Once again the winter holidays are upon us. A time for goodwill, cheer, and acquiring some sweet loot for our loved ones. If your loved one happens to be an audiophile or musician I truly feel for you. We are a difficult bunch to shop for, constantly fiending after some obscure unit identifiable by a string of numbers that are incomprehensible to nearly everyone (who knows if they actually mean anything anyways). Often highly opinionated, it’s a scary prospect to shop for the audio obsessed in your life. Well here is that goodwill and cheer I was talking about, I decided to throw together a guide of headphone gifts for the holidays, full of sure fire hits for those of you unsure how to proceed.
And because goodwill and cheer are free, but sweet loot is not, I made sure to only include items that currently have Black Friday Deals.
Open Back
Open back headphones are the go to headphones for any audiophile. What they lack in convenience they make up for in superior sound quality. Some of the best come from Audeze and their entry level open back, the LCD-1, is a great way to push someone down a lifelong path of spending most of their excess income on headphones.
Closed Back
Closed Back headphones, the OTHER over ear headphones. Open backs have a lot of bleed and aren’t the most convenient. Many music lovers need something to listen to when they can’t force their selections on the rest of the room. For that I’d recommend the Shure SRH 1540, an excellent headphone that can handle anything you throw at them with flying colors.
Noise Cancelling
It’s a loud world out there and that makes it tough on those who are just trying to jam some tunes out there. Luckily we have noise cancelling technology these days and among the best are the BeyerDynamic Lagoon ANC headphones. Beyerdynamic makes some of the best cans in the biz and their foray into noise cancelling headphones do not disappoint.
True Wireless
Everyone is walking around with earbuds these days. Save your audio addicted friend from the oppression of Apple Airpods and get them the Klipsch T5. Not only are these an excellent example of the sound quality earbuds can achieve, they have one of the classiest charging pods around, making sure their user is the coolest person in the room.
IEM
Some of us are audiophiles by force of necessity. Musicians often just want to play and to play at your best, sound quality matters. Give the musician in your life the gift of accurate monitoring with the Campfire Audio IO In Ear Monitor. A good IEM can make all the difference in a performance and any musician in your life would love to have a pair of these to up their game.
DAC/Amps
So the headphone enthusiast in your life already has all the headphones they need. Don’t worry, it’s about time they up their game with some headphone amps. Most headphones can benefit from a solid DAC/Amp and the Ultrasone Panther absolutely fits that bill.
Gaming
Headphones, not just for music lovers anymore! How else are you going to hear those trash talking ten year olds when they destroy you in Call of Duty. They may not make you S Rank, but the Audio Technica ATH-G1WL will give you the best audio available for your gaming sessions.
For Nerds
Here’s a bonus category for our combination otaku/audiophiles among us. In what’s probably the geekiest entry of the headphone market is the Final Audio Eva 2020. Modeled after the famous mechas of Neon Genesis Evangelion and featuring the voice talents of Nagasawa Miki (who played Operator Ibuki Maya), they will help you bring about Third Impact with top notch sound quality.
Budget Stocking Stuffer
Audio equipment is an expensive hobby and you might not want to break your bank buying headphone gifts for the holidays. Well I can’t help but plug one of my favorite new releases, the Strauss & Wagner EM205. When I first heard these I thought they were at least a couple hundred dollars. I was way off. For thirty dollars you can get some of the beset sound I’ve gotten from a pair of earbuds.
Find these deal and more for the holidays 2020 at Audio46
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