The best headset for work depends on one question: do people mostly listen to you, or do you mostly listen? If you are on calls most of the day, buy a headset built around its microphone, like the EPOS Adapt 660, which is Microsoft Teams certified and ships with a USB-C dongle for a reliable PC connection. If you mostly do heads-down work with calls in between, buy a comfortable noise-cancelling headphone like the Sony WH-1000XM4, which pairs to your laptop and phone at once. On a budget, the Soundcore Q20i and JBL Tune 770NC get you real noise cancelling at an affordable price.
Those are different jobs, and they pull in opposite directions. Focus listening rewards a sealed, plush over-ear with strong noise cancelling. Being heard on a call rewards a microphone that picks up your voice and rejects your room, which most music-first headphones do poorly. This guide sorts every pick by the job it does best, explains the specs that decide each one, and covers specific setups like open offices, call-center shifts, presenting, and wearing a headset over glasses. For model-by-model specs and pros and cons, see our headset reviews.
Quick Picks: Best Headsets for Work at a Glance#
- Best overall for work: Sony WH-1000XM4. Class-leading noise cancelling, multipoint pairing, and comfort that lasts a full day.
- Best for calls and Teams meetings: EPOS Adapt 660. Teams certified, adaptive beamforming mics, USB-C dongle plus Bluetooth.
- Best for all-day comfort: Bose QuietComfort 45. Light, plush, and backed by a six-mic call array.
- Best budget work headphones: Soundcore Q20i. Hybrid noise cancelling and dual-device Bluetooth at a budget price.
- Best battery life: JBL Tune 770NC. Rated for 70 hours, with multipoint pairing and adaptive ANC at an affordable price.
- Best mid-range: JBL Live 770NC. Adaptive ANC with four noise-sensing mics and a fabric headband for long days.
- Best earbuds for work and presenting: Apple AirPods Pro (2nd Gen). Discreet on camera, strong ANC, and transparency mode for in-person meetings.
- Best for focus in a quiet room: Sennheiser HD 560S. Open-back, wired, and built for hours of fatigue-free listening. No mic.
Which Kind of Work Headset Do You Need?#
Before comparing models, decide which of four device types fits your day. Each wins one job and gives something up.
A call-first headset puts the microphone first. The best ones sit a mic close to your mouth on a boom arm, or use a tuned beamforming array that focuses on your voice, and they are certified for Microsoft Teams or Zoom so mute, answer, and volume controls work inside the app. Many include a USB dongle, which is more reliable on a work PC than Bluetooth. The trade-off is that they are tuned for voice, not music. Buy one if you talk on calls for more than an hour or two a day.
An ANC over-ear headphone puts listening first. Noise cancelling, sound quality, and pad comfort are excellent, but the call mic is a small array in the earcup, several inches from your mouth, so your voice can sound roomier to the other side in a noisy space. Buy one if you mostly focus and take calls in between.
Noise-cancelling earbuds put flexibility first. They are discreet on video, pocketable, and easy to wear from desk to walk to commute. They cannot match a full over-ear for deep noise cancelling or many-hour comfort, and some people find in-ear fit tiring. Buy them if you move around or present on camera.
An open-back headphone puts sound quality first. Wide, natural sound and cool earcups make long listening sessions easy, but open-backs leak sound both ways, block nothing, and usually have no mic. Buy one only for a quiet, private room, paired with a separate microphone if you take calls.
What does not work for a full day of calls: laptop speakers and mic, which leak the call into the room and pick up your keyboard; bundled wired earbuds, whose dangling inline mic catches fabric rustle; and gaming headsets, whose mics are fine but whose heavy clamp, warm earcups, and styling make them a poor all-day office choice.
The Best Headsets for Work, Compared#
Best Overall for Work: Sony WH-1000XM4#
The Sony WH-1000XM4 is the best headphone for most desk workers because it does the job you spend the most hours on, focus, better than almost anything, and handles calls well enough. Its adaptive noise cancelling knocks down the steady drone of HVAC, traffic, and open-office chatter, which is what wears you down over an afternoon. Multipoint pairing keeps it connected to your laptop and phone at the same time, so a call on your phone interrupts your laptop audio without re-pairing. Speak-to-Chat pauses playback when you start talking to someone in the room.
The honest limit is the microphone. Like every ANC headphone, it uses mics in the earcups, so in a loud room your voice reaches the other side with more of the room around it than a call-first headset would send. In a quiet home office that is rarely a problem. Buy it if calls punctuate your day rather than fill it.
Sony WH-1000XM4 Wireless Headphones
Editor’s ChoiceSony’s most popular model — industry-leading ANC, 30-hour battery, multipoint pairing, Speak-to-Chat, and DSEE Extreme upscaling for compressed audio. A benchmark for premium noise-cancelling headphones.
Best for Calls and Teams Meetings: EPOS Adapt 660#
The EPOS Adapt 660 is the pick if meetings are your job. It is designed around business calls: Microsoft Teams certification means the call controls work natively in Teams, the included USB-C dongle gives a stable, low-latency connection to a work PC (which matters when IT locks down Bluetooth or your laptop's Bluetooth is flaky), and it also pairs over Bluetooth to your phone. Instead of a boom arm, it uses adaptive beamforming microphones that focus on your voice and suppress noise around you, which keeps the design clean enough to wear on a train or on camera.
It is also a real focus headphone, with adaptive hybrid ANC and EPOS's BrainAdapt tuning aimed at reducing listening fatigue in noisy rooms, plus a battery rated around 30 hours. The trade-offs are price and tuning: it costs more than consumer headphones with similar noise cancelling, and its sound is balanced for voice and clarity rather than bass-heavy music. If you sit in a genuinely loud environment all day, a boom-mic headset will still isolate your voice better (see the section on boom mics below).
EPOS Adapt 660 Wireless Headset
A premium over-ear wireless headset with adaptive ANC, EPOS BrainAdapt technology proven to cut listening effort in noisy rooms, renowned stereo sound, and Microsoft Teams certification — built for serious professionals.
Best for All-Day Comfort: Bose QuietComfort 45#
Bose built its reputation on comfort, and the QuietComfort 45 is the pick if you wear headphones for six or more hours and your ears are the first thing to complain. The QuietComfort line is known for a light, plush fit and moderate clamp, which also makes it a better match than most for glasses wearers. Calls go through a six-mic array, with Quiet and Aware modes to switch between full noise cancelling and hearing the room. The battery is rated at 24 hours.
The weak points are features rather than comfort: it is simpler than the Sony, with fewer app controls, and the spec sheet lists no multipoint at launch, so check that it fits how you switch devices. If comfort is the deciding factor, start here.
Bose QuietComfort 45 Headphones
Legendary Bose comfort with TriPort acoustics, 24-hour battery, Quiet/Aware modes, Volume-Optimized Active EQ, a six-mic array for crystal-clear calls, and reliable Bluetooth 5.1 — superb for hybrid work and travel.
Best Budget Work Headphones: Soundcore Q20i#
The Soundcore Q20i proves you do not need a premium headphone to get the main benefit of noise cancelling, a lower noise floor that makes long work sessions less tiring. Its hybrid ANC is rated to cancel up to 90 percent of noise, the battery is rated at 40 hours with ANC on, and dual-device Bluetooth lets it stay connected to a laptop and a phone. The mic is fine for occasional calls but not pro-grade, and the default tuning leans bassy, which you can adjust in the app. For focus on a tight budget, it covers the actual need.
Soundcore by Anker Q20i ANC Headphones
Best ValueExceptional value with hybrid ANC that cancels up to 90% of noise, 40H battery with ANC on, Hi-Res audio, BassUp technology, Transparency Mode, and dual-device Bluetooth 5.0 — at a budget price.
Best Battery Life: JBL Tune 770NC#
The JBL Tune 770NC is the budget pick for people who hate charging. It is rated for up to 70 hours, and a five-minute charge is rated to add about three hours, so a dead battery before a meeting stops being a risk. It adds adaptive noise cancelling, multipoint pairing, Bluetooth 5.3 with LE Audio support, and a foldable design at an affordable price. The trade-offs are a plastic build and a bass-forward default sound. If you want multipoint and long battery life on a budget, this is the one.
JBL Tune 770NC Wireless Headphones
Outstanding value with Adaptive ANC, JBL Pure Bass Sound, an industry-leading 70-hour battery, 5-minute Speed Charge (3 hrs), Bluetooth 5.3 with LE Audio, multipoint pairing, and a foldable travel design.
Best Mid-Range: JBL Live 770NC#
The JBL Live 770NC sits between the budget picks and the premium tier. It steps up to True Adaptive noise cancelling with four noise-sensing mics, a fabric comfort-fit headband for long wear, wear detection that pauses audio when you take it off, and a battery rated at 65 hours. Its noise cancelling trails the Sony and Bose, and there is no high-resolution codec, but for a lot of desk workers it is the sweet spot of comfort, battery, and price.
JBL Live 770NC Wireless Headphones
True Adaptive ANC with 4 noise-sensing mics, JBL Spatial Sound (40mm drivers), 65-hour battery, Speed Charge, auto play/pause wear detection, and a premium comfort-fit fabric headband.
Best Earbuds for Work and Presenting: Apple AirPods Pro (2nd Gen)#
The AirPods Pro 2 are the pick if you present on camera, move between your desk and in-person meetings, or simply do not want something on your head. They are nearly invisible on video, their noise cancelling is strong for the size, and Adaptive Audio and Conversation Awareness lower your audio automatically when someone talks to you, which helps in shared offices. Because the mics sit on the stem rather than in an over-ear cup, voice pickup is good for quiet rooms and walking calls.
The limits: battery is rated at about six hours per charge (with the case adding more), so back-to-back all-day meetings need a mid-day top-up; the best features need Apple devices; and some people find in-ear fit tiring over many hours. For presenters and hybrid workers who move around, they are the most flexible pick.
Apple AirPods Pro (2nd Gen, USB-C)
Best ValueThe H2 chip delivers 2x more ANC, Adaptive Audio, Personalized Spatial Audio with head tracking, and Conversation Awareness. The best-in-class pick for Apple ecosystem users.
Best for Focus in a Quiet Room: Sennheiser HD 560S#
The Sennheiser HD 560S is not a call headset, and that is the point. It is an open-back, wired headphone with a neutral, reference-style tuning and a wide, natural soundstage, and owners describe it as comfortable for very long listening sessions. If you work alone in a quiet room and spend hours on music, podcasts, editing, or audio work, it is the most enjoyable listen here.
It has no microphone, it leaks sound in both directions, and its 120-ohm impedance benefits from a headphone amp or a decent audio interface. Pair it with a standalone USB microphone and you get better audio in both directions than any all-in-one headset.
Sennheiser HD 560S Open-Back Headphones
Neutral reference-grade open-back headphones with E.A.R. technology for a wide, natural soundstage, a 6Hz–38kHz range, and a detachable cable — an audiophile benchmark for critical listening and mixing.
Do You Need a Boom Mic for Work Calls?#
A boom microphone, the small arm that sits in front of your mouth, is still the most reliable way to sound clear on calls, because distance is everything with microphones. A mic an inch or two from your lips captures a full voice and barely hears the room. A mic in an earcup, several inches away, has to rely on processing to separate your voice from background noise, and in a noisy room that processing can make you sound thin or clipped.
You should prioritize a boom-mic headset if any of these describe your day:
- You take calls for several hours a day, such as sales, support, recruiting, or call-center work.
- You work in a loud environment: an open-plan office, a busy household, or a shared room.
- People regularly ask you to repeat yourself, or say you sound far away.
If you take a handful of calls in a quiet home office, an ANC headphone or a beamforming headset like the EPOS Adapt 660 is plenty. When shopping for a boom-mic headset, look for Microsoft Teams or Zoom certification, a physical mute button or flip-to-mute boom, sidetone (so you hear your own voice and do not shout), a USB dongle for PC calls, and light, breathable earpads for long shifts. Single-ear (mono) designs are worth considering if you need to hear people in the room as well as on the call.
An alternative that often sounds better than any headset: wear the headphones you already like and add a desk microphone on a short arm close to your mouth. It costs more desk space but sounds the most natural.
What to Look For in a Work Headset#
Microphone Design#
This decides how you sound, and spec sheets rarely tell you directly. In rough order of call clarity in a noisy room: a boom mic, then a tuned beamforming array designed for business calls, then earbud stem mics, then earcup arrays on music headphones. If calls are central to your job, buy for the mic first and everything else second.
Noise Cancelling#
Active noise cancelling (ANC) uses microphones on the earcups to cancel low, steady sound such as HVAC hum, traffic, and fridge drone. It does much less against sudden, high-pitched sound like a nearby conversation or a slammed door, so expect a lower noise floor, not silence. ANC controls what you hear; it does nothing for what the other person hears, which depends entirely on the mic. In an open office or busy home, strong ANC is worth paying for. In a quiet room, it is a nice-to-have.
All-Day Comfort#
Comfort comes from clamp force, weight, and earpad design. Too much clamp gives you a headache by lunch, especially with glasses; too little and the headphones slide off when you look down. Over-ear pads that surround your ears are more comfortable for long wear than on-ear pads that press on them. If you wear glasses, look for soft, deep pads and a moderate clamp so the arms of your glasses do not get pressed into your head.
Multipoint and Connectivity#
Multipoint pairing keeps the headset connected to two devices at once, usually your work laptop and your phone, so you can take a phone call without re-pairing. It is the single most useful wireless feature for work. A USB dongle is the other one: it gives a more stable connection to a PC than built-in Bluetooth, and certified headsets use it to make the mute and answer buttons work inside Teams or Zoom. Codecs like LDAC and aptX matter for music detail, not for calls, since voice uses very little bandwidth.
Battery Life#
For a full workday of calls, look for at least 20 hours rated with ANC on, which leaves headroom for a couple of days between charges. Fast charging matters more than the headline number if you forget to charge: a few minutes on the cable that buys a few hours of use rescues a morning.
The Best Headset for Your Work Setup#
Open-plan office: prioritize strong ANC for focus and a call-first mic so colleagues are not broadcast into your meetings. The EPOS Adapt 660 covers both; the Sony WH-1000XM4 is the better listener if your calls are fewer.
Home office: your room is probably quiet enough that the mic matters less. Buy for comfort and focus: the Sony WH-1000XM4, Bose QC45, or, on a budget, the Soundcore Q20i or JBL Tune 770NC.
Call center or support shifts: buy a boom-mic headset built for long shifts, with light earpads, a mute button, and sidetone. Over-ear music headphones are not the right tool for eight hours of talking.
Presenting and webinars: earbuds like the AirPods Pro 2 are nearly invisible on camera, or pair any headphone with a desk mic so your voice sounds natural on a recording.
Music and calls in one device: the Sony WH-1000XM4 is the best balance of music quality and acceptable calls; the JBL Live 770NC is the mid-range alternative.
Wearing glasses: look for plush, deep pads and a moderate clamp. The Bose QC45, with its soft pads and gentle clamp, is the easiest fit here for glasses.
Frequently Asked Questions#
What is the best headset for work calls?#
For heavy call days, the EPOS Adapt 660 is our pick here: it is Microsoft Teams certified, uses adaptive beamforming mics focused on your voice, and connects to a PC through a USB-C dongle as well as to your phone over Bluetooth. If you mostly focus and take occasional calls, the Sony WH-1000XM4 is the better all-rounder. In a very loud room, a boom-mic headset will isolate your voice best.
What is the best headset for Microsoft Teams and Zoom meetings?#
Any good headset works with Teams, Zoom, and Google Meet, because the apps use whichever mic and speakers your system selects. Certification adds two things: call controls (mute, answer, volume) that work inside the app, and audio tuned to the platform's standards. The EPOS Adapt 660 in this guide is Teams certified. For Zoom-heavy work, prioritize mic quality and a USB dongle over certification.
Can I use AirPods or regular headphones for work calls?#
Yes, for most remote and hybrid work. AirPods Pro and ANC headphones like the Sony WH-1000XM4 handle calls well in a quiet room. Where they fall short is a noisy room, where their mics, which sit further from your mouth than a boom, pick up more background noise. If people often ask you to repeat yourself, switch to a call-first headset.
What headphones are best for an open office?#
Closed-back headphones with strong active noise cancelling, so you can focus through chatter and so your audio does not leak to the people around you. The Sony WH-1000XM4 and Bose QC45 are the strongest noise cancellers here. Avoid open-back headphones like the Sennheiser HD 560S in a shared space: they leak sound both ways.
Are open-ear headphones good for office use?#
Open-ear designs keep you aware of your surroundings, which some people want in an office where colleagues need to get their attention. The trade-off is that they block no noise and leak some sound, so they suit quiet offices better than busy ones. If you want awareness on demand, an ANC headphone or earbud with a transparency mode, such as the AirPods Pro 2, gives you both.
What is the best headset for a call center or long shifts?#
A lightweight boom-mic headset with breathable earpads, a mute button, and sidetone, ideally with a USB connection to your computer. The boom mic keeps your voice clear in a loud room, and a light design matters more than sound quality across eight hours of talking. Consumer music headphones are not the right tool for this job.
Is noise cancelling worth it for working from home?#
If your home is noisy (kids, roommates, traffic, a loud HVAC), yes; ANC removes the constant background hum that makes long focus sessions tiring. If your home office is quiet, you can save money with a comfortable non-ANC headphone and spend the difference on a better microphone.
Wired or wireless for work?#
Wireless with multipoint is more convenient for most people, because you can move away from your desk and switch between laptop and phone. Wired (or a wireless headset with a USB dongle) is more reliable for back-to-back calls on a PC, with no pairing drops and no battery to manage. If you have had Bluetooth problems on calls, a dongle is the fix.
How can I make my headset mic sound better on calls?#
Position matters most: if the mic is on a boom, place it about a finger-width to the side of the corner of your mouth so it does not catch your breath. Turn off any extra noise suppression stacked between your headset and your meeting app, since doubled processing can make you sound robotic. And reduce echo in the room, with soft furnishings, a rug, or curtains, which helps any mic.
The Verdict#
For most desk workers, buy the Sony WH-1000XM4. It is the best focus headphone in this guide, handles calls well in a normal home office, and stays connected to your laptop and phone at once.
If meetings fill your day, buy the EPOS Adapt 660 for its Teams certification, voice-focused mics, and USB dongle. If comfort is your top priority, the Bose QC45. On a budget, the Soundcore Q20i or, if you want multipoint and huge battery life, the JBL Tune 770NC. For presenting and moving around, the AirPods Pro 2. And for pure listening in a quiet room, the Sennheiser HD 560S plus a separate mic.
The honest trade-off: no single device is the best at both focus listening and being heard. If both jobs are heavy in your day, a comfortable headphone paired with a dedicated microphone often beats any all-in-one headset. For the rest of a calls-ready setup, see our guides to the best webcams and best desk lighting.