Hey smart peeps, I’m a remote worker who attends a lot of virtual meetings. I also sometimes create training videos or host training sessions, and my current earbuds are some $15 amazon cheapos.
I sometimes get feedback that people can hear my typing or the squeak of my chair.
I have about $200 budget to spend on some nicer headphones. When I search, I look for ‘noise canceling’ or ‘background sound suppression’, but only see more cheap headphones or some over-the-head headsets.
Are higher quality earbuds possible? What’s out there that’s a good product y’all might recommend?
The first thing I would check is if you have noise removal enabled on your conference call software and maybe install RTX voice if you have an Nvidia GPU.
My preference is to use a ModMic so I can use whatever headphones I want. Open back headphones were a game changer for my conference calls.
You want to be looking for IEMs (In Ear Monitors) in your searches to yield the best results at that price range.
At $360 they’re pretty far out of your budget but the Moondrop Dusk just got released and they come with a good USB-C DAC cable. I mention them because they also sell the cable separately and will work with most 2pin (non-recessed) IEMs.
I received mine a couple of weeks ago and I’m thoroughly impressed with them and would even consider them good enough to mix with. They hold up well against Senn HD650s which I normally use to mix when I’m not using my monitors.
But if you need to stick to that price range, the Moondrop Aria are also very good for the money (I own them too) and you could get the separate USB-C headphone cable all close to your budget.
I know I seem like a shill for Moondrop but they are pretty much the best price to performance IEM manufacturer at the moment.
I feel your pain. There doesn’t seem to be much choice for quality earbuds, even when you are willing to pay more for it. I recently returned a pair of Sony earbuds that sounded so dogshit it was insulting.
Based on some audiophile conversations I have read, it might be worth looking into IEMs (in-ear monitors). From the bit of research I’ve done, it seems you can get better quality from these compared to regular consumer earbuds. It looks like you may need to get a cable that has a mic built in, but that might give you more options.