Audio

The wireless build of the ATH-M50x, the closed-back monitor that became the default studio headphone for anyone not spending studio money. Earcups that swivel flat, around forty hours a charge, and a 3.5mm input for when the battery dies or the source is analog. Not a neutral reference — the low end is firm and the upper mids sit forward — but consistent enough that you learn what it's doing and hear past it.

A single dynamic driver in a mirror-polished metal shell, sold for about twenty dollars and tuned to Moondrop's VDSF target. The pair that made the argument the cheap end of this hobby had stopped being a compromise. The cable is fixed rather than detachable — the one real complaint anyone had with it, and the thing the later revision went back and fixed.

7Hz's collaboration with the reviewer Salnotes, distributed by Linsoul. A resin shell with a metal faceplate over a single dynamic driver, tuned on a Harman-leaning curve — clean through the mids with a modest bass lift. It landed on nearly every budget recommendation list the year it came out, and mostly deserved it.

Tanchjim's budget single-dynamic in the DSP configuration: the cable carries its own small DAC and amplifier over USB-C, which moves the tuning into software instead of leaving it to the acoustics. Plugged into a phone it sidesteps whatever that phone's own output was doing to the signal — the most direct answer to a bad headphone jack short of carrying a dongle.

Truthear's entry-level single dynamic and the most recent pair in the drawer. Tuned close to a Harman-style curve with the bass kept in check rather than pushed, in a resin shell with a detachable cable. Currently the default for anything that doesn't call for over-ears.