How to buy Headphones in India - Best guide of 2018

Looking for a headphone but don't know how to get started? We have a tailored made guide on how to buy Headphones in India in 2018. Sure to read, follow and buy the best at your budget.

Headphone is the most powerful accessory of current era. And why not? Thanks to social media. We spend our most of the time solitary and we love to tune our favorite music in smartphone. Right? Most of the people think that a headphone is another piece of gadget. But it is not. Like smartphones. We should also take care of mini details while buying headphones online. So, in this headphones buying guide 2018 we will cover all those mini details you should take care.

So, lets start with our list. Please take off your headphone for the moment and read them carefully.

How to buy Headphone in India - Best guide of 2018

While buying a headphone, you should take care of following terms. These are.

• Design & Shape
• Color Variants
• Type
• Technical Details
• Brand

Though you might consider design, shape & color same thing. However, these are different terms. In this guide you will know how. 

Brands play a major role in quality of the earphones or headphones. So, you should buy a branded product over generic or Chinese. 

So, lets we start it.

1. Design & Shapes of Headphone

Headphones comes in various design and shapes. Remember both are not same thing. Design is what type of design are available and shapes are circle, rectangle.

We first talk about design in brief. There are four headphones designs which are -

1. Over Ear
2. On Ear
3. In Ear
4. Neckband

Over Ear Headphones

Over ear headphones are the most popular one and are scattered online. Over ear as it name says cover whole of your ear. They are rounded and multi-cushioned in most cases. In most simple word it cups your ear. 

On Ear Headphones

On ear headphones, unlike over ear does not cup your ears. It sits just above your ear and they left a portion for air to pass. The below picture will help you understand the difference between both.

In Ear Headphones

In ear headphones are better known as earphones. They are small and you can insert it into your ears. These are the basic earphone ranges from average to extra bass and HD. They comes free with mobile phone packages.

Neckbands

Neckband are those which does not sits on your head. Mostly it goes beyond your neck to your ears. Though neckband are losing its trend with the time. Company are making flexible neckbands which are smooth and can be inserted into ears. 

Older neckband comes with On ear base now companies are investing in In ear neckbands.

That's all about design now talk about shapes.

Shapes are not much to consider but you can sure to look out for fashion purpose. Headphone base comes in various shapes. Most branded headphones only uses Circle, oval, or rectangle. Some generic companies also sell star shape, pentagon and cat ear headphones too.

2. Color & Variants

Back in days, they are just black and white. Now color play major role for fashion purpose. Companies like SONY and Skullcandy invest a lot in looks along with quality.

If you go check out any Sony Extra bass or h.ear headphone. You will find out so many colorful headphones on their site. For example check out sony h.ear earphones from official site.

Skullcandy which is know for its funky style houses the variety of headphones specially meant for show off.

Overall their are plethora of headphones available. You need to make decision on which color -

• You like the most
• Your phone has. If you have white colored phone, you can go with many bright colored option. For black device, you better go with black or gold colored.
• You can match with your college/job uniform. Like for blue colored Coat you can buy skyblue or matching or contrasting color earphone.

So, these are the basic tips regarding color. 

3. Types of Headphones

Their are just 2 types available. Wired & Wireless. 

Wired headphones are the most commonly available. They are cheaper in price and does not consume batteries. As they don't required to charge to work. 

Wireless headphones comes with inbuilt battery. They require charging. They also consume phone battery as you need to open Bluetooth to connect them with phone. 

Their are also few wireless headphone which offer wired connectivity too. Once you ran out of battery you can plug one end of AUX cable to headphone and another with phone.

boAt rockerz 400 offer this feature.

[Best Wireless Headphones under 2000 in India]

4. Technical Details

Although their is not much to mention if you're not from DJ or technical background. Being an average consumer you should care about two things - Type & Driver Unit. If you're curios about other specifications which you might have seen on websites. We have also covered them in the simplest language possible.

Headphone type Open & Close 

Open type headphones does not isolate ambient noise. Moreover they allow audio leakage from earphone.

Closed type allow isolation of ambient noise. You must heard about noise cancelling headphones. Those are closed type headphones. Moreover they also offer sound blocking which means this close the sound in ear captivity and no leakage occurs.

[Learn more about it]

Headphone Driver Unit

Headphone driver unit is the speaker which produce sound. The size of this driver unit (aka size of diaphragm) decide the music quality. The more the size, the better the quality tend to be. 

The standard size of in ear earphone driver unit is between 8.8 to 12.5 mm. 

For example. We have Sony MDREX750BT and Skullcandy XT Free. MDR has driver unit of 8.89 while XTFree has driver unit of size 9mm. As per defination we can say XT free which cost around  8000 INR will produce better music than MDREX750BT which cost 12K INR. Though it just a definition. As we already mentioned "tends to" in definition the actual result may similar or different than calculation. 

For over and on ear headphones it can be 30 - 40 mm.

[Skull candy XTFree] [Sony MDREX750BT]

Notice that Sony has mentioned driver unit in inches. 

Impedance

Impedance value is the tolerance power when we talk about speakers. It is measured in Ohm. The higher the Impedance value. The higher will be tolerance thus, the higher will be current required. 

Have you ever fused your basic in ear headphone in your laptop running VLC on 200 volume? If you ever did, you have noticed that it losses quality. That's why because they have lower impedance. 

Though for In ear earphones or wirless neckbands the impedance can be vary. However it may starts from 8 ohm and ranges to 16 ohms. Over or On ear headphones may have 32ohm or professional headphone can have 38 ohm to 40 ohm or more.

Headphones Frequency Response

You have seen frequency response on packages or website. What are those numbers? 

For a common example. We are taking MDREX750BT which frequency response is 5HZ to 40KHz which translates to 5Hz to 40,000 Hz. 

If you have ever Science than you know human can listen to 20Hz to 20,000 Hz. 

The first value (5Hz) represent bass end while the last number (40KHz) represent the treble end. 

The overall value represent bass, mid and treble. 

So, what is the purpose of putting extra 20,000Hz treble? Can we listen it? Yes, we can feel it but through bone conduction. But the 20KHz is the upper absolute value for air conduction headphones (the one we talking about).

[Bone Conduction Headphones] [Does human can listen above 20KHZ?]

5. Brand

Last but not the least. Brand. Everyone has their own favorite brand which they trust upon. A brand value matters when you buy a headphone below 1000 price segment. 

Although every popular brand offer headphones ranging from 200-250 to 10,000 or more. Some may not produce below 500. Or some may only go higher to 5000. 

Although every brand offer good quality. While choosing a brand. You should look about after sales service. 

Companies like Philips, Sony, iBall has their own service centers where you can visit and get your unit replaced. Other companies offer onsite service by 3rd party service providers. Most popular is boAt on which you can reserve your service by calling. 

Though some companies neither offer onsite nor has their service center everywhere. Skullcandy is one of them. So, if you're from non-metro city be sure to go with either Indian brand like iBall, Intex or the popular one.

If you're buying Sony Headphone online. Be sure to buy from Cloudtail India. Sony refuse to give warranty on their non authorized retailers.

[Sony Authorized e-Retailer List]

We have found two users review on amazon that Moto not offering their service for headphone via service center. This may be due to same authorization issue. Although we do not find such authorized retailer list online.

Be sure to consult from service center before buying one.

Also, double check before you buy anything from Ebay. In most cases they can be duplicate product.

So, Any Suggestion for me?

From the knowledge comes the question. How to buy a headphone online in India which fits you need. Right?

As this totally depends upon yourself. We can help a little of suggestion.

Buying a wireless headphone with good bass and music quality. You can go for boAt Rockerz 400. This headphone offers the best quality at cheap price. Also you can use it as a wired headphone if battery runs out.

Buy boAt Rockerz 400

Looking for In Ear earphone with superior quality, deep bass and comes with mic. You can look out Sony MDREX250AP. This one is pricey yet one of the finest in Sony range. Comes in various color variants.

Buy Sony MDREX250AP

Need the same but at very cheap price? You can look for Philips SHE1405BK/94 [here] and House of Marley Smile Jamaica EM-JE041 SB [here]. They both are available under 1000 price segment. Philips one will cost under 300.

How about over ear headphones? There are plethora of choices available online on Amazon. You should check out by yourself.

We hope that you get clear idea of simple terms from this buying headphone guide. Using this knowledge you can make a clear idea of what you need. If you're looking for genuine online retailer you can consider Headphonezone or Amazon.in for the purpose.