Compare the Best HeadphonesMay 2021

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

In total we found 804 earphones ranging from $5 to $8,646. A new headphones costs on average $138 and 80% of headphones are priced between $13 and $226. The B&O H4 is the most expensive headphones that we found at $8,646, and the Koss KEB6I is the cheapest at only $6.

Headphones Brands - Price Range

B&O earphones start at $8,646 and their most expensive earphone costs $8,646. The average price of B&O earphones is $8,646 which is the highest average price of all earphone brands.

The average price of HiFiMAN earphones is $2,679 which is the second highest average price of all headphones brands. HiFiMAN earphones range in price from $2,679 to $2,679.

Audeze headphones range in price from $179 to $3,595, and the average price of Audeze headphones is $1,287 which is the third highest average price of all earphone brands.

Headphones Brands - Average Ratings

We have analysed 11,537 expert reviews and 45,260 user reviews for earphones and used this data to calculate the average rating for each brand of earphone. The top rated earphone brand is Audio-Technica with an average rating of 87%. The second best brand is Sony with 87% and the third best brand is Sennheiser with 80%.

Biggest Earphone Retailers

The biggest earphone retailer by number of products currently for sale is eBay. We found 1,149 current earphone offers from eBay. The second biggest retailer is Adorama with 323 offers. That means eBay is over 3 times bigger than Adorama when it comes to earphones. Overstock is the third biggest retailer with 72 current offers.

When Are Most New Earphones Released?

We looked at the release dates for new earphones over the last 3 years, but couldn't see any noticeable pattern. In April 2020, 17 new headphones were released making it the biggest month that year for new headphones releases. April was also the biggest month in 2019 for new headphones, with 54 new headphones released that month. The biggest month in 2018 for new headphones releases was December, with 109 new earphones released that month.

How Fast Do Headphones Prices Drop After Release?

New headphones drop in price by an average of 4% in the first 6 months after they were first released.

That means that on a typical headphones costing $138 you could save on average $6 by waiting 6 months before buying.

Weights

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

Across the range of headphones, the weights range from 0.012g to 6.3kg. The weights of the majority of headphones range from 0g to 40g. The earphone with the heaviest weight is the Sennheiser HD 569, which is a 757g headphones and sells for $99.00. The headphones with the lightest weight is the Philips SHE3905, which is a 0.012g headphones and is on sale for $8.90.

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.

Comparing all headphones, the driver sizes range from 4mm to 140mm. The driver sizes of the majority of earphones range from 38mm to 44mm. The Audeze LCD-X, which can be purchased for $1,199.00, has the biggest driver size and is a 106mm driver earphone. The earphone with the smallest driver size is the Klipsch T5II, which is a 5mm driver earphone and is available at $129.00.

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. 793 out of 1,679 headphones do are earphones which support Bluetooth and 884 headphones out of 1,679 are earphones which do not support Bluetooth.

Style

The way in which the device is worn.

The most common style amongst new earphones is head-band. We found 829 earphones that are earphones that have a head-band style. We found 482 headphones that are earphones that have an in-ear style, making in-ear the second most common style amongst new headphones.

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.

The most popular type amongst new headphones is in-ear. We found 787 headphones that are in-ear earphones. Over-ear is the second most frequently found type amongst new earphones. We found 460 earphones that are over-ear headphones.

Which Are the Cheapest Retailers for Headphones?

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 earphones. 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. 1,055 of their headphones prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.

Proportion of Earphones 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. 91.8% of their earphone prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.