I always have a pair of AirPods in my bag. Whether it's my tried-and-true Apple AirPods 3 or the Apple AirPods Pro 3 when I want epic noise cancellation, I can always reach into the bottom of my purse and find a pair floating around.
If you're an iPhone user and you spend your life existing in the Apple ecosystem, AirPods are an absolute no-brainer, and some of the best wireless earbuds you can get. But what if you need a budget pair of buds?
As it turns out, you don't actually need to break the bank for great audio, and you can find killer sound for less than $100 — you just have to know where to look.
After testing out the CMF Buds 2 Plus earbuds, I can attest that you can get great audio at an affordable price... and in my opinion, their ANC performance rivals the Apple AirPods Pro 3.
Here's what I love about the CMF Buds.
Awesome battery life
If you need a pair of earbuds with battery life to last you an entire weekend trip, then look no further than the CMF Buds 2 Plus. With ANC off, they can get 61.5 hours of playback time.
That's pretty impressive and has meant that in my whole week of using the buds, I've only had to charge up the case once. If you're using ANC, the battery life goes down to around 33 hours, but that's still more than the AirPods Pro 3, which have 24 hours of battery life with the case.
ANC to rival the big dogs
Given the $79 price tag, I wasn't expecting much from the ANC of the CMF buds. But I was soon eating my words.
When I turned ANC on, I was in complete silence. I took the earbuds in and out a few times to make sure it wasn't all in my head — I was in a state of shock.
Even when typing on a (loud) mechanical keyboard, I couldn't hear a thing. I would even say they come close to rivaling the ANC provided by the significantly more expensive Sony WF-1000XM6.
ANC levels can be easily adjusted using the Nothing X app or using the touch-sensitive controls on the buds themselves, making it easily accessible.
Sound quality
While the buds struggle slightly when listening in lower-quality codecs, like AAC, they're brilliant when using the LDAC capabilities.
This completely widens the soundstage, leaving the music much more room to grow as the song progresses. I especially liked listening to metal with these earbuds, which isn't something you'll find me saying often, as usually heavier music can sound muddy on cheap earbuds.
This could leave some iPhone users feeling left out, but the ANC and battery life should still be enough to win you over with some EQ adjustments in the Nothing X app.
There's a lot to love about these earbuds, and they are going to be taking up a permanent residence in my bag going forward.
You can find out a bit more about the specs of the buds by reading my full CMF Buds 2 Plus review.
