Recommendations for headphones, £200 budget maximum.

No offence but will she really appreciate/want £200 phones for her usage?

Maybe some £50-100 ones and something else?

*I AM NOT A PARENT*

Fwiw, the silver xm4s are now £180 at John Lewis. If you have any work discount voucher schemes or similar then you might get a bit more off so it’s approaching the price of the EE black pair.

Soundcore Q20 are somewhat less than £200. They sound OK. My children preferred them to the Beats Studio Pro 3s they had previously. They survive well with adolescent use. And are not heart-breaking when they inevitably get stood on, bent, or lost.

An alternative to which one of our children has swapped are JBL Live 660NC. More stylish than Q20s. Noise cancelling, nice sound, fairly robust. And less than £200 by a margin.

edit ++ to what @cynic-al wrote. While it’s nice to give children fancy things on the whole as long as it works, looks cool, and parents will not go off the deep end when it breaks it’ll be fine.

have you considered just giving them £200 and asking them to buy what they want?

May be of help to some folk considering ANC headphones

A lot of the ‘kool kidz’ are embracing the simplicity of wired headphones and earphones, partly because they’re cheaper, music sounds better, because you can listen to lossless audio, and you won’t be having to bin them once the battery dies.

your right – my 5 year old daughter has a wired headphone set – because her yoto doesnt have bluetooth.

other than you certainly dont see “wired” headsets very often in public- and when you do the users usually babbling on about how much better their music sounds.

WH 1000 XM4 user here .

I know where cynic-al is coming from.  I had a similar conundrum over the weekend.  I kid you not i jumped from nearly pressing the button on a pair of Apple Airpods Max at about £429 to a pair of Jlabs for £50 down from £80.

My reasoning was i have a pair of Jlabs in the ear bluetooth pods which cost me £20 about 2 years ago.  I dont need to charge them very often (Months).  They work and they give good sound (for me).  I also dont give a toss about them and i never seem to lose them.  They have been perfect whenever called upon.

So i then considered what i was going to get out of the Apple Max cans.  Other than they look nice and a bit of functionality i really couldnt say much else.  The Jlabs ones have about 40hrs charge whilst using Noise cancellation, 70+ if turned off.  They look pretty decent etc etc.  For walking the dogs and using in my home gym (Daughter sometimes complains at me having my music on full blast) i think ive made the right decision.

Thats not to say i wouldnt look at the same choices for my kids as listed here.  However i would also consider the fact that a pair of headphones worth £200 sitting on my kids head might make them a target for being mugged.

other than you certainly dont see “wired” headsets very often in public- and when you do the users usually babbling on about how much better their music sounds.

Absolutely nothing to do with sound quality for me. Plugging in and pressing start. Bluetooth can be such hassle in comparison. Battery low/one ear not working/device connected to another bt host/bt randomly not connected/signal drops out when head moved slightly… get none of that with wired. You may not get any of those with bluetooth, but I certainly have and for that reason…

my memory of wired consists of constantly  untangling the wire./Routing it so it didn’t catch on things as i walk inside my my clothing

finding out reasonably regularly that the wire had been damaged by something else in my bag.

or the jack the headphone plugged into had been damaged in use….

I’m reminded by this horror every time i take a long haul flight and want to watch a movie on the entertainment system. – Try to go to the toilet and find out im attached to the seat.

Until a couple of years ago i religiously used Sony ZX110  a wired set . – Having had similar experiences to you with cheap bluetooth headsets.

Took the plunge for a set of WH1000 a couple years ago and have never looked back. wires just feel alien when ever i take a flight now.

Daughter is 22. I want to buy her something nice and she will get a lot is use out of them.  If she has asked for a list of things to fill £200 then maybe a cheaper set would be looked at. However, blowing the budget on a really nice item isn’t an issue.

And it means less potentially pointless stocking fillers.

Daughter is 22

I’d ask if she has any preferences. Also just give her the money? Then she has the fun of choosing.

CEX – £200 will get you something good . Their no quibble guarantees are decent.  CEX online inventory is good for headphones.