EarFun Wave Pro review: Super comfy cushions, super tinny sound

The EarFun Wave Pro headphones are the first over-ear offering from the young audio brand. The EarFun Air Pro 4 and EarFun Air Pro 3 earbuds are some of our favorite buds from recent testing, so I was super excited to get stuck into the Wave Pros. I thought they could even be some of our best wireless headphones .

At $99, the Wave Pros are a budget offering. But could they be some of the best cheap headphones ? If you need headphones you can wear for eight hours straight, the Wave Pros have your back. The imitation leather cups are silky soft and the super-lightweight headband sits like a cloud. But you’d be sacrificing something for that comfort: sound quality.

Not sure if you should jump on these $99 headphones? Find out my full thoughts in this EarFun Wave Pro headphones review.

EarFun Wave Pro review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? A pair of affordable over-ear headphones from EarFun
• Who is it for? People who need comfortable headphones and don’t mind basic sound quality
• What does it cost? $99 at Amazon U.S. and £79 at Amazon U.K. , although often on sale for less
• What do we like? How comfortable the ear cups are, the acceptable wired sound quality and great battery
• What don’t we like? Sound quality is pretty poor over Bluetooth

EarFun Wave Pro review: Specs

EarFun Wave Pro review: Price & availability

The EarFun Wave Pro headphones are available for $99 at Amazon U.S. and $79 at Amazon U.K . This price places them as a mid-range budget headphone, competing with the JLab JBuds Lux ANC s ($79) and the Audio-Technica ATH-S300BT s ($99). While the JLab Lux ANCs have vibrant, colorful sound quality and Dolby Atmos support, they lack the LDAC support you’ll find on the Wave Pros. And while the Audio-Technica ATH-S300BT headphones delivered weak ANC, they excelled in audio quality — which is where the Wave Pros found themselves floundering.

EarFun Wave Pro review: Design & controls

One of the most impressive aspects of the EarFun Wave Pros are the silky soft cushioned ear cups. The imitation leather fabric sits like a cloud against my skin and I wore these headphones for hours without even realizing they were on my head. If you need a pair of headphones you can wear for 8 hours at a time, these would be a great choice, but only if you’re willing to sacrifice sound quality.

You can customize the touch controls in the EarFun Audio app, but it’s quite limited. I’m used to double clicking to skip forward songs and triple clicking to skip backwards, but you can’t do that on the Wave Pros. You’re limited to choosing either a single click or a long press to execute your commands.

EarFun Wave Pro review: Features & connectivity

The EarFun Wave Pros lack Dolby Atmos support, which you might not expect to get on a pair of budget headphones, unless those budget headphones are the JLab JBuds Lux ANCs ($79). I don’t expect to see Dolby support on a $99 headphone, but it would’ve been a welcome feature, especially as I just finished testing the JLabs. Unfortunately, there’s no aptX support either, which you’ll find on headphones like the Sennheiser Accentum ($179), but for $99, aptX is a bit of a lofty ask.

What I did appreciate about the Wave Pro headphones is the dual connection support. I connected these headphones to my MacBook Air M2 and iPhone 11 simultaneously — and if you receive a call on one, the headphones will automatically switch to that device. This is a great feature for, say, a remote worker listening to music on their phone and needing to answer a call on their computer.

In terms of calling, the Wave Pros are decent. The mic isn’t amazing, but it works. You’ll be able to have a conversation over the phone, even in a windy setting thanks to the EarFun Audio app’s ‘Wind-cut’ mode, but it doesn’t quite eliminate every ounce of wind noise.

EarFun Wave Pro review: App

The EarFun Audio app is a simple enough companion app with everything you need to customize the Wave Pros. Available on iOS and Android , the EarFun Audio app lets you customize your EQ and controls. There are a range of EQ presets such as ‘bass boost’ and ‘vocal enhancer’, but I elected to make my own. As usual, I upped the bass and treble and balanced out the mid-range frequencies, then put the headphones to work.

EarFun Wave Pro review: Audio quality

Given the Wave Pros ship with an aux cable, I felt it was only fair to test the wireless and wired audio quality separately.

When I connected the headphones to my MacBook Pro M1 and loaded up Apple Music, I was pleasantly surprised by the nuance in the music. I listened to ‘Screen Cleaner’ by George Daniel, a thumping electronic track with infectious bass and dancefloor percussion. Through the wired connection, the Wave Pros sounded decent, with heavy bass and a muted mid-range. It wasn’t as nuanced as the Sennheiser Accentum headphones ($179) or the JLab JBuds Lux ANCs ($79), but the sound quality was acceptable for the price.

However, when I switched to Bluetooth, I found myself incredibly disappointed.

While I know Bluetooth quality can never match wired resolution, I didn’t expect this drop in quality. As the Wave Pros have LDAC support, I was excited to listen via my colleague’s Google Pixel 7 Pro . After activating LDAC in the EarFun Audio app, I played ‘Feels Like We Only Go Backwards’ by Tame Impala, curious what the high-res quality would sound like.

While the bass was powerful enough, the treble was tinny, and the mid-range was muffled. It honestly sounds like someone went to Kevin Parker’s recording studio with a tin can and captured the sound in that. This was a real shame, considering I was listening in LDAC, which is supposedly the highest quality Bluetooth codec. In testing, the Sony WH-CH520 ($59) headphones also had impressive sound quality, with crisp bass and electric treble — and they’re $40 cheaper.

To give the Wave Pros a fair shot, I tried with a different genre and my custom EQ. I reckoned that upping everything below 500KHz and lowering mid-range would defeat the tinniness issue, and then I played one of the most bass-heavy songs I could find. ‘Flight fm’ by Joy Orbison always does the trick. This song is almost entirely bass. The squelching, pounding bass sounded good through the WavePros with custom EQ. To test it again, I put on ‘BACKBONE’ by Chase & Status and Stormzy, which managed to add yet more oomph to Stormzy’s already oomph-filled vocals, but the percussion and high notes were lost in the melee. The tinniness issue is all in the mid-range and treble frequencies, which isn’t great for most music.

If you listen to purely bass-heavy music with the wired connection, these headphones might be able to fulfill your needs. But for me, someone who wants a good pair of Bluetooth headphones with high-fidelity sound, the EarFun Wave Pros are simply not good enough for $99.

EarFun Wave Pro review: Verdict

Considering you can get some of the best over-ear headphones with a similar battery life, variety of customization, and superior sound quality for cheaper, I would recommend those over the EarFun Wave Pro headphones: save $20 and get a better sound quality with the JLab JBuds Lux ANCs. While the Lux ANCs aren’t as comfortable to wear for long periods, the sound is far more impressive.

If the Wave Pros were $70 instead of $100, I would be able to recommend them for their comfort alone. But for this price, I can’t get behind the tinny mid-range and treble. Maybe EarFun should stick to making incredible earbuds instead.