1. The quick list
2. Best overall
3. Best budget
4. Best for most
5. Best under $100
6. Best wired
7. Best style
The best gaming earbuds are perfect for those looking for a lightweight and portable alternative to the traditional gaming headset proposition. You can also wear them for prolonged periods of time and use them with a range of other devices as well - not something all gaming headsets can do, especially wireless ones.
While you're more likely to get regular day-to-day use out of the best gaming earbuds than you would with top-of-the-line headphones, ultimately, they could save you a lot of money compared to a dedicated gaming headset that's not going to get much use outside of your sessions. However, admittedly, many of the best gaming buds don't pack the same level of sound quality as the larger best gaming headsets, which can result in a less immersive experience especially given the lack of virtual surround sound.
Earbuds also tend to be less ostentatious than over-ear headphones, so much so that even the offerings from gaming brands are subtle and stylish, which can't be said for their headphone counterparts. So if versatility, affordability, portability, and comfort are as important to you as quality sound, we've rounded up a few contenders that are the perfect candidates for the job. Ranging from affordable to expensive, there's an option for every budget, with a mix of wired and wireless earbuds depending on your preference.
Still unsure of whether earbuds are for you? Don't forget to take a look at our recommendations for the best wireless gaming headsets. These let you cut the cord but don't skimp on sound quality.
The quick list
The best gaming earbuds overall
The EPOS GTW 270 Hybrids consistently impress, and with flexible connectivity options, a supremely comfortable fit, and excellent battery life they tick all the boxes. Bluetooth and 2.4GHz connections are available here and both are crisp and energetic.
The best budget gaming earbuds
The Roccat Syn Buds Core only come in at $25 / £25, but they pack an impressive punch for the price. There's a solid audio quality, inline volume and mic controls, and a simple 3.5mm connection. There's no fancy wireless features or heavy attention to directional audio here, but if you're after a backup set of gaming-focused buds they're perfect.
The best gaming earbuds for most players
Razer manages to pack an astonishing amount into a mid-range price point with its Hammerhead buds. Not only is there excellent audio, but you're getting dual connections, that low latency connection, and noise cancelling as well - all wrapped up in a premium case.
The best true wireless gaming earbuds under $100
If you're after true wireless gaming earbuds under $100 / £100, the Turtle Beach Scout Air are looking pretty good. They've got a cheaper construction but a solid battery life, reliable Bluetooth connection, and impressive soundstage.
The best wired gaming earbuds
Great audio, inline controls, a built in mic, and a light 18g weight make the 1More Triple Drivers the best wired gaming earbuds on the market right now. There's excellent balance in this sound, with a slick aluminium finish to the buds to keep everything looking slick as well.
The best gaming earbuds for style
The Hecate GX07s offer far more than just an excellent bass-heavy audio profile, lightweight form factor, and solid mic. They do it all in style. This futuristic design is certainly an eye-catching go-to for anyone looking to turn some heads. It doesn't get more gamerfied than RGB.
The best gaming earbuds overall
The EPOS GTW 270 Hybrid earbud set has a premium feel from the moment you take the buds out of the box
EPOS GTW 270 Hybrid review
The EPOS GTW 70 Hybrid wireless gaming earbuds focus on offering a high-end audio experience for Switch and mobile gaming.
These earbuds boast the sort of audio quality you’d expect from the team at EPOS, with deep bass, rich mid-tones, and fantastic directional audio making them as impressive playing games on your Switch or PS5 as they are listening to your favourite tunes through your phone. Plus, a charging case comes with the GTW 70 Hybrid that can give the earbuds up to a total of 20 hours of battery life.
They come with a USB-C dongle, allowing you to plug them into your Nintendo Switch and PS5, as well as a cable that will allow you to plug the dongle into a PS4. On top of that, they also support Bluetooth, so you can sync them with any device that supports it.
While they do come with an in-built microphone, this only works when you’re connected through Bluetooth, rather than the USB-C dongle. That’s because the dongle is focused on providing low-latency audio, so there is minimal disruption between what’s happening in your game and what you’re hearing. However, it does mean that you won’t be able to communicate with team-mates online.
Read more: EPOS GTW 270 Hybrid 70 review
The best budget gaming earbuds
The Roccat Syn Buds Core are the perfect Nintendo Switch companion. There's a no fuss approach to these gaming earbuds, with an affordable price point and simple inline mic and volume controls. In the right soundstage, however, these buds shine far beyond their humble feature list. We were impressed by the handling of finer details in games with lighter, more delicate audio, with the bass and melodic trills of Super Mario Sunshine offering a particularly notable soundstage.
At their best, the Roccat Syn Buds Core are a solid everyday driver to keep in your carry case, especially if you don't tend to play music-intensive or particularly directional games.
Roccat Syn Buds Core review
That $24.99 / £24.99 price point does show itself during heavier audio moments, however. The Syn Buds Core struggle to keep up with the messier soundscapes of Doom and can't quite position directional audio with the same precision of a more premium buy. However, for everyday on the go Nintendo Switch action, and considering you're not breaking $30, you're getting solid value for money in performance overall.
Not only that, but we were particularly struck by the overall comfort of the Roccat Syn Buds Core. These buds hold up well even during longer play sessions, never falling out or rubbing against the inner ear. It's surprising to see considering the cheaper price point here, and certainly welcome amongst the less durable models on the market right now.
Read more: Roccat Syn Buds Core review
The best gaming earbuds for most players
Building on the continued development of the second generation Razer Hammerheads, the new Hyperspeed version offers an excellent true wireless experience across a range of platforms. Keeping the noise cancellation and breadth of sound of the previous generation, there are a lot of wins in here - especially for just $149.99 / £149.99 (a relatively low price for the features on offer). On top of those original specs, though, 2023's instalment adds a 2.4GHz 'Hyperspeed' connection option.
Across all genres I noticed a particularly strong attention to keeping dialogue rich and full-bodied, while also balancing bassier rumbles with more delicate higher ranges particularly well.
Razer Hammerhead Hyperspeed review
That means these gaming earbuds can now cater to console markets infinitely easier, hence Razer's decision to launch both an Xbox and PS5 variant. The Xbox model will be able to connect to all devices, but strangely reduces the battery level. Meanwhile, we got our hands on the PS5 version, in all its gorgeous PlayStation gray.
The premium look is backed up by a solid feel to both the carry case and smaller buds. Everything snaps nicely into place and we never had to worry about the hinge or contacts on the charging case itself. This is a slick experience from top to bottom, even if it's a little concerning holding the USB connection dongle on the case port itself.
The choice between a Bluetooth and USB-C connection is a valuable one. On mobile, connecting via Bluetooth is as easy as hooking the Razer Hammerheads up in main settings and then in the Razer Audio app for further enhancements. The low latency connection is also particularly commendable - we never noticed any latency when streaming via a gaming phone. Over on PC, though, there's a strange need to manually set the Hammerheads as the audio output device within Windows settings, even when connected via the 2.4GHz dongle.
While the tap gestures can be hit and miss, the powerful sound quality and wide soundstage, combined with the durable charging case, solid battery life, and widespread compatibility, make the Hammerheads the best true wireless gaming earbuds for most players right now.
Read more: Razer Hammerhead Hyperspeed review
The best gaming earbuds under $100 / £100
The Turtle Beach Scout Air gaming earbuds are the brand's first entry into the truly wireless space (console-specific Recon Air pieces notwithstanding). The Scout Airs are fairly comfortable at $99.99 / £89.99, with a solid soundstage that will suit wider open world games and the twinkly melodies of a Super Mario Sunshine run and an impressive per-bud battery life that just edges ahead of industry average.
The overall audio profile of the Turtle Beach Scout Air was impressive, with plenty of space for detail in the mid and higher ranges, and none of the overblown bass some would expect from in-ear buds
Turtle Beach Scout Air review
We were a little let down by the cheaper feeling build quality of the plastic case and the materials of the earbuds themselves, though. While lightweight, products this close $100 / £100 should be offering a slightly more premium build quality - though to their credit we never had any issues with scuffs or scratches on the Scout Airs in our testing.
Each earbud offers touch-sensitive controls with hassle-free playback controls, and a notably long stem to hold the dual-mics present. We wouldn't put too much stock in those mics though, we found them particularly weak at picking voices out from a busy background and overall the sound quality here was muffled on both chat and video calls.
Running the Turtle Beach Scout Airs on lighter soundtracks like Crash Bandicoot and Hand of Fate 2 yielded some impressive results. There was plenty of detailing across the mids and high ranges in our testing, and a commendable balance during more intense moments of gameplay. However, the bassier ranges are particularly flattened here - something we noticed quickly when switching to a heavier gun in Doom on Nintendo Switch and Rise of the Tomb Raider on PC. This dampened bass persisted through to bass-heavy music as well.
At $99.99 / £89.99, though, the Turtle Beach Scout Airs really do work hard to bring you an untethered gaming earbud experience without breaking the bank. At $129.99 / £129.99, RGB lovers and those in the market for noise cancellation should be seeking out the Razer Hammerheads, but if you're up against a strict budget there's plenty to love here.
Read more: Turtle Beach Scout Air review
The best wired gaming earbuds
The 1MORE Triple Driver earbuds are a delightfully stylish pair of earphones that offer an impressive quality of sound and build for an affordable price. The triple drivers for which they're named give a balanced sound at high and low ends, with enough bass so as not to overwhelm – which is great for both gaming and music. What's more, the in-line remote with volume control is compatible with Android and iOS, which is handy for on-the-go gaming as well as on the couch.
With a slew of silicon tips, you'll also be able to find a size that will give you a comfortable fit, and seal out any ambient noise, but as with a lot of the earbuds on this list, there's no active noise cancellation.
As far as the sound quality and price goes, though, the 1MORE Triple Driver is a winner in our book, and the design tips it over the edge. With aluminium earbuds and a braided cable, the build quality is sturdy, and there are a couple of different colour options to give them a touch more pizzazz, like the rose gold colorway.
If you're looking for the best gaming earbuds at an affordable price, you should give these a closer look.
The best gaming earbuds for style
You’ll either love or hate the look of the Hecate GX07 gaming earbuds no matter how good we tell you they are. What’s great news is that these buds also deliver on audio quality, comfort, and ease of use.
The angular design combined with these RGB lights, do signify the tell-tale signs of a product aimed at gamers - but I think it rubs enough jazz on it to make it cool
Hecate GX07 review
The buds are lightweight (even if the case isn't) and up there with some of the most comfortable headphones out there. So much so that while using them throughout the day at work a few times we forgot we were wearing them. While parts of them seem large and unwieldy they actually fit very snugly in your ear. Long gym sessions or energetic runs will not dislodge these buds and trust us, we've tried.
Each bud has 8mm dynamic drivers with both AAC and LHDC audio codecs to ensure whatever you’re connecting to the sound is great. The highs are crisp and defined with bass sounding deep and impactful. The range of sounds is made even better by the expert balancing of the audio. Normally with any headphones, we have to delve into the app and play with the levels to get the audio just right, but we've not had to do that once with the GX07 earbuds, which has really impressed me.
There are some downsides: the size of the case is huge compared to the competition; and at $150 the GX07 also has a lot of competition from Apple, Sony, Samsung, Sennheiser, and many more recognisable brands. While none of these have the looks of the Hecate GX07s, at this budget folks might lean toward a more well-known brand.
Read more: Hecate GX07 review
Best gaming earbuds: FAQ
What earbuds do gamers use?
Well, the short answer is: anything on this very guide! Our best gaming earbuds article lists out the top earbuds you can get, no matter what you play on, and what games you play. And you'll find most big game audio brands represented here too: from Razer to EPOS, to HyperX.
As a result, you'll find gamers use a whole range of gaming earbuds, and you'll find all of the best for your consideration on this page.
Are gaming earbuds better than headsets?
Now this is not a totally straightforward answer, as each type have their pros and cons. And that's because earbuds and headsets offer wildly different solutions to wildly different problems and desire.
If you're looking for something super portable, geared toward mobile gaming or taking your Nintendo Switch out and about, then you can't beat gaming earbuds - they do have it over headsets in this capacity.
However, gaming headsets will offer superior audio quality, just because they can draw on larger drivers due to their larger, over-ear design. Earbuds just can't compete on this. Headsets can also offer more buttons and features because of this, and will often have better mics. This seems to make it a clear cut thing, but if you need something for pure mobile convenience then gaming earbuds will take the biscuit.
Can I use earbuds for gaming?
Well, the answer to this question is both yes, and no. As you've landed on this guide to the best gaming earbuds, the broad answer is a profound yes - and they can really be very good indeed. However, the more detailed answer is no, on some platforms. The ability to use earbuds on PlayStation and Xbox consoles is far less prevalent than on mobile devices, Nintendo Switch, and even PC. You'll just need to make sure that each set of gaming earbuds is compatible with the device you want to use, and then you'll be away!
If you're after some full-size alternatives, be sure to check out our guides to the best PS5 headsets, best Xbox Series X headsets, best PC gaming headsets, and best Nintendo Switch headsets to have you covered on all the major platforms.
