HEADPHONES ARE getting smarter. Outfitted with fancy electronics, such as sensors and digital-signal processors, some are ready to respond to touch gestures or adapt their sound exactly to your liking. Others—3-D printed to quickly create one-off models tailored to your body—are challenging long-held notions about form.

This evolution is perhaps to be expected. As more music moves onto the smartphone, headphones are leveraging that touch-screen interface and processing power. Parrot’s Zik 2.0 headphones, for example, can pull off all manner of psychoacoustic wizardry, but the accompanying app is what makes controlling the Zik’s dizzying number of settings possible.

While standard headphones have a fixed sound profile that never changes once they leave the factory, models like the Zik 2.0, Alpine and ROAM Ropes allow you to adjust the EQ—the balance of highs, mids and lows—and save that setting directly to the headphones themselves. (Although some existing smartphone apps also let you adjust EQ, they only work with music stored on the device; if you use Spotify or another streaming service, the settings are lost.)

As yet, there’s only a small selection of this smarter breed of headphones; the idea is still in its infancy. But once you try one, it’s hard to get excited about less adept models again. Here, a look at four of the most capable that are on the market now—or coming soon.

Alpine Headphones

With their chrome trim, cushy headband and ear cups as plush as a La-Z-Boy, the Alpines are the equivalent of the thumping sound system you’d find in a pimped-out car. This pair has its own digital amplifiers on board, and the center of the headband is outfitted with a bass transducer (powered by a dedicated amp) that’s designed to vibrate the ear cups and the headband itself to maximize low-frequency punch. Audiophiles may scoff, but there’s no denying that these provide a more visceral, physical experience when listening to hip-hop, electronic dance music and other bass-heavy genres. A free companion app (for iOS only) lets you tweak those lows—and other frequencies—as you see fit. $300, alpineheadphones.com