Whether you’re trying to find a turntable so Mom and Dad can bust out their vintage vinyl collection or you want to give the gift of great sound to a young music lover or a middle-aged audiophile, it can be tough to find great-sounding gear that doesn’t cost a lot. That’s where we come in. Each year, we spend hundreds of hours listening to the latest gear, looking for the elusive products that bring the best possible sound for the money.
These are our favorite gifts for music lovers, from affordable accessories to insane hi-fi wonders. Looking for other cool audio gear or gift ideas? Be sure to check out our other buying guides, including the Best Cheap Headphones and Best Bookshelf Speakers.
Updated November 2024: We’ve overhauled this guide with new picks from many of our favorite brands, including Ultimate Ears, Sony, Vizio, and others.
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The debacle led to a hearing in the US Senate on consolidation in the ticketing industry. In May, the US Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit seeking to break up Ticketmaster and Live Nation, which it accused of abusing their alleged ticketing monopoly to trample competitors.
In a statement provided to WIRED at the time, Live Nation disputed the claim. “The DOJ’s lawsuit won’t solve the issues fans care about relating to ticket prices, service fees, and access to in-demand shows,” the company wrote. “Calling Ticketmaster a monopoly may be a PR win for the DOJ in the short term, but it will lose in court because it ignores the basic economics of live entertainment, such as the fact that the bulk of service fees go to venues, and that competition has steadily eroded Ticketmaster’s market share and profit margin.”
The original lawsuit brought by the Swift fans accused Ticketmaster and Live Nation of breach of contract, fraud, misrepresentation, and antitrust violations. The complaint alleges that Ticketmaster broke its promise to make tickets available to fans who qualified for the presale. Meanwhile, by entering into exclusivity contracts with large venues and forcing fans to resell tickets through its own resale marketplace, the lawsuit claims, Ticketmaster established a monopoly that it wields to inflate ticket prices for its own financial gain.
“This case concerns the anticompetitive conduct of Ticketmaster, to impose higher prices on music concert attendees in the presale, sale, and resale market,” the complaint states. “Ticketmaster has effectuated this anticompetitive scheme by forcing fans of musicians to exclusively use Ticketmaster for presale and sales prices, which are above what a competitive market price would be.”
The new lawsuit is near-identical to the original federal case, but expands the scope to include fans of artists other than Taylor Swift and adds an alleged RICO violation to the list. The new allegation hinges on the premise that Ticketmaster and Live Nation coordinate with partner organizations to exert market dominance and squeeze consumers, in a way that meets the definition of an “enterprise” under the RICO act.
“Live Nation and Ticketmaster exploit the relationship between themselves and with stadium venues largely owned by Live Nation to achieve the purpose of their enterprise, and have been doing so ever since the Department of Justice ill-advisedly approved their merger nearly a decade and a half ago,” the complaint states.
Whether you’re a modular synth nerd or the bassist of a troglodyte doom metal band, the chances that you’ve encountered a device that utilizes MIDI are nearly 100 percent at this point. The communication protocol is more than 40 years old, yet it’s hardly changed since head honchos from Roland, Oberheim, and Sequential Circuits collaborated on a universal language that musical instruments can use to talk to one another. Its low-tech nature is its greatest strength, making it a quick and reliable way to control a synth or a rack of guitar pedals with hardly any digital bandwidth at all. MIDI is great because it’s barely evolved at all.
What has evolved is the cottage industry of musical accessories that utilize MIDI to do wild and wonderful things beyond just being interchangeable digital keyboards. Are you keen on adjusting filters and delay times with the swipe of your hand like a deranged conductor? There’s a MIDI gadget for that. Do you idolize U2’s The Edge and his ability to change his guitar tone drastically with just one foot press? There’s a MIDI pedal for that. Would you rather not schlep around a fortress of synths like Keith Emerson just so you can access an organ and an electric keyboard for that wedding gig on the horizon? There’s a MIDI controller for that.
MIDI devices come in all shapes and sizes, and I’ve tested dozens in my decade-long pursuit for a setup that’s intuitive, robust, and easy on my aching back. I dabble in both guitar effects and amateur synth shenanigans, so a heavy preference is given to items that can double-dip in both worlds for a spartan setup. Some are inspiring and bizarre, while others are unsexy and utilitarian, yet wholly essential for ever-growing rigs with complicated routings and connections. My outlook for this entire setup may require reappraisal once the upcoming MIDI 2.0 protocol gets off the ground, but until then here’s a list of my most beloved MIDI gear that I work with on a daily basis.
Into making and listening to audio? Be sure to check out our lists of the Best DAWs, Best USB Microphones, Best Headphones, and Best Bookshelf Speakers.
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Following the US presidential election, Swifties, the name for Taylor Swift’s fans, are fleeing X for Bluesky. X’s owner, billionaire Elon Musk, was one of Donald Trump’s biggest backers, funneling over $100 million into the Trump-supporting America PAC; stumping for the candidate on the campaign trail; and boosting Trump’s messaging on X. Musk also helped Trump tap into a distinctly right-wing male audience. Swifties, who have built a robust community on the platform formerly known as Twitter, took notice. By Thursday, less than 48 hours after Trump won the presidency, they were starting to flock from the platform for good.
“I love the idea of building a new community here and would love not to have to support Elon in any way,” says Justin, who goes by @justin-the-baron.swifties.social on Bluesky and asked to use only his first name for fear of harassment. “Elon is of course a big Trump supporter, which doesn’t align with Taylor’s values or the values of Swifties.”
Though there are Swifties on all sides of the political spectrum, the community prides itself on being a positive and accepting space. After Kamala Harris was announced as the Democratic nominee for president, Swifties began to mobilize to support her. In September, Swift herself endorsed Harris. In an Instagram post announcing her support, Swift cited AI-generated images of herself and her fans that had been used by Trump to imply she’d endorsed him.
Following the endorsement, Musk posted, “Fine Taylor … you win … I will give you a child and guard your cats with my life.” Musk, who has repeatedly shared concerns about declining birth rates, has at least 11 children with at least three women. According to The New York Times, he also offered his sperm to Nicole Shanahan, the former running mate for independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (She declined.)
Irene Kim, an organizer with Swifties for Harris, says that the outpouring of misogyny following the election pushed her and many other Swift fans to abandon X and seek refuge on Bluesky. Though research has found that hate speech and disinformation increased after Musk took over the platform, the election of Trump seems to have supercharged it. A report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue found that in the 24 hours following Trump’s electoral victory, phrases like “Your body, my choice,” parroting the election night rhetoric of white supremacist Nick Fuentes, rose 4,600 percent on X.
“I think that’s the kind of rhetoric we want to get away from,” Kim says. She also notes that X’s recent update to the “block” feature, which allows people to see the profile and posts of users that have blocked them, has contributed to a more negative experience on the platform. “Twitter has definitely become such a hellscape,” Kim says.
The first advancement in years came in May, when a user on the buzzing Reddit community r/TheMysteriousSong found a reference to Hörfest, a contest for amateur bands the radio station held every year in Hamburg, Germany. “It was a very likely way to solve our riddle,” says Arne, a moderator of the subreddit who posts under the handle LordElend (Arne declined to give their last name, citing privacy concerns), “since this was a good explanation as to why an amateur band tape would have been aired on NDR, which usually had high standards.”
A search of local government archives turned up thousands of pages on Hörfest, but they wouldn’t be easy to comb through. “We realized that 800 bands, most obscure and not on Google, will need a larger group of researchers,” says Arne.
Soon, hundreds of people across multiple platforms were collaborating on extensive spreadsheets, listing band members, sounds, songs, and anything else they could find. One of these investigators, who posts using the handle marijn1412, found that a member of a band on the spreadsheets, Phret, had joined a different band called FEX. Getting in touch with the former members of FEX, they confirmed the song’s origin. They waited to announce the find publicly until the band was able to sign off and provide a clearer recording of the song.
“Subways of Your Mind” isn’t the only lost media mystery to be solved recently. In September, an image from a fabric pattern was traced back to its source. Back in June, another lostwave song known as “Everyone Knows That” was found after it had become a viral sound on TikTok. It may have been helped by a song from a popular YouTube video identified in November 2023.
These searches tend to be a lot less specific and focused than the Hörfest data, but no less organized or collaborative, since whether or not they can find the song, people are finding kindred spirits. “Lost media searches have shared community values,” says Chapdelaine, adding they’re “amplified by the dynamic of social media platforms. Platforms incentivize engagement. Lost media searches promote interactivity and participation.”
Which is why the story isn’t over, even if the so-called “final boss of lostwave” has fallen. Since other communities devoted to searches have since found what they were looking for, they’ve been folded into the larger lostwave and lost-media community. As Baskerville saw, it isn’t really about the song, it’s about the search, the sense of participating in a project that adds to cultural heritage—and, maybe, finding some songs so exclusive they haven’t been heard in decades.
Acclaimed portable audio brand Astell & Kern has engaged in what I’m going to call a “reverse Toyota.” The Japanese hero of affordable, reliable motoring wanted a piece of the premium automotive action, and so developed an entirely new luxury brand called Lexus. (Fun fact: The brand name stands for “Luxury Export US.”)
Astell & Kern, having established itself as the planet’s leading purveyor of high-performance, high-bling, high-priced, high-resolution digital audio players, has developed Activo. It’s a subbrand that allows Astell & Kern to compete in those areas of the digital audio player market it has long since abandoned in its remorseless drive upward.
Mind you, when you line up this P1 device against competitors from the likes of FiiO and Sony it doesn’t really seem all that affordable. Entry level is relative, and the P1 has been pitched into an area of the market that is, if anything, even more competitive than the rather rarefied areas Astell & Kern is contesting these days.
But then it’s not as if the Activo P1 hasn’t been equipped to compete; a quick glance at its specifications is enough to confirm it has what it takes. Is it worth the extra cost for Astell & Kern lite? That depends on how much you care about looks.
Photograph: Simon Lucas
Great Converters
The crucial digital-to-audio conversion of the P1 is taken care of by an ESS ES9219Q Sabre dual-DAC arrangement that’s able to handle digital audio files of up to 32-bit/384-kHz and DSD256 resolution. Amplification comes via the Astell & Kern Teraton Alpha system, which the company deems good enough for taking care of business in digital audio players costing 10 times as much as the Activo P1.
An octacore processor promises a slick and responsive user experience, and the interface itself will be familiar enough to anyone familiar with Android devices. The inclusion of the Google Play store as an embedded app means it’s easy to add to the collection of music-playing apps (Apple Music, Qobuz, Spotify, and Tidal, as well as a dedicated Activo player). Sixty-four gigabytes of internal memory is low, but the SD card slot can expand that by as much as 1.5 TB if you supply your own card.
Not all AI tools are the generate-from-scratch types like Google’s MusicFX, Suno, and Udio that independent creators like Hatcher use—there are also ones for extracting stems, for mixing and mastering, and for brainstorming lyrics, all of which are finding user bases amongst hobbyists as well as professional producers. Sam Hollander, a pop hitmaker who has worked with Panic! at the Disco and Flava Flav, compares AI to the explosion of drum machines in the ’80s, and how session drummers had to adapt and learn programming if they wanted to continue to work.
Giving a typical example of where AI fits into the workflow of him and his peers, Hollander recalls how a UK grime producer he worked with was using Suno and Udio to generate funk and soul samples; once the tool iterated one he liked, he’d use another AI tool to extract the stem in order to use it, manually, in a track.
“There’s going to be two paths,” Hollander predicts. “An entirely organic industry that bucks against it” versus “people who adapt [AI] into what they do.” Last week, thousands of musicians and other creatives aligned themselves with the former group, signing a letter claiming that AI training was an “unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works.”
For his part, Hollander dabbles in AI tools for brainstorming as well as for sample-hunting and generating, but, like Hatcher, always uses his original lyrics. “I don’t think AI does humor exceptionally well yet,” Hatcher says—human input is still needed, and even necessary, if AI-made music is going to avoid the pitfalls of being totally boring and bad.
“[AI music] either has a shock factor, or [is] music as a background thing,” Hu points out. Shock-factor comedy is part of the appeal for successful AI projects, like the viral SpongeBob rap by producer Glorb, or ObscurestVinyl, a collection of “lost” album tracks like the Ronettes-style “My Arms Are Just Fuckin’ Stuck Like This.” Original concepts and hand-crafted lyrics mean that the AI output avoids feeling generic—and make it good and interesting enough that it might be picked up, in Hatcher’s case, by a major producer as a sample on merit alone.
The other side of that coin is the realm of AI-generated ambient/chill music, which Hu identifies as a growing domain, citing YouTube channels like Home Alone and what is ? as examples. With millions of views, and their use of AI on the down-low, these channels also show that what began as experimentation in the early days of these tools—so, literally, last year—is now going mainstream in an almost hidden way, as AI output becomes indistinguishable from human-made samples and compositions.
A chandelier evokes the rig of microphones used to capture the recordings
Leon Chew, The Call, Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst with sub, Serpentine, 2024
The Call Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst Serpentine North, London Closes 2 February 2025
Step into London’s Serpentine North gallery and the first thing you see is an organ. But it is far from a conventional instrument with gleaming flues and reeds. This organ is made up of fans used to cool graphics processing units. Each fan whirs at a pitch that depends on its oscillation, and the sounds combine in an otherworldly hymn…
I spend a lot of time reviewing products for WIRED that are supposed to help you hear more. But there are plenty of times when what I really need is to hear less.
I’ve long been a fan of Belgium-based Loop Earplugs, largely because its earplugs fit my ears so well and because, thanks to the namesake loop, they always stay in place. And, yes, they look great. But Loop now sells at least nine different styles of earplugs, each designed with a different level of noise reduction or suggested use—sleeping, concerts, deep focus, and more. Choosing the right one can be complicated, and if you have multiple pairs of earplugs for different environments, keeping them straight can be difficult because they all look roughly the same.
The original Loop Switch solved this conundrum. It’s three earplugs in one, each corresponding to a different decibel cut level. Now Loop is back with a new version, the Switch 2, which offers “major improvements in comfort, design, and performance,” at least according to the company.
Like its forebear, the Switch 2 adjusts thanks to an ingenious mechanism built into the loop portion of the earplug. By rotating the loop forward, you reduce the decibel (dB) cut. Dial it backward and you block out more sound by engaging additional internal noise-dampening features, which variously include a membrane, mesh filter, and acoustic channel.
Photograph: Christopher Null
There are three volume options: Quiet mode (a 26-dB cut) is the highest level of noise reduction, while Experience mode (a 23-dB cut) filters noise but is designed to “preserve rich sound.” Engage mode (a 20-dB cut) is intended to temper ambient audio but preserve your ability to understand speech. All of these dB cut levels are improvements over those on the original Switch (25, 21, and 17 dB, respectively).
Music could be a cheap way to help people be more comfortable after surgery
Dragos Condrea/Alamy
Listening to music after surgery seems to ease a patient’s pain and anxiety, which could be a cheap and easy way to reduce painkiller use.
“A lot of people, when they are awakening from anaesthesia, are lost,” says Eldo Frezza at California Northstate University College of Medicine. “They have anxiety or maybe they feel pain of the surgery.”
Research has repeatedly shown that music can be calming, which prompted Frezza and his colleagues to investigate if it may help after an operation.
The team analysed the results of 35 studies that explored how listening to it immediately after surgery affected people’s pain, anxiety, heart rate and painkiller use.
Each study involved about 100 people, half of whom were asked to listen to music, of different genres, after abdominal or bone-related surgery. The studies varied in how long the participants did this, ranging from half an hour to until they were discharged.
The remaining participants – who were matched to the former group for age, sex and surgery type – didn’t listen to music after their procedures.
Frezza’s team – which presented the results at the American College of Surgeons congress in San Francisco, California – found that music seemed to reduce pain levels by about 20 per cent, on average, according to self-reports using a scale running from 20 to 80. Those who listened to music also required less than half as much morphine while in hospital as those who did not.
The team also found that listening to music seems to reduce anxiety. It lowered heart rates by around 4.5 beats per minute, on average, and reduced self-reported anxiety levels by about 2.5 points, also on a scale of 20 to 80.
“A 2.5-point reduction is pretty small, but it’s moving in the direction we want it to go,” says Annie Heiderscheit at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, UK.
Music shifts our focus away from pain by boosting levels of a signalling molecule called serotonin that passes between brain cells and makes us feel good, she says, and can also distract us from anxious thoughts. This could be a cheap and easy way for hospitals to help patients recover after surgery, says Heiderscheit.
Future research should include large studies where people who are having the same sort of surgery at around the same time are randomly allocated to listen to music after the procedure or not, says Frezza. This would give a more reliable result than combining the results of previous small studies, he says.
