10 Best Cheap Headphones & Earbuds for $100 or Less (2019)
We’ve picked the best affordable in-ear, over-ear, on-ear, wireless, and corded headphones in every price bracket….
We pretty much have it made here at WIRED. It’s part of our job to listen to music all day, often on exceedingly fancy and bonkers-expensive headphones. We have playlists for testing bass, for assessing detail. We get way into it. So you’d think that testing headphones on the cheap end of the spectrum would seem like a chore. Like slumming, even.
But no—we’ve found real and honest joy searching for good headphones and earbuds with price tags between $5 and $100. Our work isn’t done, either. E-tailers are overflowing with cheap, awful headphones, so we’ll keep listening and updating this list as we try the ever-expanding options. Now fire up your favorite playlist, count your pennies, and dive in.
Updated for Autumn 2019: We’ve added the 1More Stylish, Fiio FA1, Grado SR80e, Shure SE-112GR, and Audio-Technica ATH-M20x to the list.
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