Headphones recommendations

[wonderloaf]

Anker Q30 on Amazon at the moment for £47.99.

£39.99 if you buy refurbished. I did and they were basically as new, and you still get all the Amazon guarantees.

 

[Bonefish Blues]

Nothing Ear (a) are very impressive and where I ended up as the best £/performance balance

 

[Dadam]

What I have and can heartily recommend:
Wireless earbuds: Earfun Air, phenomenal sound for the price. Various models now and they keep winning what hifi awards for best budget earbuds. I’ve got the basic ones froma few years ago.
Over the ear wired: Sennheiser HD560s, incredible sound. Available for less than £100 now

Two radically different headphones for different use cases.

 

[Time Waster]

Ijust can’t get earbuds to stay put, no matter which brand. Not a fan of over-ear style for walking about. I bought some of the Shokz bone conduction ones, and find them ridiculously good functionally. The sound quality for music is fine, not as good as the other styles perhaps but more than acceptable. For phone use, they are fantastic, clear mic and reception.

Most importantly they absolutely stay put on my head, and are very comfortable.

Battery life is decent - I get 8 hours music use no problem. And these will pair with multiple devices automatically so I can use with phone and tablet without having to manually select.

I bought the Open Pro 2 model which is the top end of their range, maybe over budget but definitely worth trying their stuff.

Read a few reviews that say great with music but podcasts and audiobook less so, which is intended use.

I got a pair of Aftershokz gen 2 versions. Openrun is gen 8, pro version gen 9 and openrun pro2 is gen 10 I read. The latter is both bone conduction and air conduction. It is the air conduction that provides most of the sound apparently. But also leakage, especially when turned up to hear podcasts and audiobooks.

 

[DRM]

Anything over ear from Sony, best bang for your buck, good sound & good battery life on bluetooth, I've a pair & they're brilliant

 

[bonzobanana]

I bought a pair of these recently which worked out at about £1.50 after discounts and topcashback. I bought them from the bundle section on aliexpress. I've been quite impressed with the dynamic sound quality and bass reproduction. They also seem very well made and come with spare covers. Worth trying at this price if nothing else a backup pair.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006365973121.html

 

[Bristolian]

Do you mind me asking which ones you got please?

I'm looking at Amazon cheap ones after being a bit disappointed with Aftershox service when I had a faulty pair.

This is the ones I bought - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BR5D346V?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

 

[stephec]

This is the ones I bought - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BR5D346V?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

Cheers. 😊

 

[Electric_Andy]

Cheers. 😊

There is flag on the advert that says "frequently returned"! That would worry me a bit. I've never tried bone conductor headphones, but quite a few of the reviews say these aren't very loud. I don't think you can go wrong with over-ear type, but they are too bulky for some people

 

[stephec]

There is flag on the advert that says "frequently returned"! That would worry me a bit. I've never tried bone conductor headphones, but quite a few of the reviews say these aren't very loud. I don't think you can go wrong with over-ear type, but they are too bulky for some people

I noticed that, I've also looked at a few review sites as well, and on one of them four of their top five had the same thing. 😂

 

[Time Waster]

Well I ended up getting over ear sonys for £66 from JL reduced from £75 odd. What hifi recommended apparently for this or last year. Pretty good but the ANC is not great when you are stuck next to a 2hour plus nonstop chatterbox talking drivel for 2.5 hours without a breath. It just could not remove that drone completely. I fell asleep and work up with a start due to a nightmare where I heard her voice. On waking she was still talking and that was with my headphones playing indie music quite loud. Loud enough to feel the air pressure from the drivers!!

So I am of the opinion that you need to spend at least a lot more than I did for NC that works. Now where did my AKG phones go? Son lost them on a road trip where he could not lose them in a sealed vehicle but he did. They blocked everything out but the current version of them costs nearly £300 discounted!! You do get what you paid for sometimes (although my AKGs were free with a samsung mobile phone work about a £100 more than the headphones).