Refurbished USB-C Apple AirPods Pro. Apple AirPods Pro are expensive, but they go on sale more than you'd think, so we almost always recommend buying them on sale. If the $179.99

But after a couple of years of work, xMEMS has arrived at the next generation — ultrasound through a solid-state speaker. This tiny, 1mm-thin speaker is called Cypress, and after listening to it at CES 2025, this company has completely changed the way I think about earbud sound quality.

On the other hand, the AirPods Max offer a better noise-canceling experience by virtue of that form factor. Both products offer a transparency mode for hearing environmental noise and noise canceling to focus on the audio itself, but the AirPods Max handle the latter better because they cover your entire ear.

The Beats Fit Pro and second-gen AirPods are both a few years old, but that doesn't mean they're long in the tooth — here's how each pair performed

Historically, AirPods Pro allowed users to switch between four different listening modes. Off: Turns off all noise control modes. Active Noise Cancellation: An outward-facing microphone or microphones detect external sounds,