While I grew up listening to music on hand-me-down Sony headphones, I’ve been an earbuds person for as long as I can remember. They’re small, they disappear into a pocket, and they’ve never given me a reason to look for anything bigger. That is, until I booked a long-haul flight recently for a much-needed vacation and realized my earbuds weren’t going to cut it.
Airports and airplanes are practically designed to make you wish you had a proper pair of over-ear headphones, and they frankly fit the travel aesthetic far better than earbuds ever could. So, I started looking for a proper pair, fully prepared to spend flagship money on the classic picks. Well, thank the lord I didn’t, because a budget pair changed my mind.
The Baseus Inspire XH1 are incredible at their price point
Sound by Bose, without the Bose price
One brand I’ve always thought is wildly underrated is Baseus. My entire room, which I also use as my office, is scattered with their gear. I ditched my Apple AirPods for Baseus’s clip-on earbuds a year ago, and there’s a Baseus power bank in my bag, plus their charging stations on both my desk and my bedside table.
Last year, Baseus launched the Inspire XH1 at IFA 2025. The company has a wide range of audio gear, but the Inspire XH1 was its first proper crack at premium over-ear headphones. They retail for $149.99, which is less than half the price of the flagships I’d been eyeing. For instance, the AirPods Max 2 costs $549 and the Sony WH-1000XM6 costs $459.
While Baseus isn’t a flagship name in audio, the XH1’s sound is tuned by a brand that basically defines the flagship end of the market: Bose. The Baseus Inspire XH1 are noise-cancellation headphones that are loaded with the kind of features you’d typically need to pay flagship money for. First up, and most notably, is the sound. Baseus tuned the XH1 in collaboration with Bose, and the Sound by Bose profile is the headline feature. You’ll find the Bose logo sitting right on the headphones, and you’ll find its fingerprints all over the sound, too. Bose’s engineers had a hand in profiling the audio, and you can actually see the tuning they selected laid out in the Baseus app. The emphasis sits in the mid-range and lower treble, which pushes vocals forward and gives tracks a clear, present quality.
Being very frank here, I’m not an audiophile. I can’t dissect frequency curves or tell you the difference between tight, punchy, and boomy bass if you paid me. However, having spent years in the tech industry and being surrounded by these products day in and day out, I’ve developed a decent ear for telling good audio from bad. The XH1 sit firmly on the good side. I’ve been using them exclusively for almost a month now, and the audio is genuinely impressive for the price. Vocals come through clean and up-front, there’s a satisfying weight to the low end without it turning muddy, and everything stays clear even when a track gets busy. In fact, I’ve noticed details in songs I’ve heard a hundred times before that my earbuds had been glossing over.
- Battery Life
-
Up to 100 hours
- Brand
-
Baseus
- Sensitivity
-
20Hz-40kHz
- Transducer Size
-
35mm dynamic driver
- Weight
-
275g
- Noise Cancellation
-
Yes
The Baseus Inspire XH1 are over-ear Bluetooth headphones with adaptive ANC tuned by Bose, Dolby Audio, LDAC Hi-Res support, and up to 100 hours battery life (65h with ANC). Bluetooth 5.4, multipoint connectivity, and comfy padded ear cups make them ideal for travel, commuting, and everyday listening.
I can wear these headphones for hours comfortably
Hours in, and I forget I’m wearing them
I work long hours, and comfort matters to me just as much (maybe a bit more) than sound quality. Even if a pair of headphones sound incredible, they won’t stay on my head if my ears ache after just an hour of wearing them. Thankfully, the XH1 nail this part. The earcups are wrapped in soft protein leather and generously cushioned, the headband has plenty of padding, and they weigh only 275 grams.
I’ve been wearing the headphones through my entire workday, and I forget they’re on by the end of it. Beyond work, I also just came back from a trip, and these headphones were with me throughout. I wore them through 8-hour airport days, and they never became the thing I couldn’t wait to take off.
Along with being lightweight and comfortable, my favorite thing about Baseus’s products is always the incredible battery life. The XH1 are no exception. In fact, they might be the best example yet. Baseus rates them at up to 100 hours of playback with ANC off, dropping to 65 hours with it on. I charged the headphones right before my two-week trip, and then totally forgot about charging them for the rest of it. They lasted the entire trip on that single charge, which is not something I can say about any other pair of headphones or earbuds I own.
They look every bit as premium as they feel
No one will guess what you paid
At the price point, you wouldn’t expect these headphones to look like much. Budget headphones typically look cheap, and you can tell just by looking at them. However, the XH1 look and feel like a pair costing far more. The folding frame is solid rather than plasticky, the plush protein-leather earcups look premium, and they admittedly borrow more than a little from Bose’s premium design language.
Baseus even throws in a proper hard carrying case rather than charging extra for it, and you get four colorways to pick from: Cosmic Black, Starlight Off-White, Twilight Blue, and Sunset Coral (limited edition).
The ANC is better than it has any right to be
The world, on mute
Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) is another factor that’s crucial for me, and I still remember being wowed by my AirPods Pro’s noise cancellation when I first got them. The XH1’s ANC really, really impressed me. The headphones come with a 4-layer hybrid system that Baseus claims can block up to -48dB of noise, along with five levels of ANC to choose from, presets for indoor, outdoor, business, and commuting, and an adaptive mode that adjusts to your surroundings on the fly.
Before my recent trip, I hadn’t taken a flight in 8 years, so I didn’t really remember what people meant when they said good ANC is extremely important on planes. Now, I get it, and it only hit me when I took my headphones off mid-flight and was suddenly hit with the roar of the cabin I’d been tuning out the whole time.
As a whole, these headphones do something I didn’t think was possible at $149.99, and they made me forget about the flagships entirely. If you’re in the market for a proper pair of over-ear headphones and don’t want to spend a small fortune, these should be at the top of your list.
