Headphones tend to be, at least for most of us, in the category of devices we don't think very deeply about when going shopping. After all, headphones are not really very expensive, and anything that is not too costly doesn't warrant much thought when shopping for it - or does it? Any pair of headphones is just as good as the other; we tend to say, arguing that the different features makers of headphones go on and on about are really nothing more than marketing differentiation fluff, created by the competing makers of headphones to gain an edge over one another.

Of course, as anyone who has gotten to use the different headphone sets available will aver, 'a headphone set is not a headphone set' as there indeed tends to be profound differences between the performances of the different headphone varieties available. In some cases, so profound can the differences in performance between headphone sets be that they can have an impact on productivity (in case of headphones used for professional purposes) or to affect the listening experience of the user, in the case of headphones used for recreational purposes.

In the final analysis, headphones can be seen as falling into a broad spectrum, ranging from the good, the fair and the poor quality headphones.

The good headphones, for one, tend to have superior sound production qualities. These are gauged through parameters such as clarity of the sound, sharpness of the sound, the balance of the sound, the sound range they support - and so on. And since headphones are purchased for the primary purpose of sound conveyance, it follows that how well a particular headphone set performs in the sound quality production parameter is likely to contribute the greatest proportion of what the particular headphones set in question scores in the final analysis.

The good headphones also tend to be those that are comfortable to wear. At the other end of the spectrum, we tend to find headphones whose wearing constitutes a health hazard, as they are likely to leave you badly bruised - hence the need to look keenly at the wearing comfort when grading the various headphones. This too, is an important attribute, which is likely to contribute a great proportion of the mark that the different headphone sets score in the final analysis. Where headphones are to be worn for extended periods of time, like in a call center of DeeJaying setting for instance, this might actually turn out to be the most important shopping consideration as far as headphones go - because some headphones that are otherwise great in all the other attributes can often prove to be unbearable when wearing comfort is brought into question; thereby consigning themselves to the poor headphones category.