2025 Was a Banner Year for Audio Nostalgia

If there’s one thing that 2025 has in common with 2005, it’s audio gear. AirPods may be as popular as ever, but audio nostalgia is thriving this year, and hardware makers pumped out a ton of gadgets to prove it.

First and foremost, as we’ve covered previously, wired earbuds are so back. Maybe that’s news to you, but for most people, all you had to do was look around to observe the trend happening IRL. On one hand, I hate it; I couldn’t wait to get rid of wires when wireless earbuds started to come around in force, mostly because I found them f*cking annoying. Sorry, but having to untangle my earbuds every time I go to use them, only for them to get ripped out of my ears by accident, sucked. But you know what? I also get it.

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Wired audio sounds better; it’s lower latency, and wired earbuds are so ridiculously cheap that they’re hard to pass up. And it’s not just Apple EarPods rip-offs out there. There are a whole host of wired earbuds (in-ear monitors if you’re an audiophile like that) that take fidelity to the next level, and they look wild, too, like these sleek-looking buds from ddHiFi and Moondrop, or these see-through buds from KZ EDX.

It’s not just buds, though. Some purveyors of wired audio gear are digging back even further with cheap and slick-looking headphones like this variety from Moondrop that encapsulates the ’90s with transparent design and major Koss vibes. I can’t say for certain how they sound without using them, but they sure look the part, that is, if “the part†means a lot like the headphones I used to plug into my portable CD player as a kid. It’s worth noting that even wireless counterparts got in on the ’90s trend, like Nothing and its Headphone 1, which have a cassette tape-inspired design on the outside. Big PlayStation 1 energy, in my opinion.

Sure, you have to be okay with 3.5mm connections if you dive into wired (though some buds utilize USB-C), but that actually opens up a whole new (old, technically) level of audio nostalgia: digital audio players, formerly known as MP3 players. I can’t even count the number of digital audio players I’ve seen in recent months from brands like Snowsky (this one looks like a tape player), FiiO, and HiBy. These devices aren’t just cash grabs for nostalgia; they’re bringing people’s renewed interest in dedicated music players to new territory.

Digital audio players aren’t just great ways to avoid your phone and still listen to music on the go; they also come outfitted with more powerful and dedicated digital-to-analog converters (DACs), which improve on the crappy, compressed signal you’d get out of regular Bluetooth. Even if your phone did still have a 3.5mm connection, digital audio players would still sound better because their DACs are more refined and dedicated to music playback, and they come with better amps. It’s not just nostalgia; it’s an experience catered towards audio specifically and can serve people who still download and store music locally, particularly high-res formats like FLAC, which are a drag on storage.

If digital music doesn’t scratch the nostalgia itch, this year also brought back an even more tangible format, too—CD players. Yup, that’s right. You can buy new portable CD players in 2025, and like the new crop of digital audio players, they have more tricks in their bag this go-around. Some of them, like this one I covered from Shanling, have extra features like Bluetooth if you want to play your tunes on a wireless speaker or headphones. Like digital audio players, there is also a DAC built in, so it pairs well with the wired headphones or wired earbuds that you bought for nostalgia’s sake. Shanling is far from the only player in the game. FiiO has been pushing out similarly nostalgic players with DACs that have Bluetooth and the look to match.

Why CD players, digital audio players, and wired earbuds seem to be a thing again is probably a bigger question. Maybe people are tired of their phones; maybe it’s just because the 2000s are cool again; maybe this is all being funded by the CD industrial complex. No matter what the impetus is, it’s definitely pushing the idea of hi-fi audio to a new audience, even if people are just buying this stuff for nostalgia’s sake. You might have never even thought about buying a DAC on your own, but when you finally use one by proxy of buying a retro-looking CD player or digital audio player, you might find that you were missing out the whole time.

And for their assistance in exporting snobby audio culture to the masses (a world I, too, have one foot in), it’s hard not to enjoy the nostalgia train as it rolls along. Wires may still be a mortal enemy of mine, but dang do I appreciate what they do for my overly choosy ears.