Delta Snake Review

How To Find The Perfect Headphones - Part 1

Note: This is a revision of a Delta Snake Review Consumer Electronics series that ran this year.

Headphones come in all shapes and sizes now, so you might find it interesting to know the difference between “bone conducting, “over ear,” “helmet speaker,” “air buds,” and so on.

How To Find The Perfect Headphones - Part 1

Sample description: The right pair of headphones will enrich your musical listening experience and lead to endless rediscovery of heretofore buried joy in your beloved music collection.

As you can see, reviews aren't just reviews. You must consider who the writer is, what they know, their agenda, and from what personal experience the information comes from (if any).

This guide should be useful for finding the right pair of headphones. It may just cause more confusion, but if so, as a dedicated Blogger, you can trust that I'll feel bad about it and not remind people that there's a First Amendment.

I think the best way to present this with the least amount of words is as a step-by-step guide. 

Step One: Decide how much you want to spend. There's good stuff in every price range, so stick to your budget. 

The headphones companies just want your money and happily provide gear at every price tier, complete with experts saying it's "great for the price" or "an unbelievable value."  

For example, let's say your budget is ten dollars. No need to be embarrassed about such a small amount, even in America. My backpack spare is a cheap 15.00 set purchased during a Christmas Sale for 9.99.

A spare might be unnecessary if a two-hundred-dollar set gets lost or stolen. People rarely feel like popping in a cheap backup after such a loss. I would, but I'm a music nut.

Your spare should actually be the set taken outside, but there are compelling reasons for having premium cans on your ears while on the go.

That leads to Step Two: Get new headphones designed for the intended use or environment. If you're only going to listen at home while sitting in a chair, forget Bluetooth or any wireless. 

Wired headphones outperform wireless in every price range, and that's the only way to go in the recording studio.

The reason is that music is sorta kinda maybe analog information transferred to digital and has to travel a path to your earphones. A cable transmits the data best as it has the more bandwidth than a wireless signal. 

That said, let's say you want headphones for on-the-go activities; then wireless is an option. You'll give up some sound quality, but that happens once you leave the chair.

Street traffic sounds, for example, are in a frequency range that'll make the midrange and top end disappear and the music can sound tinny. In other words, outside sounds become part of the music.

You can sorta get around that by turning up the volume or wearing a tighter set (or earbuds that block more noise out), but overall music will still sound harsh or thin. That won’t be a problem with audiobooks, of course.

Street sounds can be overpowered by cranking up, the ear space mechanically isolated with tighter cans (the part over your ear), or electronically with noise canceling, but safety comes into play. You can become unaware of your surroundings.

But before you do step two, there's one major factor you have to consider: headphones are conduits that deliver the sound that hardware and software produce. 

If you don't look at that factor first, there's a chance you'll buy more headphone capability than you need. In fact, the right software can make your old headset sound like a more expensive model. 

It's not like the 90s; in 2023, even an inexpensive phone or mp3 player can deliver at least 75% of the desired sound quality if correctly set up. 

I'll cover that in part 2.

- Al HANDA