Headphones can be an extremely important part of one’s daily life. The choice will change the way you perceive sensations in audio, from familiar sounds to the completely new. With so many brands and makes out there, you’ll want to find the perfect pair for your needs. In order to make the right decision, here are some helpful tips on how to pick the best headphones.
Before you buy a pair of headphones, ask yourself these questions:
1. How will you be using your new headphones? What exact purposes/situations?
2. Are you a professional or consumer user?
3. What environment(s) will you be using them in? How noisy can they be?
4. How many hours per day/week will you be using them?
5. What’s the budget?
With your answers in mind, let’s go through some specifics:
Sony MDR-7506 Professional Folding Headphones ($98), Sennheiser CX 300-II Precision In-Ear Headphones ($36)
The first important choice you need to make: Better (fuller) sound, or convenience and portability? Ear buds fit directly into your ear canal and give a more focused, but somewhat smaller or flatter sound. They are primarily made with stealth use in mind, often sacrificing performance.
On the other hand, with full-size headphones - which can get so big that they completely wrap around your ear - you will usually experience more bass, a more natural feel, and depth of space.
Depending on the make, ear buds will often give you less isolation than full-sized headphones. Both can sometimes have special noise-cancelling features for maximum comfort in noisy areas, but usually the full-sized ones perform better in this area. Sometimes you might want this (travelling on a bus), other times it’s safer to have some background noise seep through (walking in a street).
Over the course of time, some headphones get less comfortable than others. Ear buds tend to give you more fatigue in comparison to full-sized, but it really depends on the make and ultimately your ears. Even if you spend an hour trying out different headphones out in the store, it can be hard to tell if you will be comfortable with prolonged usage. With size often comes comfort, and the more padding the better. The good thing about in-ears is that they usually come with at least three different sized interchangeable tips, which can be made out of rubber or foam.
Beats by Dr. Dre Solo2 Wireless Bluetooth Headphones ($235.05), Sennheiser HD7 DJ Closed Pro Headphones ($249.95)
Sometimes, wireless can mean less quality (depending on the system) when compared to a hard connection, but cables can get entangled and break. Wireless HPs have the added weight of batteries in them, which you have to charge/replace, but you don’t have to worry about the mess each time you take your HPs out. They have the obvious advantage of being able to move independently from the source, so that might be a good feature to consider if you have such a need.
Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro Headphones ($199.99), Shure SRH1440 Professional Open-Back Stereo Headphones ($299)
This is really an option with full-sized HPs only, and can boil down to this: open backs usually bring higher quality sound, but have less isolation (because of their “open back” design, which lets more air through the back of the speaker). The more common ones (especially in the lower price range) are the closed back, which also tend to isolate more background noise. Engineers in audio studios tend to gravitate toward the open backs for mixing purposes (if they need to mix on HPs) as they deliver the sense of space extremely well, but when it’s time to track anything in the live room, they always go for the closed back to avoid the “bleed” (unwanted sound from the headphones going into the microphone).
Special Features:
How loud a pair of headphones gets depends on their impedance. This might seem like a complicated world of ohms and advanced physics, but really it comes down to this: if you will be using them with a small battery powered device (smartphone, tablets, etc.) go for the HPs with smaller impedance range (16-32 ohms), as they use the power more effectively. If you want to use them with a home stereo or a big headphones amplifier, look for bigger impedance (80-100 ohms).
Some headphones have a special system with little microphones built into them to minimize the background noise. They do this by actively changing the audio being played in that way that when you combine it with the background noise you only get the original audio. Some of them can even do the opposite and let the background noise in, if need be. It’s highly advanced technology, so it can be pricey, but it’s still a very cool feature.
This feature is meant to deal with the background noise in a passive way, by blocking as much of it as possible with having extra isolating material in the headphones.
A small condenser mic can expand the use of your headphones. For example you can use them as a hands-free headset for your phone. It’s usually integrated in the cable, sometimes coupled with an in-line controller.
These are two sizes of the full-sized headphones, one wrapping around and over your whole ear (bigger), while the other merely goes on the top of it (smaller). Often the over-ear ones tend to give more isolation and comfort over a longer period of time.
This type of headphone includes a small control module integrated into the cable (in-line), giving you control over volume and sometimes other basic features, often coupled with a mic.
These are all important considerations to keep in mind, especially when it comes to the environment you will be using your new headphones in. Ultimately it’s important to know your budget so you can implement the features you want/need, and the market today is so diverse that you can be sure to get the best product for you, on your budget.
