AKG K314P: Probably the Most Reliable Sleep Earbuds

Sleep earbuds are kind of a contradiction in the first place — what you should be putting in your ears at night is plain sound-isolating earplugs, not music earbuds. But I’m constantly fiddling with a tablet in bed, so I need something that’s comfortable to wear while lying on my side and doesn’t sound like garbage.

So today I picked up a package downstairs, opened it, and there it was.

AKG K314P

My previous sleep earbuds were EarPods — yeah, the Apple ones. Comfortable enough, but the sound leans toward the low end and sounds muddy. Then I swapped in the XBA10 for a week and couldn’t take it anymore; that thing is a piece of shit in every way. This time I hooked up the AKG K314P and ran a quick test, and it not only inherits the EarPods’ comfort but sounds way clearer. You can hear it in visual novel music, and in the heroine dialogue too — with the EarPods the voices often get buried in the music and I have to turn the BGM down. The XBA10 turns vocals into this piercing noise, while the K314P is just right. Bass is a little light, but what I listen to in bed is ASMR and other sleep-audio stuff, mostly in English, so that’s not a problem.

All in all, this thing is pretty solid. If someone asked me for sleep earbuds, I’d probably only recommend two: the EarPods and the AKG K314P.

Of course, the K314P has one fatal flaw: shit isolation. But sleep earbuds are for home use anyway, so great isolation isn’t really needed — unless your sleeping environment is deafeningly loud, in which case never mind.