I recently did one for wireless earbuds. A lot of you requested for me to do one for headphones so here it is.

Context: This is part of my project to tinker with Reddit data and LLMs. Wanted to create something useful for the community while levelling up my coding chops.

The idea is to highlight which headphones got the most love. To be clear, most love =/= objectively best. But hopefully it’s a useful data point nonetheless, especially for those overwhelmed by the options.

Obviously this is a very general list. It gets more interesting when you slice and dice the data.

I have 2 slides where I segmented it by reviews about music vs gaming. If you want to dig into the data further you can do so at the source / full interactive list

You can explore the data, read the comments, filter by price, subreddits, wired/wireless, or filter for comments about music, gaming, gym, running, calls etc. Disclaimer – the page has some affiliate links. You don’t have to use them, though they they help fund the analyses.

Methodology in the comments.

Posted by heyyyjoo

30 comments

  1. **Methodology:**

    **Data collection:** I wrote a script that uses Google and Reddit search to search keywords like “best headphones”, “best headphones for music”, “best headphones for gaming” etc., filtered for the past year, sorted by relevance. I used LLMs (think ChatGPT but with preset instructions) to analyze each search result, extracting recommendations and reviews from the comments and performing sentiment analysis. I keep sampling search result page by search result page, until the cumulative relevant results analyzed dropped below 40%. A total of 936 relevant threads were analyzed, representing 7,601 users.

    **Scoring:** Each user contributes up to 1 “vote” per model, regardless of how many times they mention it.

    **Handling imprecise references:** If a user does not specify the exact model (e.g. “DT770 could refer to DT770 Pro, DT770 M, 80 ohm or 250 ohm version, etc.), their vote is still included. However, their 1 vote is “spread out” among the possible models. More popular/current models are given more weight (because the chance that those are the ones being referred to is higher).

    **Ranking:** I calculated a final score that combines the net positive score (positive minus negative), and the positive-to-negative ratio (log applied to tame extreme ratio skew in models with few mentions). They are normalized and then summed up with a weight of 75:25.

    **Improvements from previous versions:** Based on feedback about the importance of positive vs negative, I’ve changed the positive score component to net positive score. I’ve also added the percentage numbers for easier reference.

    **Caveat:** handling and merging different model namings, abbreviations, and nicknames is non-trivial so a 100% LLM approach wasn’t sufficient. I did some eyeballing and manual clean-up but there may still be mistakes. Let me know if anything seems off or surprising!

    **Tools:** Reddit API, Various LLM APIs, Firecrawl & Jina, Serper

    [Source / Full interactive list](https://redditrecs.com/headphones/)

  4. The ATH M50 has really fallen off from the decade where it was so frequently recommended that it was memed

  5. the momentum 4’s sound great, but they have some of the worst software ever.

  6. Just so you know the #2 in gaming shouldn’t be sony maxwell but audeze maxwell.

  7. Guess no one likes skullcandy crusher evo? I prefer these over my soundcore

  8. Would be better to have a Positive : Negative ratio.

    Dividing P/N would give Sony a score of “3”, Sennheiser over “7” and Soundcore “12”.

  9. Why are you sorting by number of reviews and not percentage of positive reviews?

  12. Off-topic, but I just wanted to say thank you for these posts. My grandmother wanted to buy my dad a robot vacuum for Christmas and I know nothing about them. I used your post from about five months ago to help figure out which one to get. It was incredibly helpful! Thank you!

  13. Should have added IEMs in this data, think you would have been surprised in the quality of majority of them and especially ones with a price lower than $100.

  14. Jesus i bought whmx5 thinking theyll be better than whmx4… Don’t really have a comparison sound wise but my ears and head hurt, they were super uncomfortable at the beggining, now I have eihter gotten used to them or they have gotten worn out a bit

  15. Asked my wife for the Sony WH-1000XM4 for Christmas.

    Pretty chuffed 🙂

    Edit: remembered it’s Reddit recommendations 🙁

  16. Momentum 4s are the best sounding wireless headphones I have ever had. Battery life is ridiculous. I feel like average users could go 3-4 weeks between charges.

    I’ll never buy another pair of consumer Sennheisers again. The $60 Skullcandys I had in high school had a better build quality. Oh, and they don’t even sell the parts I need to restore them.

  17. I understand that HD600 isn’t further up because it’s less accessible due to wanting an amp, but it still makes me sad to see. Its the greatest audio experience I’ve ever had.

  18. Anyone having a recommendation for headphones that are good for working out? My girlfriend cant wear in-ear buds anymore…

  21. I had never looked at the headphones sub before… I just went and searched to see their opinion on the headset I use and really like (Sennheiser Game One), and they have two repeated complaints about it.

    First that it has too much bass.

    And second that it doesn’t have enough bass.

  22. Sony XM4 is the best and long lasting headphone I have ever used. It still looks pretty nice build quality even after 5 yrs.

    Audio Technica 40x and 50x are both trash build quality. 40x has better sound quality but both use and throw podcast style headphones. There are both rotting in my house somewhere. 40x even broke at the hinge.

    Sony xm4 is superior!

  23. I wouldn’t rank by total reviews since that just shows what’s popular. Ranking might be better by ratio of positive to negative etc.

  24. This is a really surprising and sad list. The HD6XX and other enthusiast headphones used to be all I saw recommended on the sub. Now it has the XM4s listed at the top of most lists, despite being low quality in terms of sound and comfort. This goes to show how Reddit has changed over the years.

  26. LOL, the Arya is the only decent one on the list so of course it’s in 15th place. The top headphone is junk.

  27. A naive question, but why wouldn’t any of the apple products make these lists?

  28. I’m surprised there is no jbl in here. their headphones are great

  29. I’m using Sennheiser pc38x gaming, they are very nice for their price tag, and made me realize how nice open back headphones are

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