A Beginner's Guide to Headphone's Shopping

Whether you're trying to keep working from home from driving you crazy or need a break from the office chatter, everyone can benefit from a good pair of headphones at their desk. However, we can't all be experts on audio, and asking that one friend might just lead you down a rabbit hole of a conversation you didn't ask for. So instead, we figured we'd give you a couple of recommendations to get started with.

The entry choice: Sony WH-CH510

It may not be an optimal choice if you are looking for a premium headset to dive into the virtual world of game or orchestra performances, but this headphone from Sony serves pretty much all your needs for remote learning perfectly.

When you have to wear it for consecutive hours daily during the weekdays, the sound quality may give way to the comfort level of wearing it, which is what most Sony headphones are known for. The product is rather lightweight which will not dig into the top of your head, making the whole learning session more tiring.

It also comes with a noise-canceling mic and ambient mode so excessive sounds will be filtered when speaking which will allow you to hear yourself speaking in the normal rather than a muffled voice.

A step up: AKG Y500

For people who are not satisfied with just purchasing another entry-level headphone and have a pickier taste for the quality of sound flowing into their child’s ears, here we present you wireless headphones produced by renowned acoustics engineering and manufacturing company, AKG, located in Austria.

Compared to many of their other products, AKG opted to endow Y500 with a much younger and approachable design. The mix of aluminum and plastic structure leaves it feeling sturdy yet lightweight while the vibrant color and polished metal edges give your child more chances to “accessorize” with their daily outfits and show them off in class.

AKG’s headphones are highly praised among gamers and music aficionados for their superb quality of sound, offering ample heft for the bass and crisp and crystal-clear edges for the high notes. And this Y500 is no different, especially considering it is a Bluetooth headphone.

Moreover, it also offers the ‘Ambient Aware’ mode which can be activated by a single button on the headset. It will let the natural noise seeping in naturally so that you can be aware of your surroundings while keeping your headphones on, in case you get lost in the music and get yourself in trouble, like missing the alarm that class is starting. Even if you have to take off your headphone for whatever reason, you won’t need to worry about missing a note since the music will be automatically paused and will only resume when you put it back on

The only downside of this headphone I can think of is probably its price. But it’s worth the value of the money for sure, especially if your're into cool tech.

For the kiddos: Buddyphones

If you have young ones in your life (around primary school age), their auditory system is still undergoing development and can be quite sensitive. Wearing the headphone for hours has already put enough stress on their fragile eardrum and nerves, not to mention some of them may not be able to hold back their curiosity and turn the volume up and down from time to time. All of this is especially important to keep in mind with the recent return to remote learning.

To save the kids from damaging their hearings and free their parents from worries, BuddyPhones, one of the best-reviewed kid’s headphones company located in Iceland, designed their products to be volume-safe, which sets the maximum volume at levels recommended for children by WHO. No matter what the kid presses, it won’t surpass this safe threshold. Moreover, considering sometimes the kids need to share what they are listening to with their parents or friends, BuddyPhones allows the user to plug any headphones into its 3.5 millimeter socket to share the audio without taking off the one you are currently using.

This blog was originally published on our sister site, beijingkids.

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Images: UNSLASH, courtesy of product website