The perfect headphones - do they exist?

[engbren]

I’m not sure if the perfect headphones/earphones exist! My main use cases are listening to music on the go, commuting on the train,taking video calls in the office which can get pretty noisy and less frequently watching streaming video such as Netflix.

The in-ear or bud styles I like the convenience of but they always irritate my ears so I can’t use them for long periods of time.

For on-ear, I’ve tried:
- Beats Studio 3 - i picked these up years ago and found the audio quality on these to be quite good, noise cancellation certainly reduces noise but isn’t amazing and there is no transparency mode. The microphone for video calls is sufficient. The big drawback with these is the clamping force around the head causes me discomfort even after years of use and the older Bluetooth protocol gets quite a lot of interference on the commute.

- Sennheiser HD450BT - the audio quality of these is quite nice despite their lower price tag. There is no thumping bass, but the sound profile and sound stage is very pleasant for listening to music. The more up to date Bluetooth reliably maintains connections on the commute. The multipoint connection allows connection to phone and laptop. However, when using the microphone there is an unnatural and unpleasant ambient noise fed in that I find quite off putting. These also have odd noise artefacts when silent.

Sony WH-1000XM5 - super comfortable, great noise cancellation and transparency mode. Microphones seem high quality and audio quality is great but despite its clarity there’s something slightly muddy I can’t quite put my finger on. Definitely my favourite so far.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I’m not sure if the perfect headphones/earphones exist! My main use cases are listening to music on the go, commuting on the train,taking video calls in the office which can get pretty noisy and less frequently watching streaming video such as Netflix.

The in-ear or bud styles I like the convenience of but they always irritate my ears so I can’t use them for long periods of time.

For on-ear, I’ve tried:
- Beats Studio 3 - i picked these up years ago and found the audio quality on these to be quite good, noise cancellation certainly reduces noise but isn’t amazing and there is no transparency mode. The microphone for video calls is sufficient. The big drawback with these is the clamping force around the head causes me discomfort even after years of use and the older Bluetooth protocol gets quite a lot of interference on the commute.

- Sennheiser HD450BT - the audio quality of these is quite nice despite their lower price tag. There is no thumping bass, but the sound profile and sound stage is very pleasant for listening to music. The more up to date Bluetooth reliably maintains connections on the commute. The multipoint connection allows connection to phone and laptop. However, when using the microphone there is an unnatural and unpleasant ambient noise fed in that I find quite off putting. These also have odd noise artefacts when silent.

Sony WH-1000XM5 - super comfortable, great noise cancellation and transparency mode. Microphones seem high quality and audio quality is great but despite its clarity there’s something slightly muddy I can’t quite put my finger on. Definitely my favourite so far.

Headphones are a very subjective topic, in my view, as personal preference - and physical stuff, such as size - can determine which headphones one prefers.

Therefore, while reviews - and comments on sites such as this - can offer a lot of advice (much of it very good), experience and recommendations - at the end of the proverbial day, it does come down to one's personal preference; objectively, it is difficult to describe and define something such as "a perfect headphone" because everyone's understanding of what comprises perfection can differ so dramatically and drastically.

In any case, my own favourite headphones - for a very long time - were the Bowers & Wilkins P5s.

Anyway, I liked the size, - they were not too large, or heavy, which some of the really good headphones are - I really liked the degree of comfort they afforded me when I wore them, and I loved the fact that they were very well & solidly made, actually, they were made from natural materials (such as soft leather, and metal, rather than plastic and synthetics).

Moreover, the quality of the audio on the P5s was also very good.

 

[olavsu1]

Thomann Buy favourably priced Studio Headphones online at Thomann

Buy Studio Headphones + accessories online at Europe's largest music retailer - Fast shipping, 30 days money-back and 3 years Thomann guarantee

www.thomann.de

if you choose one from the top 10 there, you won't miss much.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Thomann Buy favourably priced Studio Headphones online at Thomann

Buy Studio Headphones + accessories online at Europe's largest music retailer - Fast shipping, 30 days money-back and 3 years Thomann guarantee

www.thomann.de

if you choose one from the top 10 there, you won't miss much.

That is an excellent (and, more to the point, an up-to-date) selection of headphones.

Thank you for sharing it.

 

[olavsu1]

And there is another place:

recommended headphones

home back to headphones published: Mar-12-2013, last update: Jan-10-2025 There are basically two ways to look at headphones when buying them. You can take/use them as they are OR you can buy one(…

diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com

There isn’t a SINGLE ‘perfect’ headphone on this planet. Not even the most expensive ones.

 

[DaniTheFox]

The German Magazin Audio.de has been doing this for 50 years. Everything better than the AirPods Max is more expensive.

 

[DaniTheFox]

If you remain undisturbed and do not disturb others, the STAX SR-X9000 with SRM-D10 II (not tested yet) is the ultimate machine, if you don’t mind a cable.

 

[seggy]

The German Magazin Audio.de has been doing this for 50 years. Everything better than the AirPods Max is more expensive.

This is basically placebo in a list lol

 

[seggy]

I’m not sure if the perfect headphones/earphones exist! My main use cases are listening to music on the go, commuting on the train,taking video calls in the office which can get pretty noisy and less frequently watching streaming video such as Netflix.

The in-ear or bud styles I like the convenience of but they always irritate my ears so I can’t use them for long periods of time.

For on-ear, I’ve tried:
- Beats Studio 3 - i picked these up years ago and found the audio quality on these to be quite good, noise cancellation certainly reduces noise but isn’t amazing and there is no transparency mode. The microphone for video calls is sufficient. The big drawback with these is the clamping force around the head causes me discomfort even after years of use and the older Bluetooth protocol gets quite a lot of interference on the commute.

- Sennheiser HD450BT - the audio quality of these is quite nice despite their lower price tag. There is no thumping bass, but the sound profile and sound stage is very pleasant for listening to music. The more up to date Bluetooth reliably maintains connections on the commute. The multipoint connection allows connection to phone and laptop. However, when using the microphone there is an unnatural and unpleasant ambient noise fed in that I find quite off putting. These also have odd noise artefacts when silent.

Sony WH-1000XM5 - super comfortable, great noise cancellation and transparency mode. Microphones seem high quality and audio quality is great but despite its clarity there’s something slightly muddy I can’t quite put my finger on. Definitely my favourite so far.

Depends on so much factors, budget being one.
You really pay for convenience these days as well.

In terms of in-ear irritation, there's a hygeine issue for many people I've found - many people just straight up dont clean their ears or anything that goes into them with anywhere near enough regularity. Skin irritation is absolutely a problem but again, nowhere near as much as many people attest if they keep things clean. If you genuinely have a lot of irritation issues and hygeine isn't a problem, then it could be worth looking into custom-molded earphones if you want still want to go the IEM route - I use wired customs as an alternative to ANC / generic-fit wireless earphones. Customs have very high passive isolation and are still a good alternative to have for situations when ANC isn't necessarily that effective.

As for headphones, the sky is the limit, especially in terms of what you consider "perfect", especially in terms of objective performance. Quite aside from the wired/wireless argument, I like both objectively high-performing headphones and those with a consumer-pleasing tone, but I don't make the mistake of confusing quality for tone. Many do and that's fine, but any recommendation would need to know if you suffer from that.

 

[MajorFubar]

I’m not sure if the perfect headphones/earphones exist!

They don't. We haven't invented objectively-perfect transducers yet. Even when you completely remove budget limitations (and, let's be honest, the models you have so far listed are dirt cheap compared to the most expensive available), there eventually comes a point where it becomes all about your personal preference.

I will say though, the more you spend on headphones, the less 'Technicolor' they will sound. And the naturalness can be discerting, initially. The first time I ever heard a set of Focal Utipias ($5K) I was sort of just...whelmed. Not because they weren't technically brilliant (they are), but because I guess I just subconciously expected just 'more' of everything compared to the Sennheisers I'm used to that cost 1/10th of that amount. Subconciously I expected to be blown away by some larger than life 'Technicolor' performance. And, of course, that's not what they delivered, and nor should they. Such a presentation would be completely artificial, because that's not how things sound in real life.

 

[engbren]

I bought a pair of Airpods 4 with ANC during the Black Friday sales. So far these have been great for my use cases - they hold the bluetooth connection really well, the ANC is reasonably good, sound quality acceptable and without the silicon tips of Airpods Pro 2, do not cause me discomfort. I have also found they fit much better and are much more secure than Airpods 3 which kept falling out of my ears. The microphones seem to work well for video conferences on Teams and Google Meet.

 

[Avatar74]

I’m not sure if the perfect headphones/earphones exist!

Recording engineer here. They don't and here's why: Every headphone you will find has a frequency response curve that is anything but flat. It doesn't matter what brand, it doesn't matter what price. They will always have limitations due to the form factor: They all have to fit on a head comfortably.

What you're left with is entirely subjective... so what sounds aesthetically pleasing to you might not to me. It's as simple as that.

 

[StoneJack]

Recording engineer here. They don't and here's why: Every headphone you will find has a frequency response curve that is anything but flat. It doesn't matter what brand, it doesn't matter what price. They will always have limitations due to the form factor: They all have to fit on a head comfortably.

What you're left with is entirely subjective... so what sounds aesthetically pleasing to you might not to me. It's as simple as that.

this!
At the end, this is purely
1. subjective
2. depends on budget
3. depends on design preferences
4. Depends on goal of usage.

For example, I do create simple music demos at home and edit occasional demo videos (all main work done by pros at studios). Therefore, I use AKG studio phones K182, Audio Technica m20X BT and wired and Audio Technica M50x wired for those simple monitor tasks paired with Macbook pro or a Mac desktop. But I when I fly, I have Sennheiser Accentum pro (BT) for travel and TV viewing (when I don't want sound to disturb family at night). Outside when working at cafes and for professional teams online meeting, Air Pods Pro 2 usb-c do the job well. These are all reasonably priced, high quality devices, not audiophile level things, but they work well and perform their duties without any problems. Purely for interest, I bought Nothing earphones 2024, they look nice but nothing earth shuttering (lol). I could buy better or more expensive like Bowen and Wilkins, but neither Def Leppard nor Taylor Swift will sound much better anyway, and that's what I mostly listen to (pop, neowave, rock), so budget, design and functionality are priorities for me. One thing I found that Apple Airpods Pro 2 are also excellent travel headphones so I rarely use larger Sennheisers for flights.

 

[SnoFlo]

Wireless over-ear headphones with the best sound quality in no particular order are:
Bowers and Wilkins Px8
Focal Bathys
Mark Levinson 5909
Dali IO-12
T+A Solitaire T

I own the Dali IO-12 after trying the others. Discerning listeners debate the merits of the headphones above for various reasons, but to be clear, any one of these are best-in-class BT headphones. Compared to the Apple AirPods Max the above headphones are in a completely different league wrt sound quality. However, Apple's, Bose's and Sony's noise-cancellation implementation respectively are superior to the high fidelity headphones listed above. There is always a trade-off.

 

[F1Mac]

The perfect headphones don't exist because neither do the perfect ears

 

[Avatar74]

I do create simple music demos at home and edit occasional demo videos (all main work done by pros at studios).

In most professional studios, including mine, headphones are only used for monitoring when you're on the mic. Behind the desk, we use Tannoy near field monitors because they have a flat frequency response and wide sound field.

As monitoring headphones go, the absolute best on the market are the no-frills $79 Sony MDR-7506, the gold standard for 30 years. I have three pairs of 7506 32Ω headphones and a pair of Beyerdynamic 250Ω headphones (the interface is a Focusrite—ISA-style preamps, 24/192 A/D-D/A, with 200Ω headphone jacks... but again I only use these when on the mics (everything from a Shure SM58 to Neumann TLM-103 large diaphragm condenser).

Mixing and mastering on headphones leads to costly mistakes because of the extremely attenuated midrange frequencies and steep roll off above 10kHz.

 

[BotchQue]

In most professional studios, including mine, headphones are only used for monitoring when you're on the mic. Behind the desk, we use Tannoy near field monitors because they have a flat frequency response and wide sound field.

As monitoring headphones go, the absolute best on the market are the no-frills $79 Sony MDR-7506, the gold standard for 30 years. I have three pairs of 7506 32Ω headphones ...

My home studio also includes Tannoy near-fields and Sony 7506's!

 

[Avatar74]

My home studio also includes Tannoy near-fields and Sony 7506's!

Sweet! What are you running for DAW and control surface?

 

[olavsu1]

I aren't seen anyone using Tannoys, everyone here has Yamaha nearfields.
I have an Adam Audio myself.

 

[Avatar74]

I aren't seen anyone using Tannoys, everyone here has Yamaha nearfields.
I have an Adam Audio myself.

Tannoy has been around a very long time and their Gold series drivers are descended from the same Tannoy Lockwoods used in Studio Two at EMI/Abbey Road during the Beatles' sessions... it's very very hard to find a flatter response loudspeaker in the price range of Tannoy active monitors, but Adam Audio has become more competitive on price in recent years.

I think my preference for the Tannoys is their design history and also the fact that they have a couple of features I like including TRS balanced inputs (alongside XLR) and front facing level and treble trim to compensate brightness for small rooms.

 

[olavsu1]

Marketing guys can talk about anything. The professional forums have a different picture. The mainfields of the vacuum tube era were really impressive.


Is there a Tannoy nearfield somewhere? Really?

//mods, the topic is changed, maybe split it somewhere.

 

[Avatar74]

Marketing guys can talk about anything. The professional forums have a different picture. The mainfields of the vacuum tube era were really impressive.

View attachment 2467003
Is there a Tannoy nearfield somewhere? Really?

//mods, the topic is changed, maybe split it somewhere.

"The mainfields of the vacuum tube era were really impressive."

You mean like Tannoy? That's one of the few manufacturers that still exists from that period... Also I'm not sure what vacuum tubes have to do with anything since the design of the speaker driver and crossover itself has nothing to do with the amplifier design, and modern A/B active, bi- or tri-amplification has vastly improved frequency response.

Paisley Park Studios, EMI/Abbey Road and Ocean Way Recording all use/used Tannoy nearfields and Westlake, Tannoy or Augspurger custom mains. A friend of mine was the studio manager at Paisley Park where they used Tannoy System 800A's on their SSL 9000G desk.

Near fields were traditionally used to replicate a more realistic sound field closer to a typical playback system than the mains which are used for mixing because of the very fine adjustments you can make across a very large sound field. In the wake of the end of big artist development money and advances, near fields have in smaller studios taken the place of six-figure custom mains, and consequently their design and frequency response have been improved considerably.

I want to be clear that I've no problem with Adam Audio... I think they've done a great job as a relative newcomer. I'm just partial to less bright treble because I don't have a very large control room, and Adam's solution of using Class D amplifiers in their entry level studio monitor (T5V/T8V, etc.) to reduce cost doesn't come without tradeoffs. Those A-series mid-fields in that photo are upwards of $3k a pair, btw.

At any rate I don't think it's a fair apples to apples comparison asking a poor studio engineer making $40-$80k a year (that's being very generous) to compare their place of employment to the recording studio I own in my house, or vice versa.

I don't think more needs to be said on this subject, but if the pros who you've self-elected to be their representative feel they want to argue it with a pro of 35 years, let's hear from them directly.

 

[olavsu1]

You mean like Tannoy?

Not just them. but all of them from that era. Yamaha, Diatone, JBL, etc.
The ones from that era seem to be better than the ones now, which are mainly made to scam buyers out of money.

Now they are mostly DIY, of course, with a DIY special tube amplifier. You know, it's important to control the membrane correctly. This amplifier engineer is now in the underworld, but his creations live on.

I don't think more needs to be said on this subject, but if the pros who you've self-elected to be their representative feel they want to argue it with a pro of 35 years, let's hear from them directly.

Look around, You're in the same boat as them, they're Abbey Road, (The picture above is the control room of their second studio where you claimed the Tannoys were.) A while back they released the bible of sound editing.
In addition: Aube Studio and many others that can be found by searching Google for images with term: "home sound studio".

 

[seggy]

In most professional studios, including mine, headphones are only used for monitoring when you're on the mic. Behind the desk, we use Tannoy near field monitors because they have a flat frequency response and wide sound field.

As monitoring headphones go, the absolute best on the market are the no-frills $79 Sony MDR-7506, the gold standard for 30 years. I have three pairs of 7506 32Ω headphones and a pair of Beyerdynamic 250Ω headphones (the interface is a Focusrite—ISA-style preamps, 24/192 A/D-D/A, with 200Ω headphone jacks... but again I only use these when on the mics (everything from a Shure SM58 to Neumann TLM-103 large diaphragm condenser).

Mixing and mastering on headphones leads to costly mistakes because of the extremely attenuated midrange frequencies and steep roll off above 10kHz.

Monitoring isn't consumer listening.

The scratchy, peaky, and frankly underperforming 7506 may be a mainstay of studios based on... tradition at this point ? but it doesn't mean that it has any relevance in home audio now. There's a reason why many even in studios have shifted to the M50's for example, if not the other staple, the HD280.

(Not to mention other studio people who used to recommend the 7509 over their blanket recommendation of a 7506 for more drum focused tracks with a straight face. Maybe they've never realised that sonically, it's a MDR-V700DJ - a headphone that was quickly dumped DJ industry-wide in favour of phones like the HD280 and HD25 unless Sony was sponsoring you 🤣)

 

[smirking]

There isn’t a SINGLE ‘perfect’ headphone on this planet. Not even the most expensive ones.

So true and sometimes the low end cans sound better to some people.