The marvellous world of audio technology is not immune from trend-led styles. From the fashion statement that is the Apple AirPods Max over-ears to the classic Rock n Roll style evoked by a pair of square Marshall headphones, how we choose to listen to music in private rather surprisingly says a lot about our personality.
Premium noise cancellation and style usually come with a price tag to match, but luckily Black Friday has begun which means the deals on everything from TVs, tablets, laptops, stand mixers, washing machines and more are here.
Feel overwhelmed? Don’t worry - ES Best has you covered on deals for all things tech, gadgets, home cinema, personal audio and so much more.
Why you can trust ES Best’s Black Friday coverage
With an expert edge and insider’s knowledge, we put together curated guides to help you find the best possible deals each and every Black Friday. We’ve been doing it for a fair few years now, so it’s safe to say we’re a trusted source. When it comes to headphones specifically, we’ve tested out some of the best on the market: from noise cancelling over-ear options to wireless buds, gaming headsets, running headphones and so much more.
Fret not, for we’re not about listing every bargain imaginable. We’re selective in our offering, which means we’ll only alert you to the best possible deals on truly coveted items. From our individual deal round-ups to the Live Blog that we run all weekend long, you won’t miss a beat.
Top deals on headphones
Apple AirPods Max Wireless Over-Ear Headphones
In Apple’s signature style, these over-ear headphones balance a minimal design with a powerful audio punch thanks to active noise cancellation and the brand’s trademark dynamic driver.
Was £499
Buy now £449.00, Amazon
Beats Studio Buds
Best for: Stylish portability
The Beats Studio Buds combine sleek aesthetics with impressive performance, making them an ideal choice for style-conscious listeners. These compact earbuds feature active noise cancellation and a transparency mode, allowing you to control how much ambient sound you let in. With a snug fit and excellent sound quality, they provide a powerful audio experience in a small package. Battery life is robust, offering up to eight hours of listening time on a single charge and up to 24 hours with the charging case, ensuring you stay connected throughout your day.
Designed with comfort in mind, the Studio Buds include three sizes of ear tips for a personalised fit. They seamlessly integrate with Apple devices but are also compatible with Android, making them versatile for all users. The simple one-touch controls allow you to switch between noise-cancelling modes, answer calls, or skip tracks with ease. With an IPX4 water resistance rating, these earbuds are ready for workouts and outdoor adventures, providing durability without compromising on style.
In addition to their excellent sound quality and features, the Beats Studio Buds are equipped with spatial audio, creating an immersive listening experience that enhances your music, movies, and gaming. Whether you’re commuting, exercising, or simply enjoying your favourite playlist, these earbuds deliver on both style and performance.
Was: £159.99
Buy now £71.96, Amazon
Bose QuietComfort
Best for: Comfort and sound quality
The Bose QuietComfort headphones are a staple for anyone seeking both comfort and superior sound quality. Known for their industry-leading noise cancellation, they create an oasis of tranquillity that allows you to immerse yourself in your music without distractions. With up to 20 hours of battery life, these headphones are perfect for long flights or commutes. A quick charge feature provides up to 2.5 hours of playtime from just a 15-minute charge, ensuring you can enjoy uninterrupted listening.
Designed with plush ear cushions and a lightweight headband, the QuietComfort headphones provide exceptional comfort for extended wear. They feature intuitive touch controls, allowing you to manage music playback and calls seamlessly. The adjustable noise cancellation settings let you choose how much outside sound you want to let in, making these headphones versatile for various environments.
With the Bose Music app, you can personalise your listening experience, accessing features like adjustable EQ settings and quick access to voice assistants. The QuietComfort headphones also support Bluetooth connectivity for easy pairing with your devices, ensuring a reliable connection. Whether you're travelling, working, or simply relaxing at home, the Bose QuietComfort headphones deliver a luxurious listening experience that is hard to beat.
Was: £299
Buy now £219.00, John Lewis
Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Pro
Best for: premium audio in a compact design
Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Pro redefine what true wireless audio can be, combining a sleek design with high-quality sound. These earbuds feature an impressive adaptive noise-cancelling capability, ensuring that you can immerse yourself in your music without distractions. The ergonomic design guarantees a comfortable fit, perfect for long listening sessions. With a battery life that supports hours of continuous playback and a compact charging case that allows for effortless portability, the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro make it easy to enjoy premium audio quality anywhere you go. These earbuds are an excellent choice for those who value both performance and style.
Was: £129.99
Buy now £97.00, Amazon
Sony WH-CH520
Best for: on-ear comfort
These wireless on-ear headphones from Sony don’t have noise-cancellation or hi-res audio support, but still sound great. On-ear headphones like these may not be to everyone’s taste, as they fit directly on your ears and depending on the shape of your lugholes will either feel great or deeply annoying, but thanks to some upgraded padding around the earpads they’re largely comfortable to wear.
They use the standard Sony app, which is a great place to start for sound balance and equalisation, and there's multipoint pairing too if you’ve got multiple devices. One thing you don’t get is the ability to use a 3.5mm cable, meaning they’re completely dependent on their internal battery, which will give you around 50 hours of use from a charge.
Was: £45
Buy now £31.50, Amazon
Soundcore Space One
Best for: bagging an absolute bargain
The Space One headphones are rather remarkable.
Starting with the not-so-shallow aesthetics, there’s a very satisfying minimalism to the design, with a matte black finish all over that makes them unassumingly eye-catching, which is a neat trick. There are also well-sized ear cups that comfortably envelope even the largest of lobes, an 8° floating axis design for a snug but soft sitting, and four buttons for power on/off, volume control, play and pause, and to activate the adaptive ANC, which I’ll get back to in a moment.
Working wired or wirelessly over Bluetooth, the Space One’s built-in mic makes calls cuttingly clear, meaning that, combined with that adaptive ANC, means that they’re good for noisy one-plan office work too. And that’s because that very adaptive ANC detects the ambient sound of tiresome office traffic (and sound leakage) and auto-calibrates to optimise noise cancellation. Now, in a model that costs under a ton, you might expect that this may be a little lacklustre, especially if you’ve experienced poor ANC in cans twice this price, but you’d be horribly wrong because the Space One does all it promises, cocooning you away from external cacophony with aplomb, while any particularly persistent humming or booming noises that may sneak past its adaptive guard can be easily counteracted by just turning the volume up a bit.
When it comes to sound quality, 40mm drivers with LDAC support for Hi-Res Audio, deliver a reasonably deep bass with just the right amount of rumble for most, smooth, well-defined mids and precise treble, culminating in an audio experience that’s going to delight all but those who are just all about that bass, 'bout that bass, no treble.
With a Soundcore app available alongside to allow users to customise the EQ to their own tastes, personalise through a quick sound test, set safe volumes, and switch between noise cancellation modes, Space One is fully featured to give a truly tailored performance.
Finally, four hours of play comes from a complete charge, with fast charging filling up in just five minutes, while a sensor inside the left cup recognises when they’re being worn to save on power loss when they’re taken off.
At just £90, Soundcore has achieved the impossible and created ANC cans that punch incredibly above the asking price and, indeed, beyond that of many other options out there costing up to three times more. Normally when something sounds too good to be true, it is; but the Soundcore Space One sound great on paper and even better over the ears.
Was: £89.99
Buy now £54.99, Amazon
Dyson OnTrac headphones
Best for: Enhanced sound during workouts
The Dyson OnTrac headphones offer a unique blend of style and functionality. Featuring a sleek design, these headphones are perfect for those who want to combine fashion with high-performance audio. They come equipped with adaptive noise cancellation technology, allowing you to focus on your music or calls without outside interference. With a solid battery life that lasts up to 20 hours, you can wear these headphones throughout your workouts or while commuting.
Designed for active lifestyles, the OnTrac headphones boast an IPX5 water resistance rating, making them sweat-proof and ideal for gym sessions or outdoor activities. They provide a secure fit with adjustable ear hooks, ensuring that they stay in place during vigorous movement. The intuitive controls allow for easy navigation of music and calls, while the built-in microphone ensures crystal-clear voice quality.
Additionally, the OnTrac headphones come with a compact charging case for convenient storage and charging on the go. The stylish black nickel finish adds a touch of elegance, making them not just functional but also a fashionable accessory. With high-quality audio performance, these headphones are perfect for those who want to elevate their sound experience while maintaining an active lifestyle.
Was: £449
Buy now £399.00, John Lewis
JBL Tour One M2
Best for: exceptional ANC
JBL has been around, in one form or another, and churning out top-quality audio kit for 77 years now, but it really only became the renowned brand our ears all know and love today in the 70s after being sold to the company which later became the indomitable-in-audio Harman Kardon.
This is the Tour One M2 – pretty slick, right? Seen here in Champagne, it appears also in Black, but why would you go bland when you can have some fizz? The design has been kept clean and uncluttered with a few function buttons doing the lifting, while a very light weight of just 268g means your own lifting will be kept to an absolute minimum.
Options on the audio front are aplenty, with JBL’s app on-hand to let you customise sound to suit, something called Personi-fi 2.0 which creates a personal listing profile based on your preferences, while true adaptive noise cancelling with tailor-tweaked ANC and ambient sound keep the uproar of the outside world as dampened, or not, as you demand.
Then there’s the sound itself, pumped out via 40mm dynamic drivers, themselves tuned by the Hi-Res-certified JBL PRO sound to perform to perfection, the Tour One M2 has the balance of a prima donna ballerina. And when you throw JBL’s immersive Spatial Sound tech into the mix, lows, mids and highs dance together around your head with poise and precision in a manner unprecedented.
At the business end, a multiple microphone array featuring VoiceAware so you can control exactly how much of your own speech you can hear back through the headphones during a phone call, and with that aforementioned adaptive ANC working its wonders, you’ll hear not even an iota of interruption in the office, even if you’re surrounded by annoying David Brent-likes. Plus, as an added bonus, this also means vocal commands uttered to the M2 are always well-received even in noisy environments, like London.
Connecting to your phone over Bluetooth 5.3 for a super-stable hook-up, fast charge gives five hours of playback from a mere 10-minute charge, while a full tanked-up set will deliver 50 hours as standard or 30 hours with ANC in action. Naturally, they can also be hardwired via the bundled aux cable, too.
Audio excellence with a touch of Champagne opulence, for work and play you simply can’t go wrong.
Was: £279
Buy now £179.00, Currys
Skullcandy Dime 3 In-Ear Wireless Earbuds
If you're all about the bass, don't miss this deal on Skullcandy's earbuds. They're marked down by 31 per cent, which means you can get immersive noise-cancelling audio for 20 hours straight.
Oh, and it's fitted with Tile tracking tech, so you'll never wonder about an AWOL bud ever again.
Was: £34.99
Buy now £23.99, Amazon
Sony WH-1000XM4 Noise Cancelling Wireless Headphones
Best for: Industry-leading noise cancellation
The Sony WH-1000XM4 headphones are a top choice for anyone seeking unparalleled noise cancellation and sound quality. With advanced features like adaptive sound control, they automatically adjust to your environment, whether you're in a busy café or on a plane. These headphones offer an impressive battery life of up to 30 hours on a single charge, ensuring you stay immersed in your music without interruption. The quick charging feature provides up to five hours of playback from just a 10-minute charge, making them perfect for those on the go.
Their comfortable design features plush ear cups and an adjustable headband, allowing for extended listening sessions without discomfort. The WH-1000XM4 is equipped with touch sensor controls for effortless music playback, volume adjustments, and call handling. The Speak-to-Chat function pauses playback automatically when you start talking, making it easy to have conversations without taking your headphones off. These headphones also support voice assistants like Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, providing a seamless experience for managing tasks hands-free.
With the Sony Headphones Connect app, you can customise your sound preferences, including a comprehensive equaliser and various noise-cancellation settings. If you prioritise audio quality and comfort, the Sony WH-1000XM4 headphones are an excellent investment for audiophiles and casual listeners alike.
Was: £229.99
Buy now £175.00, Amazon
Marshall Major IV On Ear Bluetooth Headphones
Best for: Classic sound and design
The Marshall Major IV headphones embody a timeless design paired with modern Bluetooth technology. These on-ear headphones offer a rich sound profile with deep bass and crisp highs, perfect for music enthusiasts who appreciate a quality listening experience. With an impressive battery life of up to 80 hours, you can enjoy extended listening sessions without worrying about recharging. The fast-charging feature allows you to get up to 15 hours of playtime from just a 15-minute charge.
Designed for comfort, the Major IV features plush ear cushions and a lightweight build, ensuring that you can wear them for hours without discomfort. The foldable design makes them easy to transport, fitting snugly into your bag or backpack. Equipped with a multi-directional control knob, you can easily manage your music and take calls without fumbling for your device. These headphones also feature a 3.5mm audio input, allowing for wired listening when needed.
The iconic Marshall branding and classic aesthetics make the Major IVs a stylish accessory, appealing to both music lovers and fashion-conscious individuals. The combination of quality sound, comfort, and distinctive design makes these headphones a perfect choice for everyday use or casual outings. Whether you're at home, in the office, or on the move, the Marshall Major IV headphones deliver a sound experience that lives up to the Marshall legacy.
Was: £129.99
Buy now £64.99, Argos
When is Black Friday 2024?
This year, Black Friday began on Friday, November 29. It was the day after Thanksgiving, which is always the fourth Thursday of November in the United States.
When does Black Friday end?
Far from being a single day of sales, Black Friday lasts over the weekend right up until Cyber Monday, where even more deals can be expected on remaining stock across your favourite retailers.
Why is it called Black Friday?
There are many theories associated with why the sales extravaganza has such a dark name. The most commonly accepted reason is that retailers’ accounts tend to go from being ‘in the red’ to ‘in the black’ following a weekend of post-Thanksgiving sales – meaning that they’ve become profitable again.
