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Hi, I’m new in the “headphones” world and I usually bought the first cheap option with good reviews on youtube and never really informed myself. My current headphones (Anker Soundcore Q30) are almost dead and I want to make an informed choise about my next one. However I feel like there are a lot of things I know nothing about.

For example I read a lot of good things about Sennheiser but the first pari of headphones I saw in my price range (ACCENTUM) have 37mm drivers. My Soundcore Q30 have 40mm drivers and I always thought that “the bigger the better” for the driver. From what I heard, however, the ACCENTUM are consider higher quality than Soundcore Q30.

What I’d like to know is: what should I really look for to understand the quality of the headphones?

I’d mainly use them to listen to music (some Metal, Punk but sometimes Rap, Classical or movies and videogames OST) in my house or outside (so good ANC is always appreciated).

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[-] mantra@lemmy.zip 0 points 1 week ago

Frequency response is the really the most meaningful tech spec. The larger the range, the more sounds the phones can reproduce on the low and high end. However, that does become less meaningful when listening to heavily compressed and processed sources. Also, I would guess that all the options you are considering have the same frequency response, so might not really be a consideration.

Bluetooth version is the next consideration. You want the newest version available, or at least no older than the version your source device runs. The higher versions provide more bandwidth, so theoretically less compression during transmission. It seems common to use older chips in more budget friendly headphones in order to save cost. The average user probably doesn't care, but if you are concerned about sound quality, it can be a factor.

Honestly, your source material is probably more of a hindrance to quality than your equipment. Compression is the enemy. Unless you are going to get into lossless codecs and/or analog sources, you won't be pushing the limits of the headphones you are considering. This is not to say you shouldn't get a nice pair, more just a fair warning that you're not gonna get a major quality boost from just changing your headphones.

[-] Buggo@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago

Thank you very much! Right now I stream music with Qobuz (that has Hi-Res audio) and I'm building my offline library of flac files.I never really looked at my phone bluetooth version/drivers ecc but I bought my phone last year so I think it should be decent.

However I'm struggling to understand the whole "frequency response" thing. I can find various graphs but I don't really know what they mean.

[-] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Frequency Response is a measure of if your cans can play from very low notes to very high notes all at the same loudness. The most important thing in those graphs is that they are flat, meaning even. The next most important thing is where the bass response drops off. Lower is better.

It is true for all speakers and headphones, but it is not as straight forward for headphones because everyone's ear is shaped different thus will mess with the FR. Good headphones are flat and go down to at least 30Hz. Lower is better.

Depending on your player, you may use Digital Signal Processing to help flatten things out. Its complicated, but the results can be fantastic.

I don't think it's been mentioned yet, but open vs closed is an important consideration. Open tend to be better IMHO but only if you listen in a closed controlled environment. If you are surrounded by noise, closed backed headphone are better because what little you gain in playback fidelity is dwarfed by cutting out the noise of kids playing, the kitchen fan running while dad cooks and people talking on the subway. Good sound isolation is heaven when needed, but also slightly impacts bass response. I have both and use the right one for the environment.

this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2026
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