Best sounding wirless head-/earphones?

[hans132]

I am in the market for a good sounding wirless headphone, but it seems, that they don't get much love in terms of reviews and comparisons.

I did some research and it seems to me, that _all_ wireless headphones sound bad when compared to wired, which I can understand from a technical perspective. I mostly care about convenience though, so I am fine with getting sound worse than a wired headphone. Beyond that the market really seems to be centered around roughly 200-300$ headphones from known brands like sony, samsung, bose, sennheiser, etc. and customers are rather addressed via features while sound quality doesn't play much of a role. Among the supposedly best models i can't really get a good sense of which one has the best sound.

Let's say price is no priority (though I like value), however convenience and comfort is very important. I don't care about features like ANC and don't care about whether it is an IEM or over-the-ear headphone (I slightly prefer IEMs and in the case of headphones, I would prefer open back would be prefered, if it even exists). What do you guys think is the best wireless headphone, i could buy?

PS: I also thought about getting a bluetooth receiver, I can attach my regular headphones to, but that would be very inconvenient. I would still be interested if/how much the sound quality could be increased this way over the best wireless headphones...

 

[Foulchet]

Wireless and portable or wireless for home use ? For home use, I like the Sennheiser RF headphones which are theoretically lossless (I mean the RF transport protocol) however they are not portable (you must plug the transmitter to a power plug).

I have RS130 and RS185 which are both open back. The latter have been tested on RTINGs. I prefer the RS130 frequency response however RS185 is still good for music, a bit more full than the RS130, maybe a bit too dark for my taste.

 

[JJB70]

For the OP, my advice is to ignore the audiophile sneering at BT headphones and IEMs, there are plenty of excellent models out there. An easy default recommendation is the Bose QC35II, that actually combines two things audiophiles tend to hate - BT and Bose, but it is nevertheless an excellent product and available at some good discounts now. It's more expensive sibling, Bose 700, is also worth a look. The various Sony 1000XM models (the current version is XM4) are well worth a look, old stock of the XM3 can be heavily discounted. Audio Technica do some excellent BT models. A bit of a wildcard is the Razer Opus, many will dismiss it because it comes from a gaming company but it's very well done. B&W do some good BT headphones and despite a negative review hear I thought the Apple max SQ very well done (though I am less keen on the design). Even the current generation of Beats isn't as bad as most audiophiles want us to believe, they're still bassy but much better done than older versions.
A good thing about these headphones is that because they are mainstream consumer products they are still widely sold on the high street. That means it is much easier to listen before you buy, so you can make your own mind up.

 

[Zim]

"Best Sound" is highly subjective. It depends on what's your preference is.
Also with "sound quality", it depends on what criteria you factor into "sound quality" since it could pretty much mean anything. Low distortion? Adherence to the Harman curve? Bright? Bassy?

Personally, I own the Sony WH1000XM4 and the Shure SE425, using the Fiio UTWS3 to convert my SE425 to wireless units.
I also EQ all of them to the Harman curve so it's a matter of what I feel like wearing at the time, IEMs or headphones.

 

[Zensō]

When played from a Apple device with Headphone Accommodations turned on, the Apple AirPods Max follows the Harman target fairly closely up to ~5kHz. It also has exceptionally low distortion and takes well to EQ. I own a number of nice wired headphones and I equally enjoy the APM, though it is behind the better wired headphones in some technical aspects.