Compare the Best HeadphonesNovember 2020

Headphones are a crucial part of everyday life, and your choice of headphone is a deeply personal one. From tiny in-ear monitors to enormous studio-quality cans, headphones come in all shapes, sizes, weights and colours. For someone not sure what they should get - or what they want - it can be a daunting issue. Our guide will attempt to answer some of the most common questions about headphones and give you an good overall knowledge of them.

Types Of Headphones

Let’s start with the different types of headphones. There are many different designs, but they all boil down to 2 different types: in-ear and on-ear. In-ear headphones are normally smaller, cheaper and with lessened sound quality - they are good for travel and easy to shove in a pocket when not in use. On-ear headphones tend to be larger and more chunky, but have a far superior sound quality (and normally, a far higher price to match). Let’s take a look at the difference between them:

Driver Units

Once you’ve decided the type of headphone you want, things get a bit more technical - next you want to think about driver unitss and power. Driver units are simply the part of the headphone that generates noise - they convert the audio signal into actual sound. Larger drivers mean the headphones are capable of generating more sound, making them louder. Crucially, this doesn’t mean the sound they generate will be a better quality, just that it’ll be louder. However it’s a good starting point for a pair of headphones - generally speaking better quality headphones will have larger drivers, so they have more volume and range to play with.

Unsurprisingly, on-ear headphones tend to have larger driver units, since they have a lot more space available to fill. In-ear phones generally don’t need particularly big driver units though - pushing the sound directly into your ear canal means a little goes a long way, and if you’re not careful a very loud volume can cause serious damage to your hearing.

Closed Ear vs. Open Ear

One important nuance of on-ear headphones is the choice between closed ear and open ear designs. This refers to how the cups of the headphones are designed, and how much noise insulation they give, as well as how they effect the sound of your music. Here is the main difference between the two;

Wired vs. Wireless

A quick note on wired and wireless headphones. Traditionally headphones have been entirely wired - meaning the audio signal was sent from the music source to the headphones via a wire. However in recent years the rise of bluetooth and improvements in battery technology have meant wireless headphones are becoming more and more common. These headphones have an internal rechargeable battery (some still use AAs, but these are blessedly rare) and connect to the music source via bluetooth. This allows them to stream music from a phone, computer or hifi without the need for wires - meaning no getting tangled up in cables, no trapping/breaking cables and the freedom to roam away from your computer when listening to music!

There are some negatives to wireless headphones - first off, they usually come at a premium price when compared to standard wired headphones. Moreover, they need power to function - most use a rechargeable battery - which means that if the battery runs dry, you will either have to plug in a wire, or use a different pair of headphones. Battery life varies massively with wireless headphones - some will only get 5-6 hours of life before needing a recharge, while others boast a full 24 hours of use before they die. Pay close attention to the battery life, especially if you use your headphones for long journeys. Finally, wireless headphones can experience some latency - the lag between the signal being sent to the headphones, and it being heard by your ears. When listening to music, this isn’t a massive issue - a few milliseconds of lag isn’t noticeable at all. However if you are watching a movie or playing a video game, larger amounts of latency may cause the audio in your headphones to run out of sync with the video, leading to a sub-par experience. Generally though, the tech for wireless headphones has progressed enough that a good £150-200 pair of wireless headphones will serve you very well indeed!

Extra Features

Headphones come in many different shapes and sizes, and with a lot of different extra bells and whistles. Here are some of the more common additions:

Earphone Prices

The price range of headphones is from $5 to $8,646 and in total we found prices for 753 headphones. A new headphones costs on average $127 and 80% of earphones are priced between $12 and $225. The cheapest headphones that we found is the Scosche thudBUDS at only $5, and the most expensive is the B&O H4 at $8,646.

Headphones Brands - Price Range

The highest average headphones price out of all brands is B&O earphones with an average price of $8,646. B&O earphones start at $8,646 and their most expensive headphones costs $8,646.

The average price of HiFiMAN headphones is $2,679 which is the second highest average price of all earphone brands. HiFiMAN headphones start at $2,679 and their most expensive earphone costs $2,679.

Audeze headphones range in price from $80 to $2,799, and the average price of Audeze headphones is $956 which is the third highest average price of all headphones brands.

Headphones Brands - Average Ratings

We have analysed 7,516 expert reviews and 30,739 user reviews for headphones and used this data to determine the average rating for each brand of earphone. The top three headphones brands are Sony, Audio-Technica and Sennheiser. Sony has an average rating of 88%, Audio-Technica has an average rating of 88% and Sennheiser has an average rating of 82%.

Biggest Earphone Retailers

We found 1,064 current offers for headphones from eBay making it the biggest earphone retailer. That is over 3 times bigger than the second biggest retailer, Adorama for whom we found 301 current offers for headphones. The third biggest retailer is e-Global Central US with 68 current earphone offers.

When Are Most New Earphones Released?

April to May is the most common period for new earphones to be released in. If you wait until April 2021 then you might be able to get better features on your headphones. Alternatively you might be able to buy one of the current earphones cheaper in April once the latest models have been released. The biggest month last year for new earphone releases was April, with 62 new headphones released that month. In 2018 most new earphones were released in December, with 113 new earphones released that month. May was the biggest month in 2017 for new earphones, with 160 new earphones released that month.

How Fast Do Earphone Prices Drop After Release?

On average, in the first 6 months after release, earphones drop in price by 4%.

A typical new headphones costs on average $127. By waiting 6 months before buying you could save on average $5.

Weights

'Weight' denotes how heavy the headphones are, measured in grams (g).

The weights of earphones range from 0.012g to 6.3kg. The weights of the majority of headphones range from 0g to 40g. The Philips SHP250010, which currently retails for $28.36, has the heaviest weight and is a 909g earphone. The headphones with the lightest weight is the Philips SHE3905, which is a 0.012g earphone and currently retails for $11.72.

Driver Sizes

The driver unit is the part of the headphone that converts the audio signal into actual sound. This attribute denotes the physical size of this driver unit, measured in millimetres.

The driver sizes of headphones range from 4mm to 195mm. The driver sizes of most headphones range from 38mm to 44mm. The earphone with the biggest driver size is the Philips TAUH202BK, which is a 195mm driver earphone and is on sale for $43.19. The earphone with the smallest driver size is the Jabra Elite Sport, which is a 5.1mm driver earphone and is priced at $39.99.

Bluetooth

The denotes whether the headphones support wireless Bluetooth communication or not.

The number of new headphones that do and are earphones which do not support Bluetooth is roughly the same. 722 headphones out of 1,590 do are earphones which support Bluetooth and 862 headphones out of 1,590 are earphones which do not support Bluetooth.

Style

The way in which the device is worn.

Head-band is the most common style amongst new earphones. We found 804 earphones that are headphones that have a head-band style. In-ear is the second most common style amongst new headphones. We found 441 headphones that are earphones that have an in-ear style.

Type

Ear coupling describes the way in which headphones or earphones stay attached to, or inside, the ear. There are three common types of ear coupling: circumaural, supra-aural and intra-aural. Circumaural headphones enclose your ears with large pads that suppress external noise. Supra-aural headphones are typically more lightweight and sit on top of the ears with small pads. Intra-aural headphones come in two basic designs and neither style sits on the head itself. The first are ear buds, which sit just outside of the ear canal, on top of your ear lobes. The second type is actually inserted directly into the ear canal and offers some external noise suppression.

We found 741 headphones that are in-ear earphones, which makes this the most common type amongst new headphones. We found 457 earphones that are over-ear headphones, making over-ear the second most frequently found type amongst new earphones.

Which Are the Cheapest Retailers for Earphones?

The chart below helps you decide which retailer is normally cheapest for buying earphones. For each retailer it shows the total number of earphones where they currently have a market leading price. The chart below helps you decide which retailer is normally cheapest for buying headphones. For each retailer we took all of their prices and looked at what proportion of those prices where the cheapest on the market. The cheapest retailer that we found was eBay. 1,008 of their headphones prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.

Proportion of Headphones for Which Each Retailer is Cheapest?

Assessing how cheap each retailer is for earphones by counting the number of cheapest prices for that retailer, makes the retailers that offer the greatest number of headphones prices more likely to offer the greatest number of cheapest prices. The chart below considers the proportion of each retailer's headphones prices that are the cheapest compared to other retailers. The cheapest retailer that we found using this approach was eBay. 94.7% of their earphone prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.