CMF Buds 2 Plus reviewed: perfect for the price

It’s difficult to know what to expect with a pair of $100 noise cancelling earbuds, but the CMF Buds 2 Plus challenges expectations.

How much earphones does $100 buy? That’s a question cheap-as-chips sellers have been taking advantage of for several years now, and chances are you’ve seen them in your local department store.

Budget models. Cheap models. The sort of earphones and earbuds your ears might almost literally grimace at simply upon glance.

We’ve tried a pair before, and they’re not the sort of thing we’ll actively go out of our way to stick in our ears, especially because spending a little bit more almost always affords you much better quality.

But what if you only had $100 to spend: is there a pair of budget earbuds that can actually deliver on value?

It turns out there may well be, as Nothing’s value-focused brand CMF looks to challenge expectations with a pair of noise cancelling buds that won’t hit the wallet too hard at all. Are the CMF Buds 2 Plus worth their low price, or are they worth more?

Design and features

Oh my, it’s another pair of earbuds, and one from a release that actually saw three pairs at once. Similar but different seems to be the order of this release, but the Buds 2 Plus are the very ones that have our attention, and they are exactly what you’d expect design-wise from a pair of buds these days.

There’s an obvious earphone design with in-ear tips, a rather obvious stem, and a little box to obviously hold the earphones, which do so with a magnet to keep them in place.

The CMF Buds 2 Plus are obviously in-earphones, on earbuds with tips, whichever approach you want to call them.

Inside, they sport 12mm drivers and tuning by Nothing, the maker of transparent earphones and similarly see-through headphones, which also owns CMF.

There’s support for active noise cancellation with a transparency mode, plus support for a low-lag gaming mode, fast pair on Android devices, and support for water resistance with IP55 on the buds, but IPX2 on the case.

Officially, CMF touts up to 61 hours of use in total with the case and a little over 14 for the buds, though that numbers gets shaved in half with noise cancellation on, and down even further with LDAC’s high-res audio powered up, which these also support.

The case is a little different, too, offering a tiny box that comes with a little circle that keeps spinning around, and can thread a strap through it so you can keep the CMF Buds 2 Plus easily nearby, possibly on your wrist or keys.

Oh, and they’re also quite inexpensive, priced at $109, which is one of the key points about them.

In-use

For $100, it’s difficult to know what to expect, but you will find touch-sensitive tap controls on the stem, even though they’re a little less from what we typically expect.

You can double tap each side to move forward a track and triple tap to go back. You can even tap and hold to change the cancellation mode, opening up transparency mode if you so choose or going back to noise cancellation.

But what you cannot do is tap them once to pause and play.

In what is easily one of the most curious omissions, there’s no pause or play tap, with CMF’s approach a little different: pull the earphones out of your ears and they’ll pause. That… works… but it’s distinct to say pressing the controls.

And it gives you an idea that the controls may not be as ironed out as CMF or Nothing had hoped. That feeling comes across as you use the earphones, too. Taps aren’t always registered, and a double tap can quickly become a triple tap by accident if the stem registers some of the taps, but not all of them.

Just keep your phone nearby, because it’s much better at controls than the stem.

Performance

Fortunately, there’s more going on with the CMF Buds Plus 2, with the sound a critical part. Some might say it is the critical part, given playing audio is literally their job.

As usual, we’re testing with the Pickr Sound Test, an assortment of several music genres and key tracks that you can test for yourself, and it starts with the electronic of Tycho and Daft Punk, artists that deliver a good balance of spectrums.

With Tycho’s “Glider”, we get a comfortable sound with a bit of heft on the lows, and one that differs based on the equaliser setting you pick. Rock brings the bass, while pop evens things out to be closer to normal.

We left the Buds 2 Plus in pop for the rest of the review, which reads more like a signature sound in the grand scheme of things, and that made sense.

Left with that setting, the meatiness on Daft Punk was controlled while still offering a reasonable heft, while the punch of Carly Rae Jepsen’s pop magic was comfortable with decent punch.

That was fairly consistent through much of what we listened to, with decent mids and highs, and a good thunk from the bass. It’s not a warm sound where the mids and lows shine simultaneously, but rather a more punchy one that pushes hard on some tracks more than others.

Take our regular track to measure bass oomph with FKA Twigs’ “Two Weeks”. Throwing this track to a pair of budget earphones is like throwing the buds to the wolves, because you just know budget buds will fail it.

Meanwhile, the CMF Buds 2 Plus handle their own, delivering surprisingly deep and spacious bass. It’s not overly detailed, and some of it fuzzes out almost too easily, but the response is a lot better than we expected.

In fact, most music sounds nice provided that EQ setting is in the right place. It can change a lot with the Buds 2 Plus, and we found pop tended to be as closed to balance as you could get. From rock to jazz and even into some soul, the CMF Buds 2 Plus performed on a level we’d expect from a $200 to $300 pair of earbuds, and hardly one hitting the $100 mark.

It’s a nice kind of surprise.

Noise cancellation

One of the main features worth talking about is the noise cancellation, because at this price point, it is practically unheard of.

With fairness to CMF, the active noise cancellation isn’t incredible on offer, but it does do a decent job with. the standard repeatable sounds, and can help you feel more isolated from the hum-drum of the outside world.

Train noise will be quelled that little bit, and flights should be fine, too. Don’t expect it to deal wth people talking all that much; we found the human choir of individuals talking amongst themselves bled in, distinct from the adaptive tech used in more expensive earphones, like the Apple AirPods Pro 3 and the Bose QuietComfort Ultra 2nd-gen.

Of course, the CMF Buds 2 Plus aren’t remotely in the same category, coming in at roughly one quarter the price of each of these.

Battery

The battery is also better than expected, though you may want to go off experience rather than CMF’s numbers, which are optimistic because they’re measured without noise cancellation turned on. That’s the “up to 14 hours” CMF talks about, with an extra few charges in the case totally around 61 hours total.

On paper, that looks like a lot of time. In practice, noise cancellation slashes it in half, and they become rather normal for truly wireless noise cancelling earphones.

It’s unlikely you’ll use ANC earphones without the noise cancellation component, so instead expect between up to 6 to 7 hours of battery life, which still isn’t bad, and closer to 28 to 30 all up.

That’s still fine, though it’s not best in class. We suspect the overall CMF case size has added to this: by making a small pair of earbuds and a somewhat matched case, the limitation is there. It’s not a major issue, though, and isn’t far from what Apple achieves out of its earbuds, either.

Value

One area that CMF has absolutely nailed, however, is the value, which delivers a staggering amount of quality for more or less rather than you would expect from 100 bucks.

$100. That’s how much these things cost.

Technically, it’s $109, and it doesn’t take much to find the CMF Buds 2 Plus at a lower price point, which is even better value entirely.

These are definitely in the running for best value earbuds all year, and maybe then some.

What needs work?

There are things that could do with an improvement, though, such as the controls which can feel a little lacklustre at times, or even the cancellation which could also be better.

The inclusion of spatial is interesting, though it’s more of a gimmick here in the CMF Buds 2 Plus and hardly an extra you’ll care about. The option for spatial sits over the top and emulates the sound, but isn’t quite on the level as other more expensive offerings. Nice to have.

So far, these are all things that would cause a bit of an issue in more expensive earphones.

In fact, about our only price relevant criticism is the lack of wireless charging in the case. The earphone case is small and easily pocketable, but you will need to bring with a USB-C charger to top it up.

What we love

But what we love about these earphones is the value.

It doesn’t matter if the Buds 2 Plus are missing wireless charging, nor does it matter if there are better earphones for $100 more. The point is more that for $109, CMF’s offering is stellar value, and these days, the street price is crazily less.

At the time of publishing, a glance around via search could find the Buds 2 Plus for $95, making them even better value altogether.

The other aspect we love is in the case, and it’s a feature Nothing is known for, but that no one else does: a fidget spinner of sorts.

In Nothing’s own buds, the fidget spinner is a depressed touch spot that you kind of rotate in your fingers. You have to know that it’s there.

With the CMF Buds 2 Plus, the little dial that can hold a simple case strap acts like a fidget spinner in a literal sense, giving your idle fingers something to do. It’s small and cute, and feels like the sort of design addition someone just thought would be nice to have. And it is, if not totally unexpected.

CMF Buds 2 Plus vs the competition

In terms of what else is out there, CMF is competing against a lot of no-name options, and then some that come from surprisingly decent names, as well.

The $100 price point for earphones is a relatively sizeable area, but the options tend to be served by lesser known brands with budget offerings that will do the job, but only barely. The sound will invaribly be bright or booming, but miss the balance, and if they have noise cancellation, it won’t be good. You’ll be lucky to find an app.

On the other hand, CMF’s Buds 2 Plus are actually worth their rather diminutive price. It’s hard to argue against them, which isn’t unlike CMF’s other solid value headphone proposition, the Headphone Pro.

Final thoughts (TLDR)

Any time we hear the word “budget”, it always comes with a catch. The idea of getting something made for a budget price is always nice, but something has to give.

In earphones, it’s usually the quality. The sound will lose out, or the design will be cumbersome, or the materials won’t be great; something will lose out to the price.

With the CMF Buds 2 Plus, what’s been lost is so minor, it barely warrants a mention. For the price, they’re actually stunning value, and while there are much better earphones out there, little comes to mind at this price point.

If all you have is $100 to spend, CMF’s Buds 2 Plus are an excellent buy, with virtually nothing wasted. They’re not perfect, but they are perfect for the price. Recommended.