The one who listens

There is a difference between having music on and listening to it, and it is not snobbery: the second group sits down and does nothing else. That makes them easy to buy for, because they need things and never ask.

Start with headphones, with one caveat: anybody serious already owns a pair and holds opinions about them. What is more often missing is everything around them. A headphone stand sounds like a solution to a problem that does not exist, until the first time somebody sits on an earcup.

If they play records the category becomes bottomless in the good way. record storage solves the problem every collection has after two years, which is that it lives on the floor.

And then the bluetooth speaker, the odd one out here. Not something to sit down for, but the thing that goes to the kitchen and the garden, and therefore the thing that is actually on.

Below, from large to small. As usual the small things are the safer gift.