Hamburg  - Purchasing an MP3 player? You might want to invest a little extra money by picking up separate headphones.

That's the conclusion of a recent test by Computer Bild magazine, which found that not a single pair of standard headphones included with the popular devices earned better than a 3.0, or "average."

While five headphones in the test ranked better than a 3.0, none of them was included with the player. The king of the hill was Sony's MDR-EX300SLB headphones, available for around 25 dollars. Second place went to Philips' SHE9551/00, while bronze went to the PR-HJE450E-K from Panasonic.

iPod owners in particular should consider using a different set of earphones. The ones included with Apple's device only earned a 3.1 from Computer Bild. (dpa)