2023 Christmas Gadget Buying Guide

MassDrop

Fancy giving your work or gaming space a studio-quality sound upgrade? The Massdrop X Sennheiser HD 58X are some of the best-sounding headphones on the market, at least, without spending significantly more money.

With detachable cables, swappable ear pads, and a lightweight design, they’re very easy to live with. Plus, they come with both 3.5mm jack as standard and a 3/4″ adaptor, so they’re largely compatible with most audio devices. To get the best out of them, an amp capable of driving up to 150-ohms is best suited, but most soundcards, desktop or USB DACs do up to 600 Ohm these days, so that’s pretty easy to achieve.

With their 12–38,500 Hz frequency response and THD + N: < 0.1% at 1 kHz, 100 dB the sound like a dream, with unbelievable clarity for this price range. However, they are open back, which does give them an exceptionally natural sound, but it also means they have zero noise isolation. That’s a pro and a con, as it means I can talk to people and hear my surroundings while using them, but it also means the person sitting next to me can hear what I’m listening to quite clearly.

They’re wonderfully comfortable too, with soft fabric ear padding and a lightweight design, they’re unlikely to ever become a burden after an epic work and gaming session. They weigh just 260 grams, so they float like a cloud on your head.

The dynamic drivers are plenty powerful too, and if you really want to crank them, they give an impressive bass response with no falter in the clarity. I’ve really pushed the low-end EQ on these, and you get zero distortion issues at any volume.

These would make a great gift for any budding audio-enthusiast, and are great for music, gaming, movies, and especially brilliant for level-sensitive audio mixing work, so musicians and video editors will love these just as much.

Available from MassDrop.