As a limited time promotion, Consumer Reports has removed the paywall, and all are free to read their content, no account required! Of on-topic interest, this is their headphones page where they have two broad categories, headphones in general, and noise cancellers separately. A total of 194 headphones are covered.

Keep in mind, this is consumer reports, not audiophile reports 🙂 Their sub-categories could use some work 🙂 If I find time, I will have an opinion/write-up post about these [no promises though because time is elusive!]

In other audio related action they have categories for:

+ Wireless/Bluetooth speakers

Three color schemes remain in-stock and orderable of the refurbished (Grade A) closed-back on-ear Beats Mixr On-Ear DJ “David Guetta” headphones on sale until Friday night for $70 with free shipping and free returns at Groupon Goods. They come with a 90-day warranty from an unspecified third party. In other words, Groupon is not the one offering the warranty.

As of a 1/19/18 AM recheck, this sold out at this condition/price combo…

The closed-back over-ear Sony MDR-Z7 headphones are currently available in “Used – Like New” (damaged original packaging) condition for $427 with free shipping by Amazon Warehouse Deals actual.

Other “just launched” sellers may be offering it for less but those are typically big trouble waiting to happen, especially if they are not fulfilled by Amazon. Avoid those unless you are doing undercover work to capture criminals 🙂

the latest model is the second generation Mjolnir Balanced Headphone Amplifier which goes for $850 plus shipping at the Schiit Audio website. But if you happen to want the first generation model, in new condition, you can get it for $750 with free shipping by Hi-Fi Heaven (B&M Wisconsin A/V dealer) through amazon.com. It ships directly from Heaven (ha!) and it is not Prime eligible. Per the shopping cart, they have only one unit available.

Closing the year with a bang, New York’s B&H Photo’s website has a BIG TWO-DAY SALE running until Thursday night at 11:59pm ET that includes, among others, the following headphones, all with free shipping:

+ Fiio X5 II DAP for $180

+ Ultrasone GO folding closed-back for $45

+ Sony XB-450 “Extra Bass” Closed-Back for $27 in black

+ Sennheiser RS160 Wireless System for $85: one RF headset and one transmitter/base; uses KLEER technology; previous generation model

+ Senal SMH-1000 Closed Over-Ear Studio headphones for $50
+ Senal SMH-500 Closed Over-Ear Studio headphones for $30

+ MEE X7 bluetooth earphones for $35 in different colors

+ JBL LSR308 8″ Two-Way Powered Studio Monitor for $129

+ and a few more…

Sales expire on Thursday at 11:59pm eastern ~ except for individual products that may sell out and become un-orderable before that time…

Back to eBay, where an eBay seller by the name of Headset Haven (98.9%, California) is offering a number of Skullcandy headphones on sale including the new condition Skullcandy Hesh 2 Bluetooth Over-Ears for $39 with free shipping, and the new condition Skullcandy Grind Bluetooth On-Ears for $39 with free shipping too.

Speaking of the Grind Bluetooth, we have a useful text and pictures unboxing of them here. The one unboxed is a different color scheme. Here’s an up close and personal look 🙂

I don’t know who the Ninjas in Pyjamas are, but you can thank them for this very nice bundle! For $141 you can get the Blue Mic LOLA headphones + Blackout Yeti Mic. The LOLA are Blue Mic’s wired unpowered un-ANC un-bluetooth headphones. Old fashioned headphones. The Mic on its own goes for $90, and the headphones go for $250. This is subtraction by addition 🙂

This is sold and shipped by Amazon actual, not iffy marketplace sellers. Here name was Lola, she was a Yeti 🙂 Screenshot below:

This offer went for $144 when I first spotted it on 11/23/17 and has been flying under the radar since.

PS: this is eligible for 10% statement credit if you pay with a Prime credit card (Chase VISA or Prime Store credit card).

It’s coupon time on eBay with a new 7-Day Coupon Promotion running until next Monday at 8am pacific (November 20, 2017). The coupon code PSHOPEARLY gets you 20% off the price of items individually priced at $25 or higher. You can get up to $50 off using the coupon. So anything that sells for over $250 will instead get a flat $50 off discount.

Over 120 eBaY sellers are participating and there are almost 2000 items at Portable Audio. Of those, there are over 460 of them that are headphones.

Of those 120+ previously mentioned ebay stores, perhaps the most recognizable in terms of headphones is the PitBull Audio eBay store. They have over 200 listings under headphones.

Remember the coupon only works on items that have an individual price of $25+, not a shopping cart of $25+ in various sub-$25 items.

I have to run some AFK tasks, so I can’t dig into the listings and check for deals right now, but check them out, especially PitBull since good deals tend to fly away quickly.

As usual, some brands and some products may not be eligible for the coupon for various reasons (restricted by manufacturer, seller’s choice, etc).

This coupon expired…

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The new condition Sony MDR-XB-650BT closed-back over-ears Extra Bass bluetooth headphones go for $80+ in new condition at authorized Sony dealers, but if you want to experience these for half the price and you are willing to go The Way of the Used, then…

… there are many and more used listings of the black color scheme in “Used – Very Good” condition for $37~ with free shipping by Amazon Warehouse Deals (AWD) actual. Also there, “Used – Like New” goes for $39~. Since there are five pages of listings, even if you don’t want them now, you may want to keep an eye on them in case of future discounts.

They are part of the AWD Bargain Bin where things are discounted by 50% off or more.

The link above to AWD only shows the listings that are sold by AWD actual (that’s Amazon as the seller, their used persona, and Prime eligible). Sony being a popular and recognizable brand, their used listings are often a wild west.

You can find lower prices, but before you buy, make sure you are buying from a reliable seller ~ here are the unfiltered listings, showing the lowest price per color. Click on the “See all offers for this product” next to the color(s) of choice (black, blue, red) to see the detailed listings for that particular color.

In addition to the Hammo S Over-Ears being on sale, the previous generation, the Noontec Hammo closed-back over-ears in the very colorful red-yellow color scheme are on sale for $30, in new condition, offered at this price by two marketplace sellers, with the orders fulfilled by Amazon, so they are Prime eligible. They average 3.4 out of 5 based on 23 customer reviews.

With their debut at Massdrop, the Koss Porta Pros are having yet another hype wave. If you are looking for additional earpads for them, the Cosmos branded set of five pairs of replacement earpads for the Koss Porta Pros and other assorted Koss headphones of similar size (list is in the product description over there) are on sale for $4.56 by a marketplace seller with the order fulfilled by Amazon. Thankfully it’s not an Add-On item, so Prime members get them with free 2-day shipping 🙂

They average 4.3 out of 5 based on almost 100 customer reviews.

CAUTION: some of the non-Prime sellers offering these with free shipping are shipping from China! Make sure you check who the seller is if it’s not Prime eligible. Unless you don’t mind waiting for weeks for them to arrive from China.

Back on sale again, the new condition Sennheiser IE80 in-ears are going for the very specific price of $204.77 with free shipping at Amazon by Amazon actual where they average 4.2 out of 5 based on 300+ customer reviews, and have 70+ questions peer-answered by the internet-people 🙂

These daily offerings expired…

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Now that we are in “Game Of Thrones” season, I will be posting these on Saturdays instead of Sundays. It reduces the chances of being late 🙂 So here we are, a new installment of This Week in Headphoolia is up, featuring videos from CanJam 2071 in London, an earphone-centric review crop, discussion on custom IEM experiences, and more!

If you have any suggestions or feedback for these round-ups, please leave a comment or use the contact form. Your feedback is what helps shape these!

We have a new content post for you, as I am finally ramping up the production on the content part of the website. It is text and pictures unboxing of the Klipsch S4A (II) earphones. They were an impulse buy, I found them on clearance at a closing Office Depot/Max store.

You can’t call them Lakers, that name is already taken 🙂 The Lake People HPA RS 08 balanced headphone amp is fully unlocked at members-only Massdrop (MD) for $700 plus shipping. The offer runs for the next nine days, and it will ship in late June 2017. As usual with MD, all sales are final!

Hooray! Not as early as I would have liked but it still got posted before late Sunday night, so you can read it as you wind down for Sunday 🙂 It is a new This Week in Headphoolia with an assortment of topics, a mix of video and text/pictures from across the internets!

You can also catch up with previous editions in the Headphoolia archives. There are 13 of them already!

This offer expired but this coupon is a recurring offer, so it will likely return in the future. It appears to be a Monday coupon, but not always…

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Time heals wounds and drops prices 🙂 Which is the case on the latter, the open-back over-ear Sennheiser HD 559, part of the new 5XX line-up is currently on sale for $100 at Amazon by Amazon actual. It has detachable cable and replaceable earpads which can help with longevity.

PS: of the new HD 5X9 line-up, note that the HD 569 are closed even though they don’t have a “CS” in their name like the HD 598 CS. The HD 5X8 was all open-back until the 598 CS came along a few months ago.

Wednesday is over, and so are its lightning deals…

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If you are/were interested in getting a Microsoft Surface device, select models of the Surface 4 tablet or the Surface Book laptop, are eligible to get you a pair of Sennheiser Momentum 2 Wireless (bluetooth) headphones for FREE through the Microsoft online store. It has steps to follow, it’s not a simple add-to-cart-now promotion:

1. you may have to be a member of the Microsoft Rewards program (free to join – see at the bottom)
2. in your Rewards dashboard or emails, you receive a promo code for this offer – Spoiler Alert: the coupon code is HEADPHONES for everybody
3. then you select an eligible Surface devices at the online Microsoft Store and add it to the shopping cart
4. avoid the Office and NFL Type Cover upsell traps (unless you want to buy them)
5. enter the promo code HEADPHONES, and the Sennheiser headphones magically appear in your shopping cart. You don’t add the headphones manually. You don’t need to login to test the coupon. Just add an eligible Surface to the cart and proceed to checkout and enter the promo code

STEP by STEP

You can see which models are eligible by clicking on the two blue links at the Surface-Sennheiser promotional page, a screenshot of those are below to help you locate them quickly since they don’t look like web links but they are clickable over there (not below, below it’s only screenshot):

When you click on either of the blue buttons, you see the various sub-models. The ones eligible for this promotion have a “Microsoft Rewards” logo on them. Not a surprise, but the entry-level models of the Surface 4 and the Book are not eligible. Of the Surface 4, the two eligible models are the two 256GB storage models (i5 or i7; 8GB RAM). Of the Surface Book models, all except for the entry-level option (i5, 128GB SSD, 8GB RAM) are eligible. Screenshot below:

Models that are not eligible for the offer do not have the purple “Microsoft Rewards” rectangle at that position.

THEN YOU ENTER THE PROMO CODE

After you add an eligible Surface to your cart, and go through the Office and Type Cover upsells, you have to enter the coupon code HEADPHONES by clicking on the “Enter Promo Code” which will reveal a box to type in.

After you type it in and hit Apply, the headphones magically appear in your shopping cart just like the screenshot below:

It’s Easy to Join

It’s easy to join Microsoft Rewards, especially if you already have a Microsoft account, eg one you use at the Microsoft App Store or to login to Windows (not a local account) or one of the other Microsoft services. You just go to your account and find the Join the Rewards option, click a button and you are in. The offer is right there waiting. I just did this – here’s a screenshot of how the promotion looks: