The key requirements for each variety of headphones are discussed in more detail in our broader headphone-buying guide, but here we’ll focus on the things that set the best Bluetooth over-ear models apart from the rest. Noise canceling, week-long battery life, and built-in voice assistants have become the baseline expectation over this past year, and the standard for quality has never been higher. We’re also including a couple of on-ear alternatives from AKG and Beats because of the awesome performance of one (the AKG N60 NC) and abiding popularity of the other (the Beats Solo 3). The overall champ, however, simply has to be an over-ear pair: that size strikes just the right balance between being big enough to produce awesome sound and small enough to be useful every day.
