How to choose headphones: the complete method

1. Start from the use, not the product

A pair of headphones is a compromise between qualities that partly exclude one another: isolating you or letting the sound breathe, being light or lasting forty hours, flattering the music or telling the truth about a mix. Your main use, the one that accounts for most of your listening time, settles which way those trade-offs go. Excellent travel headphones make a mediocre mixing tool, and the reverse is just as true.

If two uses are vying for first place, favour the more demanding one. Headphones chosen for the Tube will work at the office; open-back headphones chosen for the living room will be unusable on the Tube.

2. Gauge the noise around you

Ambient noise is the second filter. In a quiet place, anything goes, open-back headphones included. In the street or an open-plan office, you need at least closed-back headphones or well-fitted in-ears. On a train, the Tube or a plane, active noise cancelling becomes the main selling point: nothing else erases the low, continuous rumble of engines.

This is also a matter of health: in noisy surroundings, we turn the volume up to drown out the environment. Headphones that isolate let you listen at a lower level. The guide to active noise cancelling and passive isolation sets out what each technique really does, frequency by frequency.

3. Choose the form factor

There are three main families, plus a fourth that has appeared more recently:

• Over-ear: the ear pads surround the ear. The most comfortable over long periods, and the best foundation for sound quality and noise cancelling. Bulky.
• On-ear: the ear pads rest on the outer ear. Compact and light, but the pressure becomes tiring and the isolation is middling.
• In-ear: the tip seals the ear canal. Highly isolating when it is the right size, discreet, ideal on the move.
• Open-ear: bone conduction, or open earbuds that sit in front of the ear canal. You hear everything going on around you: invaluable for running in town, mediocre for music.

The full comparison is in the guide to over-ear, on-ear and in-ear headphones.

4. Wired or wireless

Bluetooth compresses the sound and adds a delay; a cable does neither. In practice, the compression of modern codecs is inaudible to most people under normal listening conditions. The delay, on the other hand, remains a nuisance when gaming or playing an instrument. Three simple rules are worth remembering:

• On the move, calls, everyday use: wireless, without hesitation.
• Competitive gaming: wired, or 2.4 GHz wireless with its dongle, never Bluetooth alone.
• Studio and hi-fi: wired. No battery to replace, and headphones that will last fifteen years.

To find out more: Bluetooth codecs and latency.

5. Find your sound signature

Two technically impeccable pairs of headphones can sound very different: each has a signature, that is, a deliberate balance between bass, mids and treble. A neutral signature reproduces the recording as it is; a “V-shaped” signature lifts the bass and treble for a more spectacular sound; a warm signature softens the treble and is easier on the ear.

There is no universally right answer, but research carried out at Harman shows that a majority of listeners prefer a curve close to neutral, with slightly raised bass. The guide to frequency response and sound signature teaches you to read these curves.

6. Shut the world out or stay aware

Isolation is not always desirable. Running beside a road, walking through town, keeping an eye on a child or waiting for a colleague to call across to you, hearing your surroundings is a matter of safety or of courtesy. There are three solutions: the transparency mode of noise-cancelling headphones, which feeds in the outside sound picked up by the mics; open-back headphones, for home; and open-ear models, for sport. The guide to open-back and closed-back headphones explains what openness changes in the sound.

7. Rank your priorities

For the same use and form factor, models are separated by secondary criteria. Choose two or three, no more: no headphones excel at everything.

• Comfort: weight (above 300 g, your neck notices), headband pressure, ear pad material, compatibility with glasses.
• Mic: decisive for calls. A boom mic always beats a mic built into the earcup.
• Battery life: expect 30 hours from noise-cancelling headphones, and 6 to 8 hours from earbuds, not counting the case.
• Water resistance: an IPX4 rating is enough for sweat and rain; IP57 or IP68 withstands immersion.
• Repairability: replaceable ear pads and a replaceable cable add several years to the life of a pair of headphones.

8. Set the budget last

Price follows a law of diminishing returns. Between £25 and £80, every pound is audible. Between £80 and £250, the gains are mostly in noise cancelling, mic quality and comfort. Beyond that, the improvements in sound are real but subtle, and you are also paying for the materials, the brand and the extra features.

Two exceptions are worth knowing. Wired studio headphones offer remarkable sound quality at around £130, because they carry neither battery nor electronics. And in hi-fi, demanding headphones may need an amplifier, which should be allowed for in the budget: see impedance, sensitivity and amplification.

The most common mistakes

• Buying open-back headphones for commuting: they do not isolate, and the whole carriage gets to share your music.
• Judging in-ears with tips that are too small: without a seal, both the bass and the noise cancelling vanish.
• Trusting frequency range figures (“5 Hz – 40 kHz”): with no tolerance stated, they say nothing about the sound.
• Choosing Bluetooth headphones for competitive online gaming.
• Neglecting the volume: listening too loud damages hearing irreversibly. See volume and hearing health.

The selector applies this method automatically: it asks these eight questions and scores every model in its catalogue according to your answers.

Sources and references

1. World Health Organization — Deafness and hearing loss: safe listening
2. Bluetooth SIG — LE Audio
3. Olive, Welti, Khonsaripour — A Statistical Model that Predicts Listeners' Preference Ratings of Around-Ear and On-Ear Headphones, Audio Engineering Society Convention 144, 2018