The Hifitrends.com Product Of The Year is an award given to an exceptional product that has passed across our desk– or through our listening room– this past year.
It’s not a “Best Of” award, it’s just us giving recognition to gear we found to have extraordinary value and performance within its category.
Also, since we cover low-cost, high-performance gear, you can expect our selections to be more affordable than some of the stuff you see on other Hi-Fi Product Of The Year lists.
Product Of The Year 2019-Headphones: Beyerdynamic Amiron Wireless Copper Hi-Res Bluetooth Headphones
We didn’t see many full-size headphones cross our desk this year, especially new release headphones. But out of the few we saw, there was one that wowed us. It’s the $749 Beyerdynamic Amiron Wireless Copper Hi-Res Bluetooth Headphones, and they are at the leading edge of wireless audiophile-grade headphones.
The Amiron Wireless Copper isn’t a brand new design, but a striking headphone built on Beyerdynamic’s Amiron Wireless’ platform. They use a matte black finish accented with solid copper trim rings, and Alcantara trim to great effect. It’s gorgeous to look at.
I’ve told this story a million times before, but I’ve been around long enough to remember when Bluetooth headphones were pretty much unlistenable. The music was usually a fuzzy mess and full of dropouts. Headphone enthusiasts and audiophiles, in general, wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot pole, myself included.
However, this was the year when I first heard real audiophile performance from over-ear headphones, and not just from one model, but two.
One is our Product Of The Year, the Amiron Wireless Copper, and the other is a pair currently being tested for review, the $999 HIFIMAN Ananda BT. It’s the only Planar Magnetic Bluetooth headphone on the market.
I almost selected the Ananda BT as my Product Of The Year in the headphone category since it sounds a bit better than the Amiron. Still, the Beyerdynamic product sounds almost as good, and it beats the Ananda in just about every other category.
The Ananda BT sound trumps the Amiron Wireless Copper’s sound with its openness, detail, and overall dynamic performance. However, the Beyerdynamic has better build quality, is easier to use, more comfortable to wear, and provides a more natural sound than the HIFIMAN product.
Besides that, the Wireless Copper has an app that sets a personalized EQ based on your hearing, which is a neat trick.
The Amiron Wireless Copper also can operate on the wire, thus bypassing the internal Amp and DAC, basically giving you two Audiophile headphones in one.
As I said in my full review, I also loved the Amiron Wireless Copper’s effective touchpad control on the right earcup. It’s probably the only touch control setup I’ve enjoyed using, since the others I have tried never register my finger swipes correctly as the Wireless Copper does.
All in all, the Amiron Wireless Copper gets our award for its luxurious look and feel, along with its natural, spacious, flat reference tuning. They don’t try to manufacture any excitement, but they take a well-recorded piece of music and envelop your ears in a cloud of refinement — all without wires.
Check out our full review here.
NOTE: As of this writing, the Beyerdynamic Amiron Wireless Copper Hi-Res Bluetooth Headphones are on sale for a limited time at AMAZON for $549, or $200 off the regular price…check out the discount here.
I’m an audio writer who started as a young audio salesman/consumer electronics professional back in the late 90s. That’s where I discovered the magic of 2-Channel sound. My thirst for great sound has led me on a delightful music quest that continues today.
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