Archives for November 2019

Audio Technica M50x + Rode NT-USB microphone for $300

Perspective is relative with this offer, do you get a free headphone with the mic, or a free mic with the headphone? Regardless, as part of the Black Friday festivities, B&H Photo is offering a Rode + Audio Technica bundle for $300 with free US shipping. For that you get, in new condition of course:

+ Audio Technica M50X closed over-ears

+ Rode NT-USB (USB obvoiusly) microphone

+ Auray reflection filter and microphone stand

Rode and the headphone come with a 2-year manufacturer warranty, while the small bundle items get a 1-year warranty. Auray is a B&H “house brand”…

Black Friday doorbuster: Sennheiser HD 6XX for $180

The sale that was promised is here! The new condition open-back over-ear Sennheiser HD 6XX headphones are on sale as a limited time Black Friday offer at Massdrop for $180 with free US shipping and returns. This being a collaboration between the two companies, it comes with a full two-year warranty, although optionally you can purchase a 3-year Massdrop extended warranty.

This being an in-stock drop, it will ship in about one business day after the purchase closes, in our case, as of the time of writing, the shipping estimate is December 2nd (and for those traumatized by previous long Massdrop waits, yes, it is in 2019) 😉

EU: AmazonBasics budget earphones for 3 euro

On the very budget side of things, Amazon Germany is offering for a limited time as part of their Black Friday festivities a sale on various of their housebrand Amazon Basics products and one of them is this little red budget earphone going for just 3 euro per pair with up to six pairs per customer. They have a 1-button remote and mic. Only the red color is on sale. They average 4.6 out of 5 based on six customer ratings…

UPDATE: speaking of Amazon Germany, they are having a Sony audio sale and that includes:

+ WH-XB700 “Extra Bass” bluetooth on-ears for 85 euro in two color options

+ MDR-ZX310 closed on-ears for 13 euro
+ from my experience, this and the ZX100 sound as if they were tuned in a modestly loud coffee shop; I would recommend them as a coffee shop headphone; not so good when it’s quiet

Big Massdrop BF sale (21 options; more coming): DT1770, PortaPro X, ATH-AD/A, HE-4XX, Liquid, Noble, Etc

Massdrop is having a Big Black Friday sale with 21 headphone-related products participating. More are coming later on Black Friday as they have teased a Sennheiser HD 6XX (price before sale $220) sale as well.

Meanwhile the offers that are live right now at Massdrop include:

+ Koss Porta PRO X edition for $25 [nom nom!!!]
+ Beyerdynamic DT1770 closed over-ears for $380
+ Hifiman HE-4XX planars for $130 ($160 for EU)
+ Mr Speakers Ether CX for $700

+ Audio Technica ATH series sale
+ AD-500X for $60
+ AD-1000X for $250
+ A-1000Z for $250
+ A-2000Z for $400
~ AD = open, A = closed

+ Noble X universal IEMs for $125
+ Noble Luxe iems for $50
+ Cardas EM=5813 IEMs for $100
+ NuForce EDC IEMs for $40, EDC3 for $80

+ MEE X10 truly wireless with bluetooth 5.0 for $40
+ Nuforce Stride bluetooth necklace style in-ears for $55

+ Sennheiser PC37X gaming headset for $90 ($130 for EU)
+ Koss GMR-54X-ISO for $40

+ Liquid Carbon X DAC/amp for $250 ($350 for EU)
+ Liquid Carbon X CAvalli for $200

Sennheiser HD 599 SE Open Over-Ears for $100

$100 has more options these days for open-back over-ear headphones from well-known manufacturers. In addition to the previously mentioned Philips options, as part of the Black Friday festivities, you can get the new condition Sennheiser HD 599 SE for $100 with free shipping from Amazon actual with up to five pairs per customer. This is marked as an Amazon Exclusive and it is the black color scheme of the model…

Philips X2HR Open Over-Ears down to $100

The popularity of the ANC/bluetooth combos mayhaps has a blessing in disguise benefits for fans of wired headphones ~ it “encourages” sellers and manufacturers to offer more competitive prices. Mayhaps this (and/or other reasons) has now dropped the price of the new condition open-back over-ear Philips X2HR to $100 with free shipping by Amazon actual

Fans in the EU can either tempt the trans-atlatic trip or get it for 119 euro from Amazon Germany (with up to five per customer). With the euro being stronger than the dollar, the difference is more than 19…

Philips SHP-9500 Open Over-Ears for $55

Don’t stop believing Philips SHP-9500 fans and hunters! As part of the Black Friday festivities, the price of the new condition model is now down to $55 with free shipping with up to five pairs per customer at the sale price by Amazon actual

I don’t have this model but I had the newer “S” model of which I posted a useful (IMHO) text and pictures unboxing about 2.5 years ago. At this price, it’s hard to argue against getting it ~ it is not an audiophile panacea but where else can you find comfortable, decent, open-back over-ears for $55?

PS: this sale price is currently “defeating” Ali Express who mayhaps has not yet caught wind of it…

Sennheiser PXC 550 ANC/bluetooth over-ears down to $200

Sennheiser goes on the attack in the very competitive prestige-brand ANC/bluetooth over-ear combos and they have brought down the price of their closed-back over-ear PXC 550 to $200 with free shipping by various at Amazon (including Amazon actual) along with B&H Photo and friends…

Note however that there is a second generation model now, which, however, goes for $350, so there’s a big price gap between the two…

PS: we have not turned into an ANC/bluetooth blog! I’m simply posting as many deals as I can find (and have time to post) and a lot of today’s options and deals are on the ANC/bluetooth combos…

AKG K240 Semi-Open Over-Ears for $44

An old classic headphone is on sale, the semi-open over-ear AKG K240 is now down to the very specific price of $44.10 at select authorized dealers such as B&H Photo and also at Amazon actual where it averages 4.4 out of 5 based on nearly 1,500 customer reviews…

At this point, it’s almost competing on price with the “homage versions” of it made under Superlux/Samson 🙂

Monoprice Triple Driver IEMs for $28 w/FS

In addition to the just posted Monolith sale, there is also a Monoprice non-Monolith headphone sale and the headliner of this lot is the new condition Triple Driver In-Ears with a 1-button remote and mic combo going for $28 with free standard US shipping, with up to twenty pairs per customer at the sale price.

These average 4.3 out of 5 based on 102 customer reviews…

And that’s it for Monoprice deals for this week ~ unless something even better comes along of course 🙂

UPDATE: how could I forget? The bluetooth version of an all-time classic, the 8323 closed-back over-ears with apt-X is on sale for $20 with free US shipping with up to twenty pairs per customer at the sale price. I had the non-bluetooth and it’s definitely worth the price ~ however it’s not as big as it looks (for those with really big heads) and fully extended, you look like one of those robots from the 50s scifi movies ~ at least they are not silver 🙂

Big Monoprice Monolith sale with new low prices (17 options, headphones, amps, etc)

Monoprice has launched a big Monolith audio sale featuring 17 different products, mostly of headphone interest!

On the headphone front, the open-back over-ear M1060 planars go for $200 while their closed counterpart (the M1060C) go for $250. On the dynamic front, the M600 open over-ears are down to $60, while the M650 are down to $80. A not-so-subtle name-homage to the world-famous Sennheiser HD6?? duo 🙂

Back to the planars, the M560C closed-back (as that “C” hints at) is down to $170, while the sole earphone (can’t really call them in-ears) of the lot, the M300 is down to $70.

Come on Barbie, let’s have an electrostatic party because their Electrostatic headphone with amp combo is down to $354~.

Find them all at the Monolith audio sale

Speaking of amps, the big old Tube amplifier is down to $190, while vinyl fans have the Monolith turntable at their disposal for $150.

On the balanced headphone amp front, the Cavalli Liquid Platinum is down to $700, while their portable THX AAA DAC/amp goes for $250.

The rest of the sale items are speakers of different kinds. For those, check our imaginary speakers blog 🙂

Thur: Feed the DAPs and PADs with microSD cards

A busy Gold Box day at the flagship Amazon for Thursday includes a sale of various Sandisk and WD storage products. In addition to the various flash drives and internal and external disks that can be filled up with music, there’s also a sale on microSD memory cards to fill up your favorite DAPs and PADs (phones as DAPs).

The bang for the buck of this lot is the 512GB Sandisk Ultra microSDXC going for $64, while the Extreme version goes for $16 more. The Extreme is also offered in 1TB for $200, while down to 256GB they have the white-colored “High Endurance” Sandisk microSDXC card for $40…

The flash drives include the dual kind with two different connectors on each end, while the hard drives include not just plain internal and external but also various “personal cloud” type of WD devices…

Sales end on Friday at 3am eastern or earlier for anything that sells out ahead of time. Up to three units of each item during the sale…

Monoprice SonicSolance ANC/BT Over-Ears for $40 w/FS

Monoprice is running their variant of the Black Friday sale and among the items offered is the new condition Sonic Solace ANC/BT Over-Ears, their attempt at this popular and populous market segment of double-figure options. It goes for $40 with free standard US shipping with up to twenty pairs per customer at the sale price.

The price you see is the price you pay, no coupons for this particular offer. Note that these come in bulk packaging so keep that in mind if you are buying it/them as gifts for others…

UPDATE: there’s a total of 30 different headphone-related consumer products on sale at Monoprice, too many to list here individually as it would become a Monoprice blog 🙂

Bose QC35 II ANC/BT Over-Ears for $250

If the rose-gold color-scheme is your favorite or at least one you don’t object to, the closed-back over-ear ANC with bluetooth Bose QC (as in Quiet Comfort) 35 Mark II headphones are on sale for $250 at Best Buy and by Amazon actual (up to five per customer at the sale price) and B&H Photo among others…

But fear not, if you prefer the more conventional colors, they are not that far off, their sale is $280, the sales price point where they and Sony’s 1000X are doing battle…

Used Sony WH-CH700N ANC/BT for $50

IF you are looking for a name-brand ANC/bluetooth over-ear headphone, the Sony WH-CH700N is currently on sale for $88 in either color in new condition at Amazon.

But thanks to the previously mentioned 20% off in-cart used AWD promotion, you can get either color in USED condition (“Used – Very Good” or better) starting at $62~ minus 20% off = $50~ at Amazon Warehouse Deals.

So while $88 is not bad, paying $50 is even better 🙂

EU: Beats EP On-Ears for 49 euro

Conventional wisdom suggests that products have better prices closer to their home market, but that ain’t necessarily so as they say. For example, as of the time of writing, the Beats EP closed-back on-ear headphones are on sale, in new condition, for 49 euro at Amazon Germany by Amazon Germany actual. The sale price covers the black, blue and white color schemes with up to six pairs per color per customer at the sale price…

EU: Used Beyerdynamic DT770 (80 ohm) for 80 euro

We have our first good deal of the 20% off Warehouse Deals promotion at the Amazons. It is at Amazon Germany and you can get the closed-back over-ear Beyerdynamic DT-770 (80 ohm version) dropping from 100~ to 80~ euro. Shipping is free in Germany-Austria-Etc but extra for everybody else…

NOTE that the discount works only on listings sold by Amazon Warehouse Deals (not marketplace sellers). This applies to all Amazons, USA, Germany, etc [they can’t (yet?) universally force marketplace sellers to take a 20% off hit on their sales] Here’s an example:

20% off Amazon Warehouse Deals (USA and Germany too)

One of the Black Friday traditions is the 20% off discount at Amazon Warehouse Deals. This happens automatically in the shopping cart when you put there products that are eligible for the promotion ~ it is also denoted in the detailed USED listings of such items.

There are currently 82 options in the Headphones category. I will be going through them on a time-permitting basis, but I’m posting it now because supplies are limited, so if you have the time to look for deals, you potentially won’t miss them out!

The same promotion is available at Amazon Germany where they have, as of the time of posting, 270 options in the Headphones sub-category

AS to whether to shop from Amazon USA or Germany, this depends (obviously) on your location and whether you’ll be paying customs, VAT, taxes and such…

Wedn: Rane RH-50 Studio headphones for $60

As one of the 11/27/19 deals of the day, Woot is running a Professional Audio sale with audio equipment ranging from $40 to $280. One of the sale items are the closed-back over-ear Rane RH-50 studio monitor headphones in the black color scheme going for $60 with free S&H for Prime members (or $6 flat). They come with a 1-year Rane warranty.

The other non-headphone audio equipment in the sale come from Denon, Marantz and Rane…

Wedn: 8GB Sandisk Clip Sport MP3 player for $30

Time to party like it’s 1999! An old school style mp3 player is on sale until Wednesday 11/27/19 at 11:59pm ET at B&H Photo, it’s available in four different colors, going for $30 with free US shipping. “It” refers to the SanDisk 8GB Clip Sport MP3 Player which averages 4.5 out of 5 based on 76 customer reviews. In addition to the 8GB of on-board storage, it also has a microSD slot, like many Clip players have.

I don’t have these one but I have some of the older Clips and for the price, they are definitely worth it. Within reason of course 🙂

Sennheiser HD 4.40BT Over-Ears Bluetooths for $70

Newegg has this for $80 in their BF deals, but Amazon actual has them beat they are offering it for $70. “It” being not the Stephen King book/movie, but the new condition closed-back over-ear bluetooth Sennheiser HD 4.40BT with up to three pairs per customer at the sale price. They average 4 out of 5 based on nearly 900 customer reviews…

I haven’t seen or touched this but I have used the Sennheiser HD 4.20s and those thick (but not hard) earpads are just divine…

Beyerdynamic DT770 (80 ohm) w/$50 promo GC for $179

Also part of the Newegg Black Friday you can get the new condition Beyerdynamic DT770 (80 ohm) closed-back over-ear going for $179 with a $50 promotional NewEgg gift card, sold and shipped by NewEgg actual. Limit up to two units per customer at the sale price…

Assuming you have no trouble spending the $50 promotional gift card in the future at NewEgg on things you want or need, then it’s almost like getting it for $129…

Sennheiser M2 IEi Wired In-Ears for $35

NewEgg is now running a variant of their Black Friday sale and among those offers they do have a Headphone section, the headliner of which is the new condition Sennheiser M2 IEi HD1 wired in-ears with Apple buttons going for just $35 with free US shipping. This is sold and shipped by NewEgg so you know you are not getting an iffy/international/etc product…

The sale is on both the black/red (looks stylish from the pictures) and the black/chrome (looks more conventional/streamlined in the pictures) options…

Stay up to date with the deals usig our full-text RSS feed!

Did you know that this website is offering a FREE full-text RSS feed? That’s right, you can stay up to date during the Black Friday and Holiday shopping season using your favorite RSS reader or other news-reading app. You don’t have to be a gold tier Patreon member to get a free full-text RSS feed 🙂 Get yours now!

Sunday: Fiio X5 III DAP for $180

Good until Sunday 11/24/19 at 11:59pm ET at the B&H daily deals you can get the new condition Fiio X5 III DAP for $180 with free US shipping only in the Titanium color scheme. The black color scheme is not on sale…

While there, you’ll also find the JBL 1 Series 104 Compact Powered Desktop Reference Monitors on sale for $50 per pair with free US shipping…

Saturday: 128GB iPod Touch, LG V20 PAD, Samson HP30, Etc

Saturday 11/23/19 has some headphone-related daily deals running. First up, at the Woot website you can get the new condition Samson HP-30 closed-back headphones for $16 with a 90-day Woot warranty. These are not the famous semi-open studio headphones that are also sold under the Superlux brand…

Also there at Woot, of PAD interest (PAD = Phone As a DAP) you can find the refurbished “scratch and dent” LG V20 smartphone (Verizon with unlocked GSM, 64GB storage) for $100 with a 90-day Woot warranty…

But that’s not all for today. Then we jump on to the Best Buy daily deals where we find the new condition 128GB Apple iPod Touch (6th generation) going for $225, while on the bluetooth-gadget front, the MEE Audio BTR bluetooth audio receiver is offered for $20…

Pay 99c, Get 4 Months of Amazon Music Subscription

If you want to give Amazon’s for-pay music subscription service a longer running test, for a limited time they are offering a 4-month trial for just 99c total for the duration of the trial. After that it will auto-converted to a $10/month paying subscription unless you manually cancel or adjust it…

If you are a Prime, you would pay $8 per month instead of $10, a nice benefit of the Prime subscription since Google is no longer offering $8/mo music subscriptions (they had offered them back when they got started as a way to attract people)…

PS: in case you haven’t heard, Amazon has also launched an HD Music Streaming service that goes for $15 per month (or $13/mo for Prime members) or $20/month for the Family plan. This only gets a 30-day free trial, it is not participating in the 4-month 99c promotion…

PS2: the above offers are for new subscribers or previous subscribers that had been gone long enough for the Amazon systems to treat as new subscribers. The only way to find out if you are eligible as a re-subscriber is to press the buttons and see what their computer server tells you…

EU: Philips X2HR open over-ears for 119 euro

As part of the Black Friday 2019 festivities, Amazon Germany has dropped the price of the new condition open-back over-ear Philips X2-HR for 119 euro with free shipping in Germany-Austria. Limit up to five units per customer at the sale price. This is not a lightning deal, so expiration time is unknown…

Wedn: MEE X10 Truly Wireless for $40

In the black or blue color schemes, $40 can get you the new condition MEE Audio X10 truly wireless earphones as part of the Wednesday November 20 (2019) daily deals at the Best Buy website. These average 4.3 out of 5 based on 27 customer reviews.

As you can see in our Black Friday 2019 round-up, truly wireless is the hottest consumer-advertised segment in the headphones market. Make sense since this is the newest sub-genre and many people have zero ~ as opposed to wired or ANC and/or bluetooth that has been around much longer…

Headphones in the 2019 Black Friday Ads

And just like that dear head-friends another Black Friday is just around the corner. Time to take a look at what headphones are advertised in the Black Friday ads of 2019. Of course these are consumer models, you are not going to find electrostatic systems and open-back reference models in these 🙂

LATEST UPDATE: November 18 in 2019 ~ first edition; more will be added as they come out… As you can see just by looking at the size of the blocks below, wireless is currently “winning” the average consumer… This is a very long post, more after the break…

[Read more…]

Monday: Sony WH-XB900N ANC/BT Over-Ears for $128

Good until Monday 11/18/19 at 11:59pm pacific time, Amazon actual is offering as one of their deals of the day the new condition closed-back over-ear Sony WH-XB900N ANC/BT headphones for $128 with free US shipping with up to three pairs per customer at the sale price. As the “XB” in the model name suggests, this is an “Extra Bass” model.

It averages 4.3 out of 5 based on nearly 110 customer reviews and it has 80 answered questions…

Massdrop “Audio Week” with 13 discounted headphone-related products

Massdrop is currently running an Audio Week sale promotion featuring 13 of their headphone-related “X” co-branded products on sale for a limited time:

All the headphones below are “Massdrop X” co-branded. To make the list more readable and less repeating, I am not including the “Massdrop X” in every single name below:

+ Hifiman HE-4XX planars for $130 (or $160 with EU shipment)
+ Meze 99 Noir closed over-ears for $180
+ Sennheiser PC-37X gaming headset for $100 (or $140 with EU shipment)
+ the aforementioned Focal Elex for $600 and Beyerdynamic DT-177X for $380

+ MEE Audio Planamic IEMs for $100
+ Noble Kaiser 10 Universal IEMs for $700 (or $900 with EU shipment)

+ Liquid Carbon X + SDAC dac/amp for $250 (or $350 with EU shipment)

The “EU shipment” mentioned above is relatively new experimental feature at Massdrop, what they call the EU Collection, products that ship directly from within the EU and include VAT, customs, and shipping. So while higher than the USA price, the EU price includes VAT and customs and shipping and they ship faster because they don’t have the transatlantic trip… This is explained in their earlier announcement

PS: the price is still listed in USD because that’s how the Massdrop website is setup.

Beyerdynamic DT-177X Closed Over-Ears down to $380

The discounting party continues at Massdrop where they have put on sale for a limited time the new condition closed-back over-ear Beyerdynamic DT-177X going for $380 with free US shipping. This is an in-stock drop so it will ship quickly (there is an estimate of one business day after purchase).

This is a “Massdrop X” product, as the “X” in the name suggests, a co-operation between Beyerdynamic and Massdrop, however, there is no mention of a warranty in the listing. Typically “X” products come with a warranty since they are made in co-operation with the manufacturer. There is a new forum discussion on this very topic but nothing conclusive is posted there…

PS: as a refresher for those not familiar, the 7s are closed-back, the 8s are semi-open and the 9s are open in the DT-??? and DT-1??? lines of studio headphones…

Wedn: KEF Porsche Design Space One for $99

Good for Wednesday 11/13/19 in the pacific time zone, NewEgg actual is offering the new condition closed-back over-ear KEF Porsche Design Space One headphones for $99 with free US shipping with up to three pairs per customer at the sale price. This is in a white-gray type of a color scheme and averages 4 out of 5 based on a lucky 13 customer reviews over there…

Massdrop Bounty Box II is back but no Audiophile-only option (for $250)

If you like to get semi-surprised by boxes you receive in the mail, Massdrop has brought back their Bounty Box II. You pay $250 with free US shipping and for that you are guaranteed to receive five items. The five items will be randomly selected from different groupings.

In this iteration of the Bounty Box, the boxes are prepackaged and you cannot select the product category. So you may receive items from audiophile (the headphones) and mechanical keyboardalia and EDC/blades. You have no control of what you receive.

In this post we’ll obviously focus on the Audiophile option but you cannot specify that you want audiophile-only products! If you are not interested in mechanical keyboards and EDC/knives as well, don’t order from this iteration!

Of the five items you receive, you MAY [randomly selected] to receive one from the most prized grouping, the “Rare” items.
+ Sennheiser HD 6XX open over-ears
+ AKG K7XX open over-ears
+ Hifiman HE-4XX planars
+ and one IEM, Noble X universal

Next up you MAY randomly receive two from this grouping:
+ Tin Audio T3 in-ears
+ Acoustic Research AR-E10 in-ears
+ NuForce EDC in-ears
+ NuForce Stride bluetooth in-ears

Lastly, two MAY come [randomly selected] from the group called “Common”:
+ Koss KPH-30i lightweight on-ears
+ Koss Porta PRO old-school lightweight on-ears
+ MEE Audio [does not specify model?]
+ RevoNext QT5 IEMs

“MAY” come because there’s no guarantee you will receive items from the Audiophile category!

To throw a monkey wrench in the above selection process, a few boxes will be randomly selected to receive two RARE items instead of one [you still get a total of five items]. As you can see from the list, that’s very good.

But wait, there’s more. A few boxes may receive an item from the EPIC category that has the Mr Speakers Ether CX and the Empire Ears Zeus universal iems.

These are an in-stock drop, so they will ship right away. No long waits. Returns are accepted but there is a restocking fee ~ check their terms and conditions…

NOTE that the reviews at the Massdrop website are for all variants of the Bounty Boxes and may not apply to this particular box… Check the “Discussions” tab instead where the most recent posts are on this latest “Bounty Box”.

NOTE #2: because these boxes contain knives, they cannot be shipped internationally, so this is a US only offering…