My sister is starting college in the fall and asked me which headphones she should get for studying — I had just one recommendation

Tom's Guide

a day ago

My sister is starting college in the fall (in a few weeks, actually), so when she asked me for the best headphones for studying, I knew my time had finally come. I don't spend half my life testing headphones for no reason. I recommended just one pair of headphones: the Soundcore Space One Pro. I was so confident in these headphones that I just cut to the chase and got them for her.
Why? Well, for starters, they're some of the cheapest high-quality Bluetooth headphones money can buy. Other brands like Marshall, Bose, Sony, Bowers & Wilkins and Apple are reliably awesome, but they're premium cans with premium prices to boot.
College students don't have a spare $400 lying around for headphones, so the $199 (often on sale for $169) Soundcore Space One Pro are my go-to recommendation for back to school.
Soundcore not for you? Then maybe check out Skullcandy headphones or the old-but-discounted Sony WH-100XM4.
Right, so these are the best headphones for college students. What do college students need? Well, when I was at college, I had the now-discontinued Bose SoundTrue headphones (I'm aging myself here).
I needed the following things, in order: affordability, style and comfort. I was going to be wearing these headphones for hours while studying (procrastinating), so they had to be comfy. But I also wanted to be cool, so they had to be stylish. And the most important part? I was a poor, poor student. They had to be cheap.
Fortunately, the Soundcore Space One Pro headphones are much, much cheaper than premium competition.
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Right now, the Soundcore Space One Pro headphones are discounted to $169, which makes them almost $200 cheaper than the Bose QuietComfort and almost $300 cheaper than the Sony WH-1000XM6 and the Apple AirPods Max.
In the U.K., you're getting an even better deal. The Space One Pro headphones are just £149, which blows Apple, Sony, and Bose competition out of the water.
Thankfully, you're not really sacrificing anything for this uber-affordable price. The Space One Pro headphones are very pilates-and-matcha coded, especially the white colorway. If you're a little more black-coffee-and-weights, then get the black version. They definitely feel at home in the aesthetic zeitgeist, and I wouldn't think them out of place on any college campus right now.
Comfort is also a major plus. Thanks to the cloud cushion cups and padded headband, I was able to wear these headphones for hours. I found them way more comfortable than the JBL Tour One M2 and JBL Live 770NC, and about as comfortable as the EarFun Wave Pro (but I wouldn't recommend those due to terrible sound quality).
If you need comfy, portable headphones to soundtrack you through long study sessions, the Soundcore Space One Pro will be everything you want and more.
I'd like to thank my colleague Nikita for coining the term above — ANC so good you feel lonely — and it's the best way to describe phenomenal ANC.
I'll admit that the Space One Pro headphones don't have as good ANC as other premium brands. Yes, I could still hear traffic noise when walking around town wearing these headphones. But when I wore them in the office, it was like my own personal ghost town. I was in a world of my own.
I actually let my sister try out these headphones recently (to make sure she liked them before using them for college), and she was obsessed with the ANC. Everyone else in the family? Less so.
When she was cooking, I had to wave my hand in front of her or tap her on the shoulder to get her attention. I was knocking on her bedroom door until my knuckles were raw. She was in the land of Space One Pro — perfect for long studying sessions at the library when you need to lock in.
While normally I'd say sound quality is the most important feature on headphones, if you're going to use them predominantly for studying, it kind of falls to the lower half of the list of priorities. Obviously, don't get headphones with terrible sound — that means they've failed their sole purpose as a pair of headphones. Imagine headphones that sound so bad it's actually distracting. No thanks.
However, you need not fret with the Soundcore Space One Pro headphones. I actually think the sound quality rivals the Bose QuietComfort headphones ($349). Now, I know some people might disagree with me, and that's fine. But let me tell you why.
The Soundcore app has a really nifty feature — HearID. This feature is basically a personalized EQ tuned to your tastes. Obviously, you could do this manually, but where's the fun in that?
HearID is basically a game. Maybe that's why I love it so much? The app plays a song (which is also an absolute bop, and I wish was on Spotify or Qobuz for my listening pleasure) with two different EQs. Then, it makes you choose between EQ A and EQ B six times. After completing the listening quest, the Soundcore app generates an optimal EQ based on your answers.
Choose the bass-heavy EQs? It'll make you a bass EQ. Choose the treble EQs? Then it'll make you a treble-focused EQ.
I could not get enough of this feature when testing out these headphones. Actually, I couldn't get enough of all the features when testing out these headphones.
The ANC, comfort, style, affordability, and sound quality are why these are the best headphones for college students. I'm so sure of it that I got them for my sister.
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