Everybody's doing "best of" lists this time of year, so we thought we'd get into the spirit:
Headphones and earphones
Panasonic RP-HTX80B Bluetooth Retro Headphones, $99: Great sounding, great looking, light and comfortable, these headphones offer balanced and accurate high fidelity sound. Battery life is 24 hours, and a 15-minute quick charge yields 2½ hours of playback. (shop.panasonic.com)
Sbode Sport Bluetooth Earphones, $24: These earphones sound far better than you would expect for under $25, and they're comfortable. (amazon.com)
Turntables and vinyl record accessories
LP Gear the Vessel A3SE, $99: This phono cartridge offers shockingly good sound that is competitive with cartridges selling for $400 or more. It's perfect for bringing an old turntable back to life. (lpgear.com)
AT-LP60-USB, $129: This is far and away the best entry-level turntable. Unlike many cheap competitors, it won't damage your records. It features automatic operation, a built-in phono preamp and a USB connection to transfer records to your computer. (audio-technica.com)
Allsop Orbitrac 3 Record Cleaning System, $49: Very easy to use and produces excellent results. (allsop.com)
Spin-Clean Record Washer, $79.99: If you don't mind doing more work than with the Orbitrac 3, this gives your records a deep cleaning as good as or better than an expensive record cleaning machine. (spinclean.com)
Television soundbars
ZVOX AccuVoice AV201 TV Speaker, $199.99: Not a home theater soundbar, but a small speaker that optimizes dialogue reproduction. No other product does a better job bringing vocal clarity to television listeners. If you have trouble hearing and understanding voices on television, this is what you need. (zvox.com)
