Headphones are easily the most popular way to enjoy music, and since the dawn of the portable cassette player, not to mention the more recent dawn of the MP3 player, the market has been growing remarkably fast. This is great for enthusiasts, consumers, and professionals alike, because more competition means better products, lower prices, and more innovation. With the ever-increasing popularity of portable media devices, coupled with the new technologies that arise from their development, the market has taken an explosive upturn in just the last 4 years, and there are now headphones for just about any kind of activity imaginable, catering to a wide variety of listening styles, feature sets, and form factor preferences.
Headphones comes in all different sounds, sizes, form factors, and prices, and before even beginning research, it is best to decide exactly what you will be using your headphones for; this is a factor that should influence your choice just as much as your preferred sound or price range, because ultimately it will have just as much importance in whether or not you are satisfied with your purchase. Choosing the right headphones means knowing how big you are comfortable with them being; there are some excellent Bluetooth headphones, and the Bluetooth feature makes them incredibly portable, and yet I would seriously hesitate to recommend it to someone who will use their headphones mostly for jogging or exercise, because they are enormous! Likewise, we would hate for someone planning to do most of their listening at home to compromise the level of fidelity they are able to experience simply because they liked what they heard about headphones listed in the Running section.
Setting a price limit for yourself can be very useful as well. Audio products are subject to drastic diminishing returns at around $100-$300, depending on how acute one's hearing is, and only those with well-trained or exceptional naturally endowed hearing abilities will be able to notice differences in levels of detail and refinement between headphones above this price range. Many enthusiasts and audiophiles begin their lengthy, often expensive quests for the perfect headphones by doing exactly what you are doing right now, and while we always encourage people to try as many products as possible, we would hate for someone to spend more than they need to just to find a sound they can be happy with.
All that being said, audio preferences are, first and foremost, subjective, and ultimately what matters most is that you enjoy your music, so if you find a sound you really like, stick with it! Most headphones, even those described using similar terms, or possessing very similar frequency response curves, sound very different when the sound hits your ears, so if you've got something that really sounds good to your ears, it's usually a good idea to either keep what you've got, or perhaps upgrade within the same line of products. Again, we always encourage people to try as many products as possible, especially before buying one, but if you find yourself 99% satisfied with a particular product, it's usually futile to go back out and find something totally new in an attempt to correct the one tiny flaw you have found in an otherwise great headphone.
So please, read on, and enjoy! Remember that the best way to learn about headphones is to hear them, so be sure to look up your local HiFi or audiophile store and pay them a visit to see what models they have in stock; the people who work at such places are usually very knowledgeable, and may wind up being an even more valuable resource to you than anything you read on the web.
For more information on what to look at in selecting the best headphones in 2021, We have listed below the best headphones available for you to help you decide what product is best to buy.