Every year we put together a list of the most recommended headphones from around the internet! This year with the growing trend of Wireless and IEM's we have decided to break our lists up to make them a bit easier to follow. For this installment we will be looking at traditional wired headphones.
If you are interested in wireless headphones check out our Most Recommended Wireless Headphones List.
Our method is simple:
- James finds trusted sources, like WhatHiFi, Wirecutter, Linus Tech Tips, etc for comprehensive lists of the best headphones of the year. We had 23 publications this year for the list.
- Add up each time a pair of headphones gets mentioned.
- The headphones with the most mentions make the list.
We included any sources that were recently updated from our last year's headphone list and added new sources we could find while removing any posts that had not been updated. This ensures the same cans don't keep winning due to older articles.
Keep in mind that this is merely a "list of lists," our attempt to deliver an unbiased list of great headphones, but it is by no means a perfect method. So as always, do more research and remember:
As the makers of the best mic that can attach to any pair of headphones, we guarantee the ModMic will work with ALL of these headphones! Buy the headphone you want, add a ModMic. It's that simple!
Most Recommended
Again we used the cutoff of 4 recommendations to make the list, which made it a bit smaller than last year, with only 7 pairs reaching the minimum threshold this year. Prices accurate on Amazon as of 11/9/18.
|
Headphone |
Price |
Recs |
Style |
| Bowers & Wilkins P9 Signature |
$899 |
7 |
Closed Back |
| GRADO SR80E |
$99 |
7 |
Open Back |
| Sennheiser HD 800 |
$1,099 |
6 |
Open Back |
|
Audio Technica ATH-M50x |
$149 |
6 |
Closed Back |
| Sennheiser Momentum 2.0 | $299 | 5 | Closed Back |
|
Sony MDR-7506 |
$80 |
4 |
Closed Back |
| Philips Fidelio X2 |
$230 |
4 |
Open Back |
As usual, sound is so subjective that we never have a headphone universally agreed on as the best, or even close to it. Last year's highest was 8 out of 22 recommendations, this year is 7 out of 23 places agreeing.
This year ended up being a mix of old faces with a few new ones thrown in, the most surprising part to us is the lack of the Beyerdynamic DT line, including the 770, which took first place last year. We do see some common repeats like the M50x and the classic MDR-7506, as they continue to hold strong in the sub $200 world. It was good to see some newer headphones make the list like the PX9s and the oh-so-hyped (and expensive) HD 800s! Overall this was an interesting year for wired traditional headphones as we found a lot fewer publications than previous years.
With all that in mind, we would like to point out that the flaw in this system is it may weight older models more heavily, as they've had more time to generate more placement on lists than newer ones. This is why each year we will continue to add new sources to help keep the list as up to date as possible. Remember, this is just a "list of lists" - a great place to begin your research, but that is all. It is not an endorsement of these products or their respective companies.
Remember, you can always just add a ModMic to these for the ultimate headset!