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Buying guide · updated 2026-09-23 · The Real Deal Meter team
Four pairs of noise-cancelling earbuds under $100. Unlike the headphones in our other guide, these are real competitors: all four go in your ears and all four cancel noise. What separates them is less the spec sheet than two questions it never asks — which phone you own, and how much of a claimed decibel figure you believe. So this page answers those first.
| Product | Price | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for most people | Soundcore Liberty 4 Pro by Anker Refurbished through Anker's official store. Seven-sensor adaptive cancelling with a published measurement behind it, LDAC for Android, AAC for iPhone. | |
| Most on paper for the money | Baseus EP10 Pro ANC Earbuds LDAC, Bluetooth 6.0, multipoint and a -50 dB cancelling claim for under $30. Every one of those figures is Baseus's own. | |
| The plain budget pair | QCY T13 ANC Wireless Earbuds QCY's older budget cancelling pair: no LDAC, Bluetooth 5.3, a 68 ms game mode. Simpler than the EP10 Pro at about the same price. | |
| Sound first | HIFIMAN SVANAR Wireless LE ANC Earphones HIFIMAN's R2R DAC and tuning in an earbud that launched at $299. No LDAC and middling cancelling: it is priced for how it sounds. |
Prices last checked 2026-09-23. Each one is re-checked daily and this table is rebuilt when any of them moves.
Paid links · We may earn a commission if you buy through them.LDAC is Sony's higher-bitrate Bluetooth codec, and two of these four pairs have it: the Liberty 4 Pro and the EP10 Pro. It only does anything when the phone sends it. Android phones that support LDAC can; an iPhone connects over AAC instead — SoundGuys ran the Liberty 4 Pro as an AAC pair on an iPhone 15 Pro 1.
The SVANAR Wireless LE is the one to read carefully. It is the cheaper cut of HIFIMAN's $499 SVANAR Wireless: it keeps that model's R2R DAC and leaves LDAC out, so it streams AAC or SBC on every phone 2. Judge it on its tuning, not its codec.
So on an iPhone, LDAC is no reason to choose between these four. On a recent Android phone it is one reason among several.
Baseus rates the EP10 Pro at up to -50 dB 1, QCY the T13 ANC at 28 to 30 dB 2, HIFIMAN the SVANAR LE at -35 dB 3. Each of those is the best single point on a frequency curve, measured on a test fixture with a perfect seal — and in an earbud the seal is the tip in your ear. Get the tip wrong and the cancelling goes with it, whatever the chip is doing 4. HIFIMAN puts nine pairs of tips, foam and silicone, in the SVANAR LE's box 5; try the others before judging any of these pairs.
Only one pair here has an independent measurement we can point to: SoundGuys measured the Liberty 4 Pro cutting low-frequency noise, the rumble of an aircraft engine, by about 30 dB 6. That is a smaller number than most of the claims above, and a more useful one. SoundStage! Solo found the SVANAR LE's cancelling decent on low rumble and well short of Sony's 5.
The Liberty 4 Pro on this page is refurbished, sold through Anker's official AliExpress store — Soundcore is Anker's audio brand 1. A manufacturer refurbishing its own product has the parts, the test rig and the firmware, and it carries the warranty itself; a third-party refurbisher has whatever it could source. The word on the listing is the same either way.
What to check before buying any refurbished pair: who is selling it, what warranty comes with it, and whether the ear tips are new — with earbuds, the tips are the part that touches you and the part that wears first.
Each price here is the one we last checked on that product's own page, and each page says the date. AliExpress quotes new accounts a lower “Welcome deal” price and runs store coupons on top, so you may be shown less than we list.
The struck-through figures are the sellers' own list prices, which we have not verified; the Deal Meter stays quiet until it has seen a product often enough to say something real. For scale on the one pair we can set against its maker's own store: Soundcore asked $129.99 for a new Liberty 4 Pro on September 23, 2026 1, and the refurbished pair here was $76.97 the same day.
Prices are what we last checked on each product's own page — follow a link for the current price and the date it was verified. Every outbound link here is an affiliate link; see Disclosure.
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