When people talk about audio in gaming, what always comes up is latency. It makes sense: nobody wants a huge gap between what they see and what they hear, just like how nobody wants a huge gap from when they pressed the button to when the action happens on screen. But the idea that you need the absolute lowest latency for every game, all the time has gotten a little exaggerated.

Some titles absolutely need it, sure, but plenty of genres play perfectly fine even if your earbuds sit a bit higher on the latency. Most players don’t realize that their own habits and the types of games they actually spend hours on matter far more than hitting an ideal millisecond number on a spec sheet.

Think about single-player adventure games or story-driven RPGs.

These games are carried by worldbuilding, voice acting, and environmental sound. Your timing inputs aren’t tied to split-second audio cues. If the sword swing sound lands just a fraction behind the animation, you’re not losing a boss fight because of it (unless it’s a game like Hollow Knight, of course). Exploration-heavy titles give your brain room to compensate. The audio is still immersive, still atmospheric, and still enjoyable, even if your setup isn’t the fastest out there.

Then you have open-world games where traversal, looting, and ambient sound take priority over razor-sharp timing. The music swells when you discover a landmark. A creature snarls somewhere behind the foliage. The delay between that cue and your reaction isn’t what decides your enjoyment of the experience. What matters is the soundstage, the sense of space, and whether your earbuds keep you absorbed in the world.

Low latency helps, but it’s not the factor that makes or breaks your experience.

Racing games are another mixed bag. If you’re competing seriously, you want fast cues from engine noise, tire grip, or collisions. But most players aren’t running hardcore sim setups and arguably, your controllers matter a lot more here because much like in real life driving depends more on your visual senses than auditory.

Casual racers can live with a little sound lag because the experience is more visual than auditory. You react to the track, the curves, and other cars long before you react to a specific sound effect. Unless you’re shaving tenths of a second off lap times, latency isn’t going to ruin your session and if it were, you’re best to square off your controller latency first before going into audio.

Strategy games fall even further from the latency priority totem pole: RTS games, city builders, turn-based tactics, and anything of that sort relies primarily on visuals and planning. Sound takes a supportive role, not a decisive one. If the confirmation beep when you place a building lands a couple of milliseconds late, is that the detail that makes you win or lose, and not the right sequence of buildings to be made or units to be trained?.

You’re not timing attacks by ear. You’re thinking several moves ahead while the audio adds flavor and clarity rather than acting as a critical input signal.

Even shooters vary depending on the subgenre.

Competitive titles with tight gunplay and positional audio benefit from low latency more than anything else listed here. Still, not all shooters are competitive shooters. Plenty of people play slower campaigns, co-op horde modes, or tactical games where communication and awareness matter more than absolute audio speed. A slightly higher latency won’t sabotage the whole experience unless you’re aiming to compete at a high level – or if your headphones or earbuds have horrendously bad latency (~150ms and up)

Sports games, platformers, puzzle games, rhythm-lite titles, and casual mobile games all land somewhere in the middle. Sound helps and makes the moment more satisfying, but very few of them rely on audio timing with enough precision that you’d notice anything unless the latency was unusually high. These genres are built around visual feedback loops and repetitive patterns, so your brain adapts quickly. If anything, refresh rate matters more in these games.

The point isn’t that latency doesn’t matter. It does.

If you can get lower latency, get it. And we recommend always getting the lowest latency you can because it gives you more overhead for when things do end up slowing down momentarily, because they do!

But decisions around which gaming gear to get shouldn’t happen in a vacuum. Most players switch between genres, and plenty of those genres don’t demand perfect timing between action and sound. What you play, how often you play it, and how seriously you treat each session matter a lot more than chasing the smallest number on a product page.

Aim for good latency if you can. But let context and your real habits guide your buying choices.

Or you can check out our top choices for what we believe are the best gaming earbuds in the market. Not all earbuds are made the same so our focus here is on earbuds specifically built for gaming, with all the right features needed for games more than music, movies, or streaming consumption.

You can check out our list here.