(Image credit: Austrian Audio)

• Austrian Audio unveils The Arranger wired open-back headphones
• Reference-grade and repairable, and more more affordable than the flagship The Composer model
• But still £899 (about $1,205 / AU$1,795)

Austrian Audio make some superb headphones, such as the five-star Hi-X20: as we said in our review, the company has "an extraordinarily impressive strike-rate where affordable over-ear headphones are concerned."

The firm also makes very expensive open-back headphones such as 2023’s The Composer – and now it’s moving into a relatively mid-range space with the new The Arranger headphones.

The Arranger are reference-grade audiophile headphones with a price tag less than half of the premium The Composer model. They’re still pretty pricey, but these headphones come in at £899 (about $1,205 / AU$1,795).

According to Austrian Audio, they’re made to fill the rather large gap between the firm’s affordable (£119 for the Hi-X20) and premium (£2,199 for The Composer) headphones, offering "more resolution, scale and refinement than the Hi-X range, while remaining more accessible than The Composer in price and system requirements."

And £899 certainly splits the difference there, making them Austrian Audio’s mid-range option – even if most people would probably still put that price well into the ‘premium’ bucket.

(Image credit: Austrian Audio)

Austrian Audio The Arranger headphones: key features and price

The Arranger features an open-back, over-ear design with a newly developed 44mm dynamic driver. That driver has a diamond-like carbon-coated diaphragm for rigidity and a proprietary ring magnet system, which Austrian Audio says delivers fast transient response, low distortion and consistent linearity.

The Arranger headphones are also made for easy servicing, so The Arranger should last for a long time: all the key wear components including ear pads and headband are user-replaceable. Those ear pads are made from soft leatherette, and the foldable headphone frame is lightweight metal with "robust" metal hinges. Total weight is a relatively light 310g, so they should be comfortable for even the longest listening sessions.

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The Arranger headphones have a frequency range from 5Hz to 30kHz, impedance of 25 ohms and sensitivity of 110 dB. Their cable connects via a 4-pin symmetrical socket that supports the supplied TRS cable as well as optional balanced cables with 4.4mm and 5-pin XLR connections.

The Arranger will be available in the UK from February 2026 with a price of £899 (about $1,205 / AU$1,795).

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Contributor

Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than twenty books. Her latest, a love letter to music titled Small Town Joy, is on sale now. She is the singer in spectacularly obscure Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind.

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