 Award-winners. There’s a pair of headphones or wireless earbuds to suit every need and niche, from outstanding all-rounders (the Sony WH-1000XM6) to noise-cancelling heavyweights from Bose and funky, feature-laden offerings courtesy of JBL.
The Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen), for instance, aren’t quite the last word in sound quality, but their excellent fit and well-rounded feature set give them an appeal that could tempt some away from the Award-winning (but fussy fitting) Sony WF-1000XM6.
The list of competing brands really could go on for as long as there’s space on our site to write it. When you consider the fact that, just in the past year or so, we’ve tested samples from Focal, Sennheiser, Sony, Technics, Bose, Noble, Apple, Sonos, Soundcore, Earfun, JBL, Philips, Samsung, Shokz, Nothing, and Huawei, you begin to realise just how much stock companies are placing in the wireless market.
More competition, better performance
That competition is clearly driving innovation and development. It’s not a hard-and-fast rule, but what’s been remarkable over the past few years is just how much better some of the 'also-ran ’ brands have become as they bid to knock the likes of Sony from its perch.
At last year’s Awards, pretty much every set of wireless in-ears and over-ears was made by Sony. This year, things look rather different thanks to winners from Sennheiser, Bose and Focal.
If manufacturers aren’t quite winning Awards, they’re doggedly improving their respective star ratings year on year. The Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro 4 earbuds, for instance, were a serious statement of intent from a brand that, in the past, didn’t have the talent to compete with its cost-comparable rivals.
Those latest flagships, however, are by far the best buds the Korean brand has ever made, and as we concluded in our review: “Samsung is taking sound seriously, and it shows.
"The flagship Galaxy Buds 4 Pro are Samsung's best-sounding wireless earbuds yet, offering a clear, agile performance that’s backed by a whole host of slick features.” Samsung used to scrape three-star reviews. For its next pair of flagships, we’re expecting the full five-star haul.
Then there’s Sennheiser, which has always been there or thereabouts in terms of sonic performance, finally retaking its seat at the top table with the peerless HDB 630. That was no fluke – the slightly less premium Momentum 5 True Wireless earbuds and Momentum 5 Wireless over-ears provided the German brand’s deeply competitive nature with two glowing five-star reviews.
Sennheiser is back, and its rivals should be taking note.
This is before we even start to consider the vast array of features to which we’re all becoming accustomed. A few years ago, not a single pair of headphones had Auracast sharing or Bluetooth Multipoint – now it’s par for the course.
Wired listening via USB-C is becoming de rigueur, as is fast charging for granting hours of extra playtime from mere minutes of juice. Fail to include such features in your spec sheet, and you’ll simply be left behind by the competition.
Where do we go from here?
The logical question, of course, is where do we go from here?
Competition is only going to grow stronger as rivals compete to carve out a slice of territory from Apple and the other major players in this space, with the appetite for wire-free headphones only growing stronger in the face of the rather niche wired revival. Trust us, they’re not going anywhere anytime soon.
Sound quality, naturally, should define who takes the ultimate crown. It’s never quite that simple – Apple’s colossal market share is based as much on style, cultural cachet, marketing and convenience as it is on pure sonic talent – but with so much choice, customers should be in the strongest position yet to get the most outstanding sound their budget allows. Provided they do their research, of course.
Opinions are somewhat split on exactly how and where wireless headphones will improve, with speculation ranging from personalised AI-powered tuning algorithms to more efficient Bluetooth codecs and a greater focus on sustainability.
Wi-fi headphones have been mooted as the future – the Xiaomi Buds 5 Pro Wi-Fi are already on the market – but they’re yet to fully take hold as companies grapple with the practicalities of maintaining a steady connection outside a home network.
Either way, expect this current golden age to be the mere tip of the iceberg. If all goes well, we’ll look back at 2026 as little more than a stepping stone to true wireless audio Nirvana.
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