The Headphone Show's Overall Headphone Ranking List

What You Need To Know About This List

The following headphone ranking takes into consideration the reality that no headphone is perfect; that they can all be improved to some extent. You may notice that there are no 10/10 headphones on this list, and that is because even the best headphones on the market currently do not meet the standard of 10/10—the absolute zenith of headphone sound quality, absent any compromise.

This ranking is not based on the range of products currently available, but rather the full range of potential for what sound quality could be in a headphone. Note the scoring system for individual categories (found in our individual reviewer ranking lists) and you'll see that all headphones have areas where they excel, and areas where they compromise.

While this list is solely an aggregation of the Sound scores from our 3 reviewers, on our individual lists we parse headphone sound quality in terms of Bass, Mids, Treble, and X-Factor. Each of these categories is scored SUBJECTIVELY, they are not based on measurements or target adherence whatsoever. Each of these categories has its own weighting specified by the reviewer in accordance with how they value each category. Comfort and Value are both factored into the Overall scores, and are again weighted according to the individual reviewer's priorities.

This list—The Headphone Show's Overall Headphone Ranking List—combines subjective sound quality ratings of headphones from Resolve, GoldenSound, and listener based on our individual experiences and perspectives. We are not claiming these judgments to be universal. The "Average column" is color-coded: Green if all 3 reviewers have heard and ranked it, Yellow if 2 reviewers have heard and ranked it, and Red if only 1 reviewer has heard and ranked it.

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