For music lovers, good headphones are all the better to hear with. Photo / Thinkstock
For music lovers, good headphones are all the better to hear with. Photo / Thinkstock
Opinion by Diana Clement
Diana Clement is a freelance journalist who has written a column for the Herald since 2004. Before that, she was personal finance editor for the Sunday Business (now The Business) newspaper in London.
Once upon a time headphones were boring. Now they're to die for. Any self-respecting gamer or music-lover probably owns several sets.
To get the best out of your smartphone or portable music device you need a Bluetooth speaker at home and good headphones for when you are out and about,says Aaron Groombridge, audio product manager at Noel Leeming.
Northlander Jeremy Tauri has four favourite sets. For mobile phone calls he has a Plantronics Bluetooth headset, ear buds for running or going to the gym, and Beats by Dr Dre headphones for listening to music when out and about.
The headphones he waxes lyrical about the most are the Turtle Beach programmable Ear Force PX5s.
The surround-sound gaming headset can be used at home for listening to music, watching movies and, of course, gaming.
Noise-cancelling headphones are popular. Groombridge says they reduce the sounds around you so they do not need to be turned up to get over the noise of traffic, a plane or a busy office.
At home, wireless headphones are a must.
All of this doesn't come cheap. My 10-year-old son is delighted with the $18 set of noise-cancelling headphones he bought at Kmart last weekend but real aficionados can spend more than $1,000 on a set.
Electrical stores such as Harvey Norman, Dick Smith and Noel Leeming each sell dozens of models at prices ranging from $7.99 to $649.
Even The Warehouse has a range, from entry-level headphones to highly sought-after models such as Beats by Dr Dre High Performance Professional.
For top-of-range headphones such as Sennheiser, Beyerdynamic and Denon it's often necessary to go to specialist stores such as AV World and The Listening Post.
