These 80s-style headphones aren’t on sale – but for $30 they’re an absolute steal

The FiiO EH11 headphones are a mash up of 1980s chic and 2026 tech, and they sound great. Released in January, there’s no deal on them, but as they only cost $30, I think you should buy a pair anyway… hell, get two!

For $30 you get a pair of Bluetooth, on-ear headphones that have wooden ear cups – the right rotates for volume, the left rotates to skip tracks. Oh, and parametric EQ! With the FiiO app, you can make these headphones sound however you want. That’s unheard of for headphones that cost $300, let alone $30.

Although I think the shade of wood is a little bit of a mismatch with the rest of the see-through EH11 aesthetic, this cool feature plus the EQ justifies multiples of its $30 price tag. That’s why I’m adding them as the best value option to my list of the best budget audiophile headphones.

They’re only 92g, so I can use all of their 30-hour battery without any hot spot on the head, though the on-ear pads do get a little warm after a while. And they have far more detailed bass than you have any right to expect from a $30 headphones. The sound is fantastic, not just for retro-looking headphones..

Why I think the FiiO EH11 is special

As a wireless, semi-open on-ear headphone, the EH11 isn’t usually what I go for. I’m not a fan of on-ear models, preferring the comfort (and sound attributes) of an over-ear. But these headphones make me smile just looking at them, and when you add their decent sound profile that can be EQ’d to your personal tastes with the Parametric EQ, my usual reservations disappear.

They feature a 40mm dynamic driver and a Bluetooth 6.0 chipset that supports the LDAC codec for high-resolution playback. Unlike competitors such as the wired Moondrop Old Fashion, these headphones are wire-free and have really cool wooden rotary controls. If it didn’t sound as good as it does, the controls would be worth the $30… but it sounds great!

The stock sound of the EH11 is warm, and FiiO has clearly tuned the bass up, probably to compensate for on-ear low frequency leakage. The treble is fine, but rolls off quite a bit – think detail but no sparkle. And the midrange is tastefully forward with textured vocals. It’s really actually quite great. That and the bass make the EH11 sound a lot better than a lot of the commercial headphones you can get for several times the price of the EH11.

But none of that really matters. Because with the integrated Parametric EQ (PEQ) via the FiiO Control App, each user can make precise tweaks to the sound profile to make the EH11 sound the way they want. That is basically unheard of for a $30 headphone, and with its cool looks, I think this is going to be a worthy best-seller.