How to buy perfect headphones: Full Buying Guide

I hope you’ll agree with me when I say:

Life is not possible today without a good pair of headphones. Or is it?

Well, there is only ONE problem. Finding “Good” headphones isn’t an easy job now a days.

Market is just flooded with different types of headphones and it's very difficult to get best yet affordable headphones.

In this post, we'll discuss some of the most famous headphones types. 

So, let's begin.

Headphones Buying Guide 2018:

There are many different types of headphones right now, and some of them are as follows:

1. In-ear monitors (IEMs) and earbuds
2. Over-ear
3. On-ear

In-ear monitors (or IEMs) are those that fit snugly inside each ear canal. Most of the sports headphones are of this category. 

Earbuds on the other hand are like small drivers that rest on the ridge of your outer ear. Earbuds varies from very affordable one's to very expensive one's also.

Over-ear or around-ear headphones have cushioned ear-cups that encloses the ears almost completely. These are very good with isolation and are considered best in terms of the sound quality you can get from headphones.

On-ear headphones are very much similar to the over-ear headphones, though the cushions sit on the outer ear rather than enclosing the ears. These provide less bass but very good sound quality.

Now, there are wired and wireless headphones also.

Wired headphones:

Wired headphones connect to your MP3 player, phone, streaming device, or other audio device using a wire. Advantages include excellent sound quality, and the fact that they do not require any batteries. Gamers often prefer wired headphones so they never have to worry about batteries dying in the midst of a heated match. Plus, some wired headphones include highly reflective cords to provide greater visibility while walking or jogging at night.

Wireless headphones:

Wireless headphones are great for sports and outdoor uses, since they don't require you to connect to a music player using wires. Instead, wireless technology connects the headphones to your music player, giving you freer movement and fewer tangles.

Most wireless headphones use Bluetooth, a technology that digitally encodes audio and transmits sound wirelessly over short distances. Bluetooth is a popular format because it's highly reliable, and most new smartphones and laptops have built-in Bluetooth functionality — syncing with Bluetooth-enabled headphones is quick and easy. Of course, there are other types of wireless technologies as well.

Now, let's discuss about some of the very important headphones features on which you have to get a hold on before buying them.

1. Noise cancellation
2. Sound isloation
3. Volume limiting
4. Bone conduction
5. Surround sound
6. Microphones and, 
7. Controls

Some more things you need to know about headphones:

Frequency Response:

This is the spec that tells you the range of sound that the product is capable of producing measured in Hertz (Hz). If you look on the box of any audio product this number is usually around 20Hz – 20,000Hz, with the first number representing the lowest frequency and the second representing the highest. This number varies depending on the product, but for reference, humans can only hear between 20Hz – 20,000Hz which is why that’s the range most products aim for.

Noise Isolation v.s Active Noise Cancellation:

This is one of those things that sound similar, but mean very different things. Noise isolation just means that the product physically sits between your ear and outside sound, thus blocking outside noise from entering your ear. Think of something like a pair of earbuds. The ‘buds are physically wedged in your ear, muffling outside noise simply by being there. That is noise isolation.

Active noise cancellation (ANC) works differently, though the end goal is the same. Products with ANC have tiny microphones in them that pick up outside sounds. The headphones then produce the opposite sound wave in order to actively cancel out the unwanted noise. It’s all based on physics and wave properties so as you can imagine, it’s not an easy thing to accomplish. When headphones claim noise cancelling we usually give their effectiveness a mention in our full reviews because it varies from product to product.

Soundstage:

If someone whispers in your left ear, you’ll know to look over your left shoulder. In a sense, that’s what sound stage is. It’s the ability of a pair of headphones to reproduce spatial cues in a room. In other words, how good a pair of headphones are at tricking your brain into thinking that there are sounds coming from a certain direction.

This varies with headphones, but in general the larger over-ears are better at achieving this than smaller in-ears because the sound has a chance to bounce around your ear before reaching your eardrum. Earbuds pump sound directly into your ear, so there isn’t much room for sound to move around and create the illusion of space. This kind of leads into the next topic.

Open vs closed back:

Closed-back headphones are likely those which are most comfortable.  The motorists at closed back headphones are included from the ear cup store for the part confronting the ear.  This manner sound bounces about but has nowhere to go but in your ear.  These kinds of headphones are great if you do not want external sound entering the ear cup, and in the event that you don't need to have the individual next to you listening to audio (which can be known as noise leakage).  This makes it a fantastic solution for commuters or anybody using cans in a general setting, such as a workplace.

Since you might have figured, open-back headphones would be the contrary.  They don't have their drivers soaked from the cups.  Rather they leave the motorist vulnerable, so external sound could pass freely to the earcup.  Obviously this is not the perfect situation if you breathe or in generally noisy locations.   Since they allow noise to join the ear cups in the environment, the audio has a far superior soundstage.  Obviously, this suggests that in case you use them out in people you will hear what is happening around you rather easily.  

What is flat/neutral sound?

Many times you’ll hear someone refer to a pair of headphones as having a “flat” or a “neutral” sound. Basically this means that the headphones are reproducing the signal they are receiving from the source device with as little deviation from it as possible. It may seem like this is something that you’d want all headphones to do, but there are reasons why most do not.

So, this is all in the headphones buying guide.

Leave a comment below if you liked this guide or if you have any suggestions.