Best Headphones

Urbanears Plattan 

   

Style is key with these handsome headphones. Delightfully cushioned, these combine a cool, minimal design with matt rubbery texture and a subtle and comfy fabric headset. Add to that reasonable quality, full sound and a lightweight build and the result is a brilliant set of headphones suited to everyday use.  

Bose QuietComfort 15  

    

A byword for quality, Bose's QuietComfort 15 do nothing but enhance their rep. Quickly, the bad: yes, the noise cancelling tech means you'll need an AAA battery to spark them into life. There's also the faintly offensive buzz that noise cancelling headphones conjure, but that fades once music sparks up. Fortunately, the battery life settles at around nearly 30 hours and does produce some superb results.  

Jabra Halo 2   

    

Unbelievably light and easy to fold and tuck away (when you do fold or unfold, the headphones automatically turn themselves on and off, too), they also come with a wire allowing you to use them like ordinary, wired competitors.  

House of Marley Destiny TTR 

    

The one-button cable remote with built-in mic and noise-cancelling capabilities also add a bit of substance to the style, with our only criticism being the lack of an auto-off function which led to us accidentally running the AAA-batteries down on more than one occasion.    

Audio-Technica ANC9 

   

The active noise cancelling comes from two miniature microphones in each earpiece which are used to pick up the noise around you and create a sound cancelling signal to effectively block the noise -- so despite their relative bulk, they’re still brilliant for busy commutes. Plus, the inline microphone in the wire allows you to use them for calls, too.