While most of us listen to a wide variety of music, and a favorite playlist can find hip hop and pop right on top of one another, there is often one type of music we listen to most often. Or, at the very least, there is one type of music whose audio crispness and quality matters most. That quality comes from the recording itself, of course, but also from the speakers or earphones through which we listen to it. And as it turns out, those earphones might have some musical preferences of their own!

We decided to run a little experiment to determine the best earphones by music type. Working with our staff and some carefully-chosen friends and family members, we put together a 12-person team of testers – 8 males and 4 females. The mission they were given was simple and sweet; to listen to a variety of songs from a chosen group of popular musical genres. These genres included Classical, Rock, Hip Hop, Techno/Trance, Acoustic, Latin, Country and Jazz. Each was given an assortment of popular high-end earphones through which to listen to the music and asked to rate each set on its sound for the songs they listened to in each genre. Each tester had the same earphones, same songs. And once the results were in, we tallied them up to find the best of the best!

You can scroll to the bottom of our best earphones by music type page to see all the results and read more about the test itself, but we’ll provide you with a quick summary here…

You ready to Rock? Then Westone 3 and Westone UM3X should top your list! In fact the Westone 3 was the most popular of all the sets we tested, being the hands-down selection for Hip Hop and Techno/Trance, and one of the 2 top picks for Rock, mentioned above, as well as Country music. For Classical, testers’ ears were pleased as punch by the Shure SE535 and Westone 4. The Shure SE535 also joined the Westone 3 for Country tunes, the Westone UM3X for Acoustic tracks, and the Shure SE425 for Jazz. Who took home the most honors? Let’s have a look at which phones will best meet your musical needs, and which have the most well-rounded sound…

Westone 3 – Rock, Hip Hop, Techno/Trance, Country
Shure SE535 – Classical, Acoustic, Jazz, Country
Westone UM3X – Rock and Acoustic
Westone 4 – Classical
Shure SE425 – Latin