Compare The Best Philips HeadphonesAugust 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:

Philips Earphone Prices

The price range of Philips earphones is from $6 to $160 and in total we found prices for 44 Philips earphones. The average price of a new Philips headphones is $36 and the 80% of Philips headphones are priced between $10 and $70. The cheapest Philips headphones that we found is the Philips SHE3550 at only $7, and the most expensive is the Philips SHD8850 at $160.

Price Range of Philips Headphones

Philips earphones range in price from $7 to $160, and the average price of Philips earphones is $36 which is the 92nd highest average price of all headphones brands.

How Good Are Philips Headphones?

We have analysed 7,375 expert reviews and 29,226 user reviews for headphones and used this information to calculate an average rating for Philips headphones of 57%. This makes Philips the 12th best headphones brand according to customer reviews.

When Are Most New Philips Earphones Released?

We looked at the release dates for new Philips headphones over the last 3 years, but couldn't see any clear pattern. Two new Philips headphones were released in September 2019 making it the biggest month that year for new Philips earphone releases. In December 2018, six new Philips earphones were released making it the biggest month that year for new Philips earphone releases. The biggest month in 2017 for new Philips earphone releases was January, with 16 new Philips headphones released that month.

How Fast Do Philips Headphones Prices Drop After Release?

Philips earphones tend to depreciate more slowly than most earphones. Most earphones drop in price by 2% in the first 6 months after release. In the first 6 months after release, Philips headphones drop in price by 0% on average.

A typical new Philips headphones costs on average $122. By waiting 6 months before buying you could save on average $1.