GOTY 2010 - Headphones and Earphones

We’ve already listed mp3 players and portable media players that we thought were the best gadgets for the year. Today, we’ll look at the headphones and earphones segment.

The best that 2010 has to offer are big names with good quality sound. The best part is they won’t end up burning a hole through your wallet. Let’s check them out.

Philips SHL 5002 Headphones – Headphones of the (y)ear

SHL 5002 aces the headphones category

Philips can be called a brand synonymous to headphones, the SHL 5002 just proves this statement in more ways than one. These headphones might look a bit feminine, especially because of the fact that they only come in one color, Teal. Keeping looks aside, the SHL 5002 performs very well with a sensitivity of 106 dB. The headphones are bass heavy but also give good mids and trebles, although they distort at max volume. The price is one place which also adds to the SHL 5002’s value, coming in for Rs. 1099.

SoundMagic PL30 Earphones – Rightly deserves second place

PL30 gives great value-for-money

Just because Shenzhen SoundMagic Technology is a Chinese company doesn’t mean they are just into mass production of low-quality earphones. The PL30 is a clear testimony to this. The earphones look decent and are comfortable to wear. Not only that, they have a good balance of audio frequencies and are quite loud at 103 dB. The best part is that their price is pretty low in comparison to what they deliver, a mere Rs. 1000.

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Corsair HS1 Gaming Headphones – Game for third spot

HS1 goes well with games and music too

It’s quite surprising for a brand that’s more famous for its hardware and computer peripherals to come up with such brilliant headphones. Although quite bulky, the headphones sound great. Firstly, these headphones are made especially for games and do very well at that, but that’s not all. Listening to music is quite a pleasure too. The bundled software enhances the sound experience by quite a bit, but at the same time can be painful to install on different computers. At Rs. 4999 it’s a bit expensive, but great to have for your PC.
 
Hon. Mention

Xtreme Mac FS1 In Earphones – Worthy of a mention

Xtremely expensive but sound great too

The Mac FS1 are a great pair of earphones but come in at fourth because of the price-range they fall in. They are not very snazzy to look at but are designed in a simple fashion. The earphones play at a sensitivity level of 112 dB making them really loud. They come expensive at Rs. 2490 but are worth a mention.

These are our choices for the gadget of the year for 2010, if you think there could have been something else do let us know. With just a day left for Christmas, we hope and wish you have a wonderful time this Christmas.