Best Sony Earbuds – In Ear Headphones Buyer’s Guide and Reviews in 2018

We summarized the user’s experiences, expert’s reviews and from our forum members to make it easy for you to pick a set of Sony earbuds of your needs – Indeed they are going to fit your taste of music and lifestyle. Not all Sony earbuds–Aural headphones are well-known, since some of them missed to deliver what critics consider to be high-fidelity. Here we’ve rounded up Top 10 Best Sony Earbuds in 2018 and Guide how to Choose the Perfect Pair of Sony Earbuds.

Sony earbuds has been made all better, as they are more comfortable to wear, lighter, supposedly smarter and have exceptionally higher-sound quality. They offer various earbuds that fit to your lifestyle, from active personalities to audiophiles.

Sony may be no longer the most popular headphone brand, but their distinct design and exceptional sound quality still persist and if it is time to you to buy a new pair of earbuds, you always find one that fit your taste of music and style.

1. For Audiophile: SONY’s XBA-4 Premium Sound 

The best build quality and audio performance come with an expensive price tag, the of SONY’s XBA-4 are pretty good at noise isolating and has the best quality ever in Balanced Armature Driver earbud class for under $200.

You may know the BA earbuds will deliver more detailed and clear sound than Dynamic Driver earbuds, but this pair doesn’t lose the disadvantage of BA. Built with Quad-drivers on earch earpieces they even perform better sound, feel wider layers and much more clarity. Note that other XBA models, including XBA-1, XBA-2, and XBA-3 integrated one, two, and 3 BA drivers in each earbuds housing, respectively.

2. The XBA-H1: Best value for  money

The XBA-H1 sounds fanstatic overall. I felt the sound stage is wide, the detail is enhanced on every single moment I listen to my favorite guitar tracks. For the clarity is fortified and it is quite insane that all the sound is polished and hit the notes that I’ve heard from other earbuds with the same price range.

The XBA-H1 does sound good for all kinds of music genres, hip-hop, dance, electronics, pop, jazz. Unlike other earbuds that seems to be picky for musice genres – they are good for bass music or dance music for example,  the H1’s sound is accurate and for many tracks I pump in, I still feel them interesting to listen.

Since the H1 are audiophile grade earbuds, they are the most secure fit earbuds we’ve tested and they are not as comfortable as some sports earbuds with wingtips, but they do isolate noise well.

3. Best Sony Earbuds for Bass

The Sony MDR-XB50AP is a well-built, bass enhanced earbud headphone. They are not the most comfortable Sony earbuds and without earhooks or wingtips they are designed not for sports. 

The sounding profile of Sony MDR-XB50AP tends to be bassy. The bass is well extended but isn’t very crips, making the sound feel bloating a bit and the treble become lack in detail and clarity. While the mid-range maintains calm and present.

4. For Sports: Sony Extra Bass Bluetooth Earbuds MDR-XB50BS

If you need a pair of Sony earbuds for sports, the MDR-XB50BS would be a nice choice for its affordable price, sweat-resistant feature and decent sound. Most importantly they fit securely and provide good noise isolation.

The bass of MDR-XB50BS is decent, which is quite punchy and slightly crisp. And I could say it has a strong bass perfromance. Though the overall sound is not very detailed and clear, but for dance or hip-hop music, the MDR-XB50BS should fit the right quality department.

Battery life is rated at 8.5 hours and Bluetooth connection is stable within 30 feet.

MDR-XB50BS’s hightlights

• 8.5 hours of battery life
• Strong bass perfromance
• Solid Bluetooth connection

5. WI-1000X – Active Noise Cancelling Bluetooth NeckBand Headphones

The WI-1000X is an around the neck Bluetooth headphones, feel solid with leather padding, the collar is comfortable to wear.

If you are a frequent traveller you would appreciate 10 hours of use with noise-cancellation and the impressive noise cancelling performance of WI-1000X. We compared this pair’s NC performance to wired Bose QC20, and it fall short for actively drowning out the noise. 

The mic is noise cancelling and the call quality is good. 

WI-1000X’s highlights

• Balanced sound signature with punchy bass
• Effective Noise Cacnelling performance
• Pronounced mid-range6

6. True wireless earbuds Sony WF-1000X

Sony WF-1000X is free-cable earphones. They also fit and perform well as a noise canceller. And for this type of headphones, the Sony WF-1000X’s sound quality best other competitors like Airpods, Gear IconX, Bose Soundsport Free or Jabra Elite Sport. But the earbuds look quite bulky and sturdy.

7. Best Sony Budget Earbuds: Sony MDR-EX37B best alternative to the free earbuds included with your phones

This pair generally sounds good for all kind of music. Other cheap sets or included earbuds with your phones fail to deliver along with details. The Sony MDR-EX37B has nearly identical sound to Panasonic RP-TCM125 Ergo Fit that is one of the best cheap earbuds availalbe (thewirecutter reviewed), but this Sony earbuds won’t feature an inline remote and mic to pick up the call and navigate tracks.

The Others

SONY MDR-EX650(Read the full reviews)

SONY MDR-EX650 truly makes you feel strong bass and clarity treble. The Y- twist cord is very durable, and folks still complain about cable knotting and earbuds that are easy to break. It is not a worry for this Sony in-ear headphones. The unique shape metal body brings about a elegant and stylish look to the earbuds. Finally, both the affordable price and sound quality will satisty to music lovers.

SONY MDR-EX650’s highlights:

• Brass earpieces
• Very comfortable to wear
• Open and spacious soundstage

For Swimmers: Sony Walkman NWZW274S

Swimmers can enjoy music experience under-water with  Waterproof Sony Walkman NWZW274S , you dont’ need to connect it wirelessly to your devices to stream music since it’s adready been integrated with 4Gb-storage Mp3 player.

Sony Walkman NWZW274S’s highlights

• 4 GB to store 1000 songs
• Fully waterproof
• Listening to music without connecting to your phones

NeckBand Bluetooth Sony SBH 80

Other wireless option try Sony SBH 80 with 8 hours of battery. It’s designed with a neckband and integrated battery. The sound quality is decent, and the quality of the call is just great. The SBH bluetooth earbuds are made for sports and casual office users.

The Sony SBH80 was utilized the aptX® technology for pairing with bluetooth devices, which streams better sound than other regular bluetooth earbuds. But in order to take advantage of the AptX, devices must support it. (See more wireless Bluetooth earbuds)

Retired from this page

The Balanced Sound Sony MH1C Earbuds (Discontinued)–This smart headset is connected to The Smart Connect App. Sony MH1C  featuring the control buttons and mics is compatible with both Android and iOS devices.

Except that the flat cable to prevent tangles somehow look un-pleasant to eyes, generally the design is pretty good. Since Sony MH1C is well balanced and warm, so you will probably find acoustic music of all genres. While treble is not extremely crisp and remarkable with detail, the bass plays its role and midrange remains the layer for nice and sweet sound. 

Most runners hates earbud falling out while they are enjoying their paces, so the more secure fit the better. Though it shouldn’t cause discomfort. Ask yourself what design do you like:
Clip, hook or neckband. The wired sony earbuds normally cost less than $50 for sports such as MDR-AS41EX with an adjustable hanger. Make your workout easy and relaxed with music. 

Active noise cancelling earbuds, Sony MDRNC13 doesn’t work perfectly, but with long battery life and decent ANC function that definitely can shut you away from the noisy world. It certainly is the on-flight item of every frequent flyer.

For Basshead: SONY MDR-XB90EX Enhanced Bass (read the full reviews)

Beat by Dr’s success with Beat headphones along with pop culture prove that people love to hear the powerful bass in their favorite music genres like R&B, Dance…The SONY MDR-XB90EX is not exceptional, and it has been one of the best engineered Sony earbuds so far.

Not just the powerful bass the MDR-XB90EX packs with clear treble and details. They does isolate noise and the ergonomic look makes these earbuds standing out among other customized for bass enhancement.

It doesn’t seem that you can use it for excercise. The SONY MDR-XB90EX looks quite sturdy since it hosts 16mm Dynamic driver to maximize the bass performance. Sony MDRXB50AP is an alternative if you are on the budget – this pair is still rated for strong bass sound signtuare but the bass impact and depth is just average.

Your listening experience is varied along with your prefered music genres. After all, we consider the sound quality, purposes, built-in quality, and design of the top audio manufacturers including: Panasonic, Sony, Bose, Klipsch to pick up the best earbuds. We also keep up with any trend and new tech in any of these manufacturers to help providing you the general stage and knowledge about what’s more from earbuds-in ear headphones.

Sony is always the leading company in audio industry and you see most headphones out there with Sony label. They recently have introduced the High-resolution audio to complement what they missed to deliver earlier. This will give users richer experience in music. If you’ve not yet to become a fan of Sony brand, it’s probably quite hard for you to find the earbud for you to fall in love with. They may not all be sleek, but they throw in treble, bass and mid-tone detail varied from one model to another model.

Sony History

Sony is a very reliable Japanese company with long history in Audio and most of you probably knew the famous Walkman of Sony in the late 1979s (recently they’ve introduced Sony Walkman NW-ZX2, a premium high-res audio player). Sony made some of the most incredible earbuds and speakers. This company seems to offer everything for frequent music listeners: All the way from standard earbuds for casual listening to high-end earbuds.

• If you love the sound blow out from metal body try Sony MDR-EX650
• Dynamic, Balanced Armature Driver or their combination which one do you prefer? If you’ve been around with dynamic drivers, why don’t try Sony XBA-4 with BA drivers.
• Your lifestyle: what sport do you play daily, does your earbuds fit securely in your ears and do you hear the noise from cable’s bouncing while you warm up? even you fly into the pool, music is still alive with Sony’s waterproof earbuds. Sony earbuds offers a solution for everything.
• Bass head: SONY MDR-XB90EX

Some features of Sony Earbuds you might be intersted in:

The high-end Sony earbuds is compatible with an Smart Key App available on Play Store, the app will let you customize the button in-line remote such as picking up the call and navigating tracks…

Sony earbuds hasn’t popped up with heart rate tracking feature yet, but you are expected to see them in the near future. Some manufacturers like LG, SMS Audio, Jabra have their very first versions of HRM earbuds.

Updated on 11/30/2017 by contributor

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