Amazon’s Big Spring Sale on Earbuds and Headphones: Save on Apple, Sony, Beats and More – CNET

<div id="272c3f26-7525-4d89-b1ff-1a3df133a327" data-cy="shortcodeListicle" data-id="listicle-272c3f26-7525-4d89-b1ff-1a3df133a327" data-location="LIST" data-position="6" edition="us" superlative="Save $50" type="Best list" like="~Design is an upgrade ~Lightweight and very comfortable ~Excellent sound and great noise canceling ~Voice-calling performance is top-notch ~Immersive Audio mode offers some sound-quality enhancements" dislike="~Higher price than the previous model ~No USB-C audio ~Immersive Audio mode hurts battery life" imagegroup="{"alt":"The QC Ultra Headphones go into a sleep mode when you take them off your head","caption":"

The headphones go into a sleep mode when you take them off your head.

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The headphones go into a sleep mode when you take them off your head.

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The headphones go into a sleep mode when you take them off your head.

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The headphones go into a sleep mode when you take them off your head.

” overridecredit=”David Carnoy/CNET” linktext=”Read our Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones review” linkurl=”https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/bose-quietcomfort-ultra-headphones-review/” usepricing=”false” data-key=”cross_content_listicle__272c3f26-7525-4d89-b1ff-1a3df133a327″ position=”NaN” contenttype=”Deals – Precap” pagelayout=”Default – Article Page” class=”c-shortcodeListicle g-border-thin-light-top g-inner-spacing-bottom-medium g-inner-spacing-left-large g-inner-spacing-right-large g-inner-spacing-bottom-xlarge c-shortcodeListicle-notInfoCard g-outer-spacing-bottom-large g-border-thin-light-bottom g-border-thin-light-right g-border-thin-light-left”>

Like

• Design is an upgrade
• Lightweight and very comfortable
• Excellent sound and great noise canceling
• Voice-calling performance is top-notch
• Immersive Audio mode offers some sound-quality enhancements

Don’t like

• Higher price than the previous model
• No USB-C audio
• Immersive Audio mode hurts battery life

While Bose’s new flagship QuietComfort Ultra Headphones may not be a huge upgrade over the company’s Noise Cancelling 700 headphones, they feature a more premium design along with Bose’s new Immersive Audio feature, which delivers some sound-quality enhancements. Along with excellent sound and great noise canceling, the QC Ultra Headphones are also superb for making calls, with top-notch background noise reduction. All that adds up to the best new noise-canceling headphones of 2023 and a worthy adversary to Sony’s highly rated WH-1000XM5 and Apple’s AirPods Max.

Read our Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones review.

Like

• Lightweight design
• Decent battery life
• Decent sound for their price
• IPX splashproof

Don’t like

• Voice-calling performance could be a little better
• No active noise canceling

The Anker Soundcore Life P2 Mini have been out for some time but remain a good set of budget earbuds. Available in several colors (navy is shown here), they’re compact and lightweight and offer decent sound with three EQ modes to choose from. While these don’t have active noise canceling, their battery life is very good at up to 8 hours at moderate volume levels. The P2 Minis are IPX5 splash-proof and perform well, but not exceptionally well, as a headset for making calls.

I also like Anker’s Soundcore Life P3i buds, which retail for around $50 and do have active noise canceling. They’re slightly superior to these buds but tend to cost about $10 more, though they’re also on sale.

Like

• Excellent sound and best-in-class noise canceling
• Fit Kit ear tips and stabilizer system gets you a secure, comfortable fit
• Immersive Audio creates a different listening experience
• Slightly improved voice-calling

Don’t like

• No wireless charging or multipoint Bluetooth
• Immersive Audio mode hurts battery life

While the QC Ultra Earbuds aren’t a major upgrade over Bose’s excellent QC Earbuds 2 that were released in 2022, they’re definitely a little better. They should fit most ears very well, and they feature superb noise canceling, arguably the best out there. And a natural-sounding transparency mode with a new ActiveSense feature kicks in some ANC should the sound get too loud around you (it’s sort of similar to the AirPods Pro’s Adaptive Audio feature). They also sound slightly better overall, with a touch more clarity, and their new Immersive Audio feature opens up the sound a bit.

Read our Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds review.

Like

• Strong feature set
• Very good sound quality for their price
• Decent noise canceling and voice calling
• LDAC audio codec support

Don’t like

• Bit bulky-looking

Available in three colors, the Soundcore Space One are Anker’s latest noise-canceling headphones. They’re a good value for around $100, offering a strong feature set along with good sound quality and performance. They can’t quite compete sound-wise with many of the premium noise-canceling models, but you don’t feel like you’re giving up that much on the sound front to save a good deal of money. They lack a bit of that natural, refined quality you look for in a great set of cans, but the Space One sound respectable, with decent clarity and bass definition and measure up well to the more expensive Soundcore Space 45.

Noise-canceling and voice-calling performance are also good for headphones in this price range, though the transparency mode is only OK. Anker has developed a version of Sony’s Speak-to-Chat feature — Anker calls it Easy Chat — that automatically pauses your music and enters a transparency mode when you walk up to someone and start a conversation. The headphones are equipped with wear-detection sensors, a feature not usually found at this price, and include a carrying pouch. LDAC audio codec support is available for Android users.

I found them comfortable to wear, but they do look a bit bulky compared to more premium models.

Battery Life Rated up to 32 hoursNoise Canceling Yes (ANC)Multipoint YesHeadphone Type Over-ear wireless headphonesWater-Resistant No IP rating

When you have a product that a lot of people love, change can be risky. Such is the case for Sony’s WH-1000XM5, the fifth generation of the 1000X series headphones, which were first released in 2016 as the MDR-1000X Wireless and have become increasingly popular as they’ve improved with each generation. Over the years, Sony has made some tweaks to the design, but nothing as dramatic as what it’s done with the WH-1000XM5. Other than the higher $400 price tag ($50 more than the WH-1000XM4), most of those changes are good, and Sony’s made some dramatic improvements with voice-calling performance as well as even better noise canceling and more refined sound. $330 is their lowest price to date.

Read our Sony WH-1000XM5 review.

Like

• Premium look and feel
• Strong sound quality for open earbuds
• Very good battery life
• Good voice-calling performance

Don’t like

The Anker Soundcore AeroFit Pro are among the best open-ear “air conduction” earbuds, with a premium look and feel, and are comfortable to wear. (I had no problem keeping them on my ears while running or working out.) On the downside, they’re expensive, but they do feature strong audio quality for these types of earbuds, with ample bass and volume, plus decent clarity. They’re good for making calls (they do a pretty good job reducing background noise reduction) and also offer strong battery life — up to 14 hours at moderate volume levels.

While they don’t have ear-detection sensors, I liked that they have physical buttons to control playback and also come with a cord, should you want to turn them into neckband-style wireless headphones. It’s also worth noting that they have a spatial audio feature and offer the LDAC audio codec for devices like Android smartphones that support it for Bluetooth streaming.

Anker’s standard AeroFit fit model ($130) has smaller drivers (14mm versus 16.2mm for the Pro), so it doesn’t sound quite as good, and also has a battery life rating of 11 hours. However, those buds are fully waterproof with an IPX7 rating, while these are splash-proof with an IPX5 rating.

Battery Life Rated up to 11 hoursNoise Canceling Yes (ANC)Multipoint YesHeadphone Type Wireless earbudsWater-Resistant Yes (IPX4 — splash-proof)

The Pixel Buds Pro are Google’s first earbuds to feature active noise canceling. While it’s nice that they finally have a feature that a lot of true-wireless earbuds have had for a while, what ultimately sets the Pixel Buds Pro apart and makes them worth considering — particularly for Android users — is their distinct design and winning fit. That helps enhance their performance on both the sound quality and noise-canceling fronts. While not quite elite for voice-calling, they did perform well as a headset for making calls.

Read our Pixel Buds Pro review.

You can shop discounts on several pairs of Samsung Galaxy earbuds right now, including the Galaxy Buds 2, which I tend to like the best of the current crop of Galaxy Buds. Right now, Amazon has them on sale for just $100, which saves you $50 compared to their list price. Read our Galaxy Buds 2 review.

New for 2023, the Anker Soundcore Liberty 4 NC earbuds carry a lower list price than last year’s Liberty 4 buds and are arguably better. They have improved noise canceling and better sound quality, along with support for the LDAC audio codec for devices that support it. (Many Android smartphones do, and in theory, it offers slightly improved sound quality when paired with a music streaming service that offers high-res tracks.) They’re lightweight buds that should fit most ears comfortably with four sizes of ear tips to choose from. 

The Liberty 4 NC buds have single custom drivers compared to the Liberty 4’s dynamic dual drivers — and a completely different case design — but I thought they delivered a more pleasant sound than the Liberty 4s. Their treble is a little smoother and they feature strong bass performance. They came across as fairly open, with a reasonably wide soundstage. You can tweak the sound profile in the companion app for iOS and Android. 

The buds come in several color options and are IPX4 splashproof, so they’re suitable for running and gym use. They feature excellent battery life — up to 10 hours on a single charge at moderate volume levels — and there’s also a transparency mode that lets ambient sound in and sounds pretty natural with only a very faint audible hiss. While the noise canceling is an improvement over the Liberty 4’s and is effective, it falls short of what you get from Bose’s and Sony’s premium ANC earbuds. 

Like the Liberty 4, the earbuds have six integrated mics for noise canceling and making calls, and callers said they thought the buds did a pretty good job of reducing background noise, with my voice coming through relatively clearly. They’re an all-around good-performing set of buds for the money and they have a strong feature set, including ear-detection sensors and wireless charging.

If you can’t afford Sony’s WH-1000XM5 or Bose’s QC45, the Anker Soundcore Space Q45 (yes, there’s a bit of copying going on here) are a good alternative for $150, and we should see occasional discounts on them. While they may not fit some smaller heads, they’re comfortable to wear, with nicely padded ear cups and a dual-hinge folding design. Sound quality is very good and the headphones offer better noise canceling than the step-down Q35, as well as multipoint Bluetooth pairing (these are equipped with Bluetooth 5.3) and support for the LDAC audio codec for streaming high-resolution music tracks over Bluetooth, if you have a device that supports LDAC. Many Android phones do, although Samsung’s Galaxy phones don’t. 

Battery life is very good at up to 50 hours with noise canceling on at moderate volume levels and the headphones come with a hard carrying case for travel.

When is Amazon’s Big Spring Sale?

The Amazon Big Spring Sale officially kicks off on March 20 and will run through March 25. The six-day event will include deals on tech, home, fashion, beauty and more. As always, there are early deals to be nabbed right now so you don’t have to wait until the official event kick off to save.

What is Amazon’s Big Spring Sale?

Amazon has run spring sales in the past and its latest iteration, the Big Spring Sale, is essentially the same idea — lots of deals launching simultaneously, across almost every product category, all available for a limited time. Amazon says that new deals will be launching daily, so it’s worth checking back for the latest items on sale.

The six-day-long sale is set to feature deals on seasonal items like outdoor furniture, cleaning products and yard work essentials, along with a smattering of discounts on tech, home and beauty products. And, of course, Amazon’s own devices like Echo smart speakers and Fire tablets will be seeing deep savings too.

We don’t know if Amazon is testing the waters for another Prime Day-level sale in the first quarter of the year, following in the footsteps of the now-annual October Prime Day event, but it’s an opportunity for shoppers to buy things they may have already been eyeing up without having to pay full price outside of the usual summer and fall sale seasons. Given Amazon has referred to this Big Spring Sale as the “first-ever,” it suggests that this event is likely to become an annual thing.

Do I need a Prime subscription to shop the Amazon Big Spring Sale?

No, unlike Prime Day-style events, the Amazon Big Spring Sale doesn’t require a Prime subscription in order get in on the deals, though Amazon has stated that some Prime-exclusive deals will be in the mix. Plus, there are plenty of other Prime membership perks like speedy delivery, so an active Prime account can help you get more out of the sale, but on the whole, the majority of deals are available for anyone to shop. 

What products are discounted during the Amazon March Sale?

Amazon will be running thousands of limited-time deals during its Big Spring Sale with an emphasis on seasonal items. The retailer has revealed a little bit about what we can expect to see, including the below, though we’ll have to wait and see for the specifics:

• Up to 50% off select beauty products

• Up to 50% off select sports and outdoors equipment

• Up to 40% off select home products

• Up to 40% off select spring apparel

• Up to 40% off select electronics

Expect some big-name brands in these fields to feature and, as usual, Amazon’s own devices will also be on sale.

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