We were impressed when we first saw the EarFun Wave Pro at CES 2024, enough to give the affordable headphones a Best of CES award. Now that we’ve put the headphones through our comprehensive testing, do we still think they hold up against the top competition? Read on to find out in our full EarFun Wave Pro review.

Editor’s note: this is the first version of the article. Updates will follow as the market changes.

The design of the EarFun Wave Pro doesn’t stand out in any particular way. With a generic black plastic build, you’d have difficulty picking out the Wave Pro from other affordable headphones. The relatively dull design will appease those who want subtle headphones that just work without the frills and extra expense of the top headphones on the market.

At only 268g, the headphones feel very light on the head. The ear pads are big enough to fit around my average-sized ears and are made from a soft, pleather material. I could listen for a few hours before noticing any comfort issues from pressure points on top of the head and around the ears.

A nice bonus included with these headphones is the hardcover carrying case. Fabric material wraps around the outside of the case while the headphones neatly rotate and fold up inside the case. The case, combined with features like ANC and the ability to listen wired or wireless, makes the EarFun Wave Pro a great travel companion.

Physical buttons on the EarFun Wave Pro control music playback, ambient mode selection, and calls. While buttons aren’t as fancy as touch controls, they are straightforward to learn, so you don’t need to dig through a manual to figure out how to use them. Below, we’ve outlined the default controls, though you can also customize what each button does from within the EarFun Audio app.

You’ll want to download the EarFun Audio app to get the most out of the EarFun Wave Pro headphones. You need it to install the firmware updates, essential for getting a stable connection and access to all the features of the headphones. The app has options to adjust listening modes between different levels of active noise cancelation (ANC), ambient sound, and wind reduction. You can also change the headphones’ sound using an EQ preset or create your own with the ten-band equalizer. Other features within the app include viewing battery life, enabling game mode, and adjusting the sound of the headphone voice that is prompted when changing settings.

The EarFun Wave Pro connects to most devices using Bluetooth 5.3. In addition to the standard SBC and AAC Bluetooth codecs, the Wave Pro supports LDAC, capable of higher bit-rate streaming on Android devices. This is a rare feature on a budget headphone. These headphones also support multipoint, which means they can connect to two devices simultaneously after pairing to both. While using the Wave Pro with my iPhone and MacBook Pro, I didn’t experience any connection issues or dropouts.

Within the EarFun Audio app, there is an option to enable low-latency game mode, which reduces latency for a slight decline in connection quality. You can also use these headphones wired, though they will power off when plugged in, which means you can’t use ANC or EQ.

In our battery test, the Earfun Wave Pro lasted a very impressive 52 hours and 31 minutes of playback time. We conduct our battery tests with ANC turned on, though EarFun says the headphones will last up to 80 hours without ANC. This is among the best battery life of any wireless headphones.

ANC helps to block out low-frequency noise, such as the rumble of an airplane engine and is a rare feature in headphones that are this inexpensive. While these headphones don’t hold a candle to the best noise canceling headphones, they still perform well. With ANC set to its maximum setting, combined with passive isolation from the ear pads, most noise sounds are 75% quieter than when you aren’t wearing the headphones.

On the other hand, if you want to hear what’s going on, you can enable Ambient Sound mode. With this mode enabled, I found it easy to listen to the sound of people talking nearby.

How do the EarFun Wave Pro sound?

You’ll need to look elsewhere if you want the best audio quality. The sound of the EarFun Wave Pro is quite acceptable for casual music listening.

Multi-Dimensional Audio Quality Scores (MDAQS)

The chart below shows how the sound of the EarFun Wave Pro was assessed by the Multi-Dimensional Audio Quality Score (MDAQS) algorithm from HEAD acoustics.

The MDAQS performance of the EarFun Wave Pro is mediocre. A simulated group of listeners wasn’t blown away by the sound of these headphones and rated them about average compared to other wireless headphones. This means that most people will find the sound quality is just fine.

Reviewer’s notes

Editor’s note: this review uses a hover-enabled glossary to describe sound quality based on a consensus vocabulary. You can read about it here.

The chart above shows the default frequency response of the EarFun Wave Pro alongside the SoundGuys headphone preference curve. The headphones generally follow our preference curve, with some minor deviations. Most notably, the default sound of the headphones has a slight under-emphasis around 300Hz and 3kHz, and above 10kHz.

Can you use the EarFun Wave Pro for phone calls?

With five microphones and an AI noise canceling algorithm, the EarFun Wave Pro microphones perform well in various environments. In our microphone demonstrations below, it is easy to distinguish each word said, though some garbled-sounding artifacts are in the voices. In our simulated office and street noise environments, the microphones do a good job of blocking background noise and focusing on the voices.

EarFun Wave Pro microphone demo (Ideal conditions):

If you only have $80 to spend on headphones, the EarFun Wave Pro are an excellent option. These headphones nail the basics with a comfortable design and hardcover carrying case. Moreover, they are packed with features such as noise canceling, wireless LDAC listening, exceptional battery life, good microphones, and a companion app. You don’t get amazing sound quality, but you can’t ask for too much at this price.

There are several good headphone options for less than $100. One of our go-to recommendations is the 1MORE SonoFlow, $99.99 at Amazon. These headphones have an eerily similar design and features to the EarFun offering. The 1MORE SonoFlow have nearly identical battery life, frequency response, and ANC performance as the EarFun Wave Pro. Just go with whichever one you can get a better price on.