11 Great Gifts for Listening to Music

The records pressed by Vinyl Me, Please are not only great to listen to, they’re great to look at. A recent red and clear copy of Masta Killa’s No Said Date looked downright scrumptious. Choose from the five available genres: hip-hop, country, classics, essentials, or rock, and VMP will send your music lover a monthly record along with excellent notes and info. These are not the cheesy compilation albums once sold on TV; these are fresh pressings of albums that have either never seen vinyl or haven’t seen it in a long time. Think La Lupe’s Queen of Latin Soul, Run-D.M.C.’s Tougher Than Leather, and Wynton Marsalis’s Black Codes (From the Underground). Choose subscriptions running from three months to a year. Depending on the level, each subscription comes with a bonus of one to eight records.

Gone are the days of mix tapes and burned CDs, but this little metal keychain is essentially the same heartfelt gift in a new package. Simply send the maker the URL for a Spotify song or playlist, and they will engrave a scannable QR code on a sleek metal keychain (it comes in gold, silver, black, and rose gold tones). It works for any audio recording, including any secret voice message you might want to make. For about $5 more you can have both sides engraved.

Nothing kills a great workout like a slippery earbud, so if your giftee is active, consider a pair designed to stay put. The JBL Reflect Aero TWS are our audio specialists’ top pick thanks to their secure fit and simple finger-tap controls. They are also waterproof and sweatproof, and have eight hours of in-ear battery life and another 16 hours of reserve power in the case. With active noise cancellation (ANC), they’re pleasantly immersive, but if your gift recipient wants to hear ambient sound (like traffic), it’s just a tap away. They’re compatible with Alexa and Google Assistant and also work well when you’re sedentary.

For those who prefer an in-ear experience over bulky headphones and don’t plan on sweating a lot while listening—although these are water resistant—our staff audiophiles chose the Sony WF-1000XM5 as our top-pick noise-cancelling earbuds. The sound quality is fantastic right out of the box, and listeners can customize it further in the Sony app. The large, touch-based controls handle music playback, call answering, and digital-assistant activation (Alexa and Google) smoothly. And, the eight hours of battery life will get your music lover through the entire workday.

This pricey, auditorily excellent set of Bluetooth headphones is for music lovers, but especially if they’re an on-the-go listener (think travelers, commuters, or skulking teens). Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 are truly the crème de la crème—they’re worth the price for someone who prefers an over-the-ear fit to an earbud and really cares about sound quality (although Bluetooth is not quite as good as plug-in for the truly trained ear). The ANC is adjustable on a scale from 0 to 10, so the listener can choose what works best for them. The battery lasts a whopping 20 hours—that’s New York to Singapore plus gate time—and they fold up in a case for stowing.

The plug-in Sony MDR-7506 headphones are for the type of music lover who likes to lie down and listen—really listen—to every nuance and note. One of our picks for the best everyday headphones for an audiophile, they’re also great for anyone who composes music or edits video for a living. They offer a superior sound to Bluetooth but are affordable and durable enough for amateurs. The cable is long and stretchy, which is mostly a good thing, but since it can’t be removed, it can be cumbersome if you’re moving fast.

The Angels Horn H019 is our pick for the best all-in-one record player and shows up in quite a few of our gift guides because it produces the best sound. It’s ready to use right out of the box with no complicated cables or components, making it perfect for someone just getting into vinyl. The Bluetooth and analog audio input enables it to play music from phones or other audio sources just in case your wax collection is really in its infancy.

The cute, chunky Ultimate Ears Wonderboom 3 is our pick for the best portable Bluetooth speaker and was the number-one gift for staff writer Samantha Schoech’s teenage son this year. It has terrific, expansive sound for its size and it’s tough enough to withstand the travails of a portable speaker—namely dust, drops, and accidental plunges into water (it floats).

According to our audio team, Klipsch’s The One Plus might be the most affordable way to get genuinely good sound in your home without complicated wiring or setup. The sleek shelf speaker produces surprisingly good sound and has a USB-C input as well as Bluetooth for connecting to your phone or other audio device.

As Alexa speaker sets go, the Amazon Echo Studio is our upgrade pick because it’s the biggest and best-sounding Alexa speaker, but with a big ole price to go with it. Of course it supports streaming from Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora, and Tidal, plus Amazon Music HD’s lossless audio formats and spatial audio formats like Dolby Atmos. And even when it’s cranked to high volume, it hears and responds quickly to voice commands, which is particularly useful for a person who loves bumping tunes and thriving in an Alexa-fied household.

The affordable Triangle Borea BR03 speakers will give your beloved audiophile nearly the same sound quality as other models that cost three times as much. They are our pick for the best bookshelf speakers, and senior staff writer Brent Butterworth was truly impressed by the clear and natural sound they produce for voices and instruments. They are discreet and sleek-looking, but at 15 inches high, 8.125 inches wide, and 12.5 inches deep—about the size of a case of beer—they might be too big for some people.

We love finding gifts that are unusual, thoughtful, and well vetted. See even more gift ideas we recommend.

Grant Clauser contributed reporting. This article was edited by Hannah Morrill and Jennifer Hunter.