This comprehensive guide helps you navigate the world of high-end audio gear, providing insights on selecting headphones, speakers, and amps that deliver exceptional sound quality. We delve into the importance of room acoustics, offer recommendations for various budget ranges, and highlight key features to consider.
Once you start shopping for gear that approaches four figures, it's tough to distinguish what's good-sounding from what's simply good-looking. Never fear! Our experts have spent thousands of hours listening to music in acoustically treated home studios through many of the most-loved high-end headphones, speakers, and amps on the market. Below you'll find our favorites and some information about what each item does.
Before reading on, be sure to check out our cheap (or free!) tips on how to get more out of your home audio setup. Interested in other audio advice? Check out the tips in our other guides, including the Best Wireless Headphones, Best Bookshelf Speakers, Best Turntables, Best Bluetooth Speakers, and Best Gear for Learning Music. Updated January 2025: We've updated some other gear options and added the Outlaw Audio RR2160 Mk II. Consider where you will be listening before you decide what you should be listening with. The quality of the sound you hear in your room will only ever be as good as the room itself. A pair of $250 speakers will sound better in a room that's been acoustically treated than a pair of $10,000 speakers will sound in an empty room with bare floors and walls. What exactly is 'bad' when it comes to room dynamics for high-end listening? Typically it means sound waves bounce around too much, creating frequency issues like muddy bass and giving the room what's known as a long reverb decay time. This is the length of time it takes for sound to die out as it bounces off the walls. Try this: Clap your hands loudly in the middle of your room and listen for the decay—the audible echoing of that clapping sound. The best way to shorten that decay time is to fill the room with as much soft, porous mass as possible. This helps control audio reflections, damping them so you hear more of the focused sound waves coming out of the speakers, and fewer of the messy sound waves bouncing around the room. To treat a room, use acoustic panels (typically Rockwool insulation wrapped in cheap fabric and hung from the walls or ceiling) to provide the recommended amount of coverage for the space. Throbbing and thumping bass frequencies, which are harder to tame than higher frequencies like splashy cymbals and twangy guitars, will typically degrade the audio quality in smaller rooms. Significant porous absorption is required to make large speakers sound great in a tighter space like a bedroom. If you like big speakers with big bass, set up your system somewhere more spacious. In general, the softer and bigger your room is the bigger you can go in terms of speaker systems, and the better they'll sound. If you're stuck setting up your stereo in a room that's either small or particularly reverberant and acoustically “bright,” I recommend buying smaller speakers or just sticking with headphones. (Don't worry, great headphones are awesome.) When improving your listening room, it's worth noting that investing in some acoustic treatment is much more cost-effective than investing in more expensive audio gear. You can buy or build enough panels for a medium-size space with just a few hundred dollars, and they can actually make your room look pretty neat. In my experience, hanging some panels and curtains over your bare walls will increase the quality of your sound more than any single piece of equipment. Because they take problems with room acoustics out of the equation, a quality pair of headphones is the place most budding audiophiles should start. Open-backed headphones like the Sennheiser/Drop HD6XX ($239) are a great first buy for those with a quiet listening room. “Open-back” means they don't seal out the outside world like the “closed-back” over-ears you might be used to. There's little to block sound in or out—not only will other people hear your music, but you'll be able to hear sounds other than your music. However, open-back headphones sound more natural and speaker-like. They are the perfect headphones to plug straight into a phone or a stereo, though you will notice that using a dedicated headphone amp improves the sound. (More on those later.) If you want more sound isolation, I also really like in-ear headphones like the Shure Aonic 3 ($199), which cut out very nearly all outside noise, and pack up super small for travel. Sound quality is excellent, especially with an outboard headphone amp in tow. At the higher end, my current favorite in-ears are from Portland-based brand Campfire Audio (the 3D-printed Supermoon ($1,099). I also love custom-molded in-ears from Ultimate Ears Pro like the brilliantly transparent UE Reference Remastered and the beefier UE 18+ Pro, both of which are among the most comfortable and accurate earbuds you'll find. There are many other high-end in-ears to choose from, with new models and technologies like xMEMS' solid-state drivers poised to increasingly shake up the market. If you prefer over-ear headphones, our entire audio team really likes the French brand Foca
AUDIO EQUIPMENT HEADPHONES SPEAKERS AMPS ACOUSTICS ROOM TREATMENT HIGH-END AUDIO BUDGET RECOMMENDATIONS
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