2025 Best Call Quality Earbuds in REAL Noisy Place! 👑 (Budget to Premium)
The Huawei FreeBuds Pro 4 had the best mic pickup so far. But in the past year we’ve seen so many new products, some more affordable, like the OnePlus Buds4, and some in the premium tier like the AirPods Pro 3 and the Huawei FreeBuds Pro 5. Today we’re going to test them in a real food court setting which is less extreme but still very noisy. 👉 Listen to the tested enviroment samples
So this will be a titanic battle of elimination involving 12 of the most recent earbuds from the budget to the premium range! They will be compared in 3 groups of 4 sorted in alphabetical order. The winners of each group will proceed to the next round, until only one winner remains to compete against the champion, the Huawei Freebuds Pro 4.
Group A (Round 1)
For the first round in group A we have
AirPods Pro 3
Bose QC Ultra Gen 2
Creative Aurvana Ace 3
Earfun Air Pro 4+
All of them did great at noise reduction, so the background is so silent it’s like I’m in a quiet room. But what I like about the AirPods Pro 3 is that it captures the lows and highs very well, which makes my voice sound full and rich. This is possible because it’s a wideband capture and not the usual Handsfree protocol.
That being said, the excess of low frequencies made my voice sound too boomy, and noise gating was too aggressive, so it sounds like I’m mumbling. I actually prefer the Aurvana Ace 3 because it has the closest representation of my actual voice, although it’s a little robotic.
The Earfun Air Pro 4+ is close also, but it’s even more robotic sounding so I didn’t like it as much. And the reason I didn’t like the Bose is because it didn’t amplify my voice as loudly, nor was voice filtering as good. So there’s more fuzziness, which makes voice capture sound dirty.
So my choice for this round is the Creative Aurvana Ace 3. The Ace 3 proceeds to Round 2. (Read Creative Aurvana Ace 3 review)
👉 Listen to the mic quality samples
(Do note that this test is done on an iPhone, so the AirPods is capturing at its highest frequency range, whereas for other earbuds the results are the same whether on Android or iOS.)
Group B (Round 1)
For group B we have the
Huawei FreeBuds Pro 5
Melomania A100
Nothing Ear (3)
OnePlus Buds 4
I’m going to straight up say that the Freebuds Pro 5 sounds the best here. Voice is filtered and amplified well, and the background is super silent. The OnePlus Buds4 is close to it in terms of quality and amplification, but voice capture sounds a little dirty. Nothing Ear 3 is great because my voice sounded very loud and intelligible, but it also sounds too robotic which is why I’m leaning more towards the Huawei.
As for the A100, it’s the worst one of this group because the background sounds a little dirtier, and its voice filtering is a bit too aggressive so my voice sounds too mumbly.
I like the Freebuds Pro 5 the most, which is why it proceeds to round 2. (Read Huawei Freebuds Pro 5 Review)
Group C (Round 1)
For Group C we have the
Google Pixel Buds 2a
Samsung Buds3 FE
SOUNDPEATS Air5 Pro+
SOUNDPEATS H3
In this group, they all had great noise reduction, with only the Soundpeats being a tiny bit dirty in the background. But even so, I like the way my voice sounded on both SOUNDPEATS, they’re both equally loud and intelligible. In fact, they sound exactly the same.
The Samsung Buds3 FE is bit too aggressive in the noise gating, so my voice was fading out a bit, and my voice on the Pixel Buds 2a sounded clear and intelligible, but a little more on the bloaty side, so it sounded a bit muffled.
In this group, I would pick one of the SOUNDPEATS, but since they both sound exactly the same, I’m going to do something I’ve never done before. COMBINE THEM for round 2.
Group C (Round 2)
So for Round 2 we have the
Creative Aurvana Ace 3
Huawei FreeBuds Pro 5
SOUNDPEATS Air5 Pro+
SOUNDPEATS H3
They all did well under moderately noisy conditions, but I want to make this comparison even MORE foolproof, so we’re going to turn up the heat and see how they perform in EVEN louder, more challenging conditions, using recordings from their full reviews. I wanted to see if the algorithms perform differently under constant extremely loud simulated cafe noise and wind noise from a fan.
The Creative totally fell apart! It wasn’t able to handle extremely loud conditions as elegantly, applying such heavy noise gating that it was cutting into my own voice. The Huawei did a lot better, but what’s surprising is that both SOUNDPEATS earbuds were able to retain the ‘S’ sounds better, so my voice sounded more intelligible, less muffled.
This is why both SOUNDPEATS have made it to the Final round against the Champion, the FreeBuds Pro 4.
👉 Listen to the mic quality samples
Final Round
Huawei FreeBuds Pro 4
SOUNDPEATS Air5 Pro+
SOUNDPEATS H3
Very close fight, but as we heard., my voice on the FreeBuds Pro 4 sounded cleaner, louder, and simply retaining a bit more of my voice after filtering. The SOUNDPEATS, like I said, came very close, but the voice filtering algorithm wasn’t doing as clean of a job as the FreeBuds Pro 4.
So the Huawei FreeBuds Pro 4 retains its crown of call quality king! (Read Huawei Freebuds Pro 4 Review)
So in the first part, we saw how most of them did perform well in moderately noisy conditions, but it is only in extremely challenging scenarios do we know which are the Kings of call quality. But what do you think? Which one of these earbuds microphones sounded the best to you?
✅ Check latest prices:
AirPods Pro 3 - https://amzn.to/4oB4xHL
Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds Gen 2 - https://amzn.to/46N1zsL
Creative Aurvana Ace 3 - Link TBA
Earfun Air Pro 4 Plus - https://amzn.to/4hrd79E
Huawei FreeBuds Pro 5 - Link TBA
Huawei FreeBuds Pro 4 - https://amzn.to/42FQXLP
Melomania A100 - https://amzn.to/4pbBP0K
Nothing Ear (3) - https://amzn.to/4nu8xZD
OnePlus Buds 4 - https://amzn.to/4kY9EQ4
Pixel buds 2a - https://amzn.to/48Jhsmz
Samsung Galaxy Buds3 FE - https://amzn.to/4mhGDQ6
SOUNDPEATS Air5 Pro+ - https://amzn.to/4risJ3Q
SOUNDPEATS H3 - https://amzn.to/3JcFufg
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