The Best Headphones Around $500

Reviewed September 2026. At five hundred dollars the differences are about which kind of good you want rather than how much of it you can afford.

Around means about twenty percent either way, so $400 to $600. Most of what follows is open backed, which leaks in both directions, and there is a closed answer further down.

Pick	Back	Driver	Off a phone
HIFIMAN Edition XS	Open	Planar	No, it wants more power than a laptop has
Grado Hemp, $495	Open, on ear
Meze 105 SILVA, $499	Open	50 mm dynamic, 42 ohms	Yes
Sennheiser HD 620S	Closed	150 ohm dynamic

The standing answer: HIFIMAN Edition XS

If somebody hands us five hundred dollars and no other information, the planar is still the thing to beat. The Edition XS is large, light for its size, and it is built to hold together when the mix gets dense.

Two faults, both real. HIFIMAN's build quality is the long running complaint and it is not unfair: headbands and pads wear, and QC varies more than it should at this money. And it wants more power than a laptop has, so budget for something to drive it.

Grado Hemp, $495

The opposite temperament. Grado built the Hemp as a limited run to find out what a hempwood housing would do, sold out of it, and then had to keep making it. The hemp damps the housing more than maple alone does. It is still a forward, on-the-ear Grado, and reviewer consensus on it is unusually consistent: this is the one to hear when the SR325 treble is the objection.

The faults are the Grado faults and you should know them before you spend: the foam sits on your ear rather than around it, it is wide open so everyone near you hears it, and the cable is thick and permanently attached.

Meze 105 SILVA, $499

The 105 SILVA is an open-back 50 mm dynamic in hand-polished walnut, and it runs properly from a phone at 42 ohms. That last part matters more than it sounds: almost nothing else in this band works without an amplifier, and this one does.

The question is the two hundred dollars between it and the 105 AER, which is the same platform with a different dome material in an ABS housing.

Meze sells every part separately, and their warranty says the headphone can be taken apart and serviced. At five hundred dollars, buying something that is a repair rather than a write off in year six is worth more than most tuning differences.

If the room is shared: Sennheiser HD 620S

Everything above leaks. If somebody else is in the room, or you are in an office, an open headphone is the wrong answer. The closed one we would point at is the Sennheiser HD 620S, a 150 ohm dynamic on the 600 series frame.

Spend less

A great deal of this band is available a hundred and fifty dollars lower. The 105 AER at $299 is the same platform in an ABS housing with a different dome, the SR325 at $350 puts the Grado argument in front of you for less, and the Sennheiser 500 series answers the question competently for under $250.

Spend more, but only for a reason

The next real step is closer to a thousand dollars away, and it buys refinement rather than a different class of thing. If you are curious, the RS1 at $750 and the 109 PRO at $799 are where that conversation starts. Neither will make a $500 headphone sound broken.

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Come and hear what we have

Ask before you make the trip and we will tell you what is there that week, and what else we can get in front of you.

The listening room is at Free River Studios, 215 E. Lewis St #301 in Livingston. It is free and it is by appointment. Bring the record you know best.