We used to have earbuds that don’t need to be charged because they had a headphone jack, didn’t get lost so easily because they had a cord attached to a headphone jack, never lost the bluetooth connection because they had a headphone jack, and they cost less because they had a headphone jack. https://bsky.app/profile/daisyfm.bsky.social/post/3l3mfjc6sn62k
But they did tangle all the time. That was annoying.
And the cord would sometimes break inside/connector went bad.
Yeah, you’d snag the wire or slightly bend the connector and then you were just playing a game of making sure it stayed plugged into the exact right angle.
Had to make sure there has just the right tension on the left wire or you’d only get half the track. Bonus points for weirdly mixed stereo where that just sounded shit
Or replace it, those things were like 50 cents and all sorts of devices had earbuds delivered with them, included in the price.
and then you’d just replace them with one of the other three dozen you bought from Wal-Mart for five bucks back in 2016
And people wonder how the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and others like it came to be 🤦
hey I’ll have you know I keep all my broken earbuds in the same box in the garage with all the other cables and assorted dongles I can no longer identify and will likely never use, like any responsible citizen should
I don’t think earbuds make up a significant percentage of the patch to be here virtue signaling and shaming people for what they were encouraged to do by corporate greed. Your source says the great majority of the patch comes from agriculture and fishing.
I don’t think earbuds make up a significant percentage of the patch
Cheap and disposable plastics and electronics IS a significant part of the world garbage problem and yes, plastic particles is MOST of the garbage patch specifically.
be here virtue signaling and shaming people for what they were encouraged to do by corporate greed
Whoa, dude, hold your horses! I’m in no way blaming consumers. Making consumer electronics cheap crap that breaks easily and everything of decent quality prohibitively expensive is 100% on the greedy corporations, not their victims the consumers.
Your source says the great majority of the patch comes from agriculture and fishing.
Ok, admittedly a poor choice of example. Doesn’t invalidate my intended point though, however ill-stated heh
This is tough -
Making consumer electronics cheap crap that breaks easily and everything of decent quality prohibitively expensive is 100% on the greedy corporations, not their victims the consumers.
(US here) Gets me thinking about dollar store headphones. Consumers could buy decent headphones for about $10 direct from overseas. When that’s equivalent to more than an hour of wages, there’s still demand for the $1 version. Should this need not be met out of a sense of social responsibility?
(I don’t have a perfect answer myself)
Econ 101 on my mind here btw:
The problem is that our economic system has encouraged an environment where reputation is a thing to be immediately cashed out. You can’t even know if those $10 earbuds are any better than the $1 version.
When people talk about disposable plastic they don’t mean electronics like earbuds. They mean packaging, plastic bottles, plastic bags etc.
If you think Bluetooth earphones won’t also be in that pile once the batteries stop holding charge after 2 years, you’re in for a world of dissapointing sex
My point wasn’t wired vs wireless. It was disposable crap that breaks vs corporations not deliberately making crap the only thing most people can comfortably afford.
But they need to skimp on those few milligram ounces of solder per bud, so that they can make one extra low quality bud!
Or rather so they can make the same number of buds and double or more the profits for the amoral shareholder dividends.
My AirBudz are over five years old and still play for like five hours before I need to charge them… and I used them 40+ hours daily for all of those years.
How are your days 40+ hours long
We must know the secret of your 40+ hour days. Are you on Earth? What’s the battery tech like on your planet? We could use some help.
I’m here for the wired headphone -> pacific garbage patch vs lithium battery child labor -> wireless headphone fight 🍿
Or we could just have quality standards and price controls so that regular people can afford decent headphones that don’t break all the time whether they prefer wired or wireless 🤷
And a worldwide ban on child labor, of course.
Don’t fool yourself. Slave labor of children is not exclusive to batteries. They make most of the world’s textiles, for example.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/reports/child-labor/list-of-goods-print
Did I give you the impression I was fooling myself, or were you just speaking to the wider audience?
The wording implies that the wired headphones weren’t manufactured using child slave labor.
Somewhere the discussion chain has the following transition:
-> Hitler
You think wireless earbuds are better?? lol
Again, wasn’t making a wired wireless argument. See my other reply itt for elaboration.
You might want to edit the comment since in the context it definitely sounds like saying wireless would be better
Not really, no. I’m responding to a comment about cheap buds that break too easily, which isn’t exclusive to wired ones.
There’s literally no mention of the wired vs wireless aspect in my comment or the one I’m replying to.
Earbuds? Yes.
Real headphones? Nah
I’d imagine the limited lifespan of their batteries and the fact that they have ones to begin with would be of bigger concern
That’s fair. My first pair still works awesome after five years, and I’ve used them for 40+ hours a week for that whole time. I only have a new pair because I needed ANC, but I still use my old pair to sleep.
Or if you buy the better ones you can usually replace the cord with a new one, making it work again.
The TWS equivalent to that is one of the buds no longer turning on. I just had to RMA a pair because of that.
Yeah! That’s why I loved Sennheiser IEMs, they had oval cables that never tangle up, no matter what you do. Still have a pair for my Switch
Loved those as well and I am very angry they are no longer sold (at least not here). Even Sennheiser doesn’t escape the enshittification for their mid-range earbuds
Remember when they got stuck somewhere and yanked out of your ears? Somehow my Bluetooth headset don’t get that because it has Bluetooth
I hate it when the Bluetooth gets caught on the door handle and rips my blue tooth out
You know you don’t have to dangle cables about willy-nilly at full length? You can partially wind them up or tie a loose knot so they’re effectively shorter, or hold them in place under clothes or a peg or anything. I thought this was self-explanatory?
I know, but I still don’t miss it. Tbf I also switched from earbuds to headset at the same time
Only because people couldn’t be bothered with learning the over-under cable coiling method.
I do this simple trick (Warning: YouTube video), and my cables don’t tangle at all, unless of course I forget to do that. It might cause cable to break more easily, but idk., my earphones tend to break just before warranty ends, which is fine for me.
As a runner I hated cables. All the time I’d be in the middle of a run and my hand would catch the cord mid stride and yank them out of my ear.
All these people saying they like wireless earphones are completely missing the point. Devices with headphones jacks can do both. Taking away the headphone jack means you have to rely on wireless earphones, which have all the issues the post describes.
But Apple was so BRAVE when they removed the jack!
I wholeheartedly agree, I use Bluetooth most of the time, but I want wired to fall back on. When I’m on the go, bluetooth works just fine, but when I’m sitting down at home I prefer to use my full-size Roland headset on both my PC and my phone. No latency, and superior sound quality.
Bless the few companies out there still putting them (and the SD card slot) into Androids, but even they’re getting more and more scarce. I need to upgrade soon and I’ve never felt my opinions were so limited, let alone combining with other things like network compatibility, unlockable bootloader, etc.
Android used to be the anti-Apple. You used to have so many options, and so much freedom.
Soo… Sony, oppo, realme & HMD (Nokia brand)? That is about it right for new phones I think?
Motorola has a few as well.
Most Sony phones don’t have those anymore.
Coincidentally they’re proudly selling overpriced wireless earbuds since
Wdym, there are adapters and natively wired USB-C headphones.
Those adapters are complete and utter shit
Because of….? Anyway I have headphones that have a lightning jack and don’t need an adapter.
You mean the proprietary ones that came with your iPhone? Well that covers every use case anyone could ever have.
It certainly covers the use case for an iPhone, right? Not sure what you’re trying to say. If you don’t have an iPhone why would you care if iPhones have 3.5mm jacks?
apple also makes a usb-c one, apparently it works reasonably well and is an actual DAC unlike some which are weird passive adapters that don’t work through hubs.
IDK. I use one and have no problem with it. My car’s bluetooth is rather unreliable at connecting, so I just us a USB C->aux cable. I’ve got no complaints. Is it as good a signal as a properly paired bluetooth digital audio connection? No. But it’s certainly as good as the old aux->aux cables I used back in the day.
Adapters are a cop out. Just put the adapters in the phone. It also means you can’t charge and listen to music.
Also while there are some natively wired usb-c headphones, I can’t think of any. Any decent headphones will use a standard 3.5 or 6.5mm audio jack, and then the dac being built inwith those usb-c headphones means you can’t use a seperate dac, it means you can’t plug them into studio gear. It’s just so incredibly limiting.
There is already a universal standard (3.5mm/6.5mm jack) it carries analog audio, why change to a digital connection which requires digital to analog conversion? Why not let the user be able to have a dedicated piece of gear to do that if they wish.
No professional equipment, or even semi professional equipment uses usb-c. It’s a good old fashioned analog audio jack and it’s like that for a reason
I use an adapter from Walmart and it works better than a regular aux plug in a car? Do you think that the audio signal is boosted over type c?
Maximum volume depends on which specific DAC adapter you got.
i really don’t want to have to carry one more piece of junk, and while USB C is way better than alternatives, bending the dongle in your pocket while it is attached to the phone is a scary thought, wired earbuds make a hard right turn right out of the socket. The socket does fill with lint, I kind of get it that removing reduces loss of the phone from water damage or related assembly costs to making the socket not-a-water-vector
maybe you’re completely missing their point
What point? That the removal of a feature like the headphone jack is a good thing?
no, that the inconvenience of wired earbuds outweighs any advantages. which would still apply to a different port
wdym? you can still use wireless with a phone that has a headphone jack.
I didn’t say you couldn’t? my point was that the people you were complaining about were merely saying they don’t like wired buds. that’s it. stop trying to infer a deeper meaning
Correct. That’s why I will NEVER buy brand new wireless earbuds from Apple, Samsung, or any other phone manufacturer. Oh, you took the aux port out of your phones? Go fuck yourself. I will not financially reward you for limiting my freedoms.
Currently I use Jabra Active 8s. The Jabra Active 10s are supposed to be so much better, but for the price, the 8s are just pretty good.
It also means you gotta rely on the sound quality of the smartphone. I carried an Oppo HA-2SE strapped to my phone just because I wanted better. Wireless earbuds are just like carrying a Fiio BTR-5 and some good IEMs but without all the fuss. Totally has it’s own brand of fuss though.
It also destroyed the “pass the aux cord” when driving with friends.
“Hey, I want to show you a song. Pass the aux cord.”
Plugs
Plays
Now:
“Hey, I want to show you a song. Let me connect to your car’s Bluetooth.”
“Oh, I can’t while the car is driving. Can you pull over for a minute?”
“Which submenu was is it in? Bluetooth or Settings?”
“Do you mind if I remove one of the devices already connected?”
“Oh, it just auto-connected to your phone instead.”
“Here, I’ll just send you a link.”
“Your phone locked. Can you enter your password again?”
“Oh, you don’t have [streaming service] premium? We’ll have to sit through an ad first.”
What do you mean used to? I still do. IEMs with replaceable cables are nigh on indestructible.
Yeah this is just another case of apple diehards forgetting the rest of the world exists. Almost everyone still has earbuds with cords.
Hardly just Apple. Android phones have been shifting to removing the headphone jack as well. The workaround is meant to be to use a USB-C dongle, but I ended up just getting multiple bluetooth headsets. I miss my wired earbuds though, that I could hang from my ear when I needed to talk to someone, and never had to worry about charging.
Have been? It’s already done for the most part. AFAIK, there’s only one, maybe two companies still making phones with headphone jacks. Drives me up a wall, I fucking hate it.
Not only has it already been done, but it happened for most android phones pretty much the model year or two after apple did it. Enough time to get all their snarky ads in, let apple take the heat, and adjust their plans to follow the business model exactly - push people away from included headphones and towards their own +$100 Bluetooth headphones.
And the thing is, I love Bluetooth headphones. I used to love wired but the convenience is just too hard to beat. But everyone is price gouging the shit out of them compared to what it costs to produce. Granted I run mine very hard at probably an average of 10-12 hours a day split between two pairs at work and home, and I got around 10,000 hours out of my AirPods 2 before they died so I definitely got my moneys worth. But I refuse to pay $100 when I can get a knock-off pair for $4 that sound 95% as good with surprisingly similar battery life.
I recent got some AirBudz pros and there’s a mode I can turn on where they go quiet when I’m having a conversation, which is neat. I never really use it though, because if I have them in, I don’t wanna talk to people.
Really? From personal experience it’s completely the opposite. Almost everyone I see wearing earbuds are wearing wireless ones and it’s not just Apple users with their air pods, it’s android as well.
Yeah, I earbud daily at work without having my phone on me at all times. Audiobooks are great for crunching mind numbing data.
Eh. I went for TWSes for my latest purchase because I wanted anti-wind ANC. I still have a wired pair (and one of those silly USB adapters) for long-term operation, though.
How are you liking the ANC? I feel like it’s a cool concept that can work well but that my noise isolation from a tight fitting pair of plugs works nearly as well without the complexity or extra battery requirements
Modern ANC is impressive.
When I’m on my bike I actually have less wind noise with my earbuds in than with my bare ears, which was a pretty odd feeling at first.
I also have a pair of over-ears, Sony XM5s, which have even better ANC. Used those while vacuuming and didn’t hear the motor of the vacuum cleaner. I heard its wheels, though. Freaky.
Of course all of this is tied to the usual Bluetooth headphone drawbacks so YMMV.
ANC is so fucking cool. When I upgraded my earbuds to ANC and first put them in, I thought the fans in my room turned off. Then my partner said something and I had no idea what they said. I got them to delete an annoying coworker from my life when I had to go into the office and they did the trick nicely.
I’ve thrown away so many headphones because the cable frayed though. There’s always some downsides.
What do y’all do to your headphones that this is a major issue? I’ve never really had wireless headphones and I think I’ve maybe had one pair of wired ones that had that issue in my life.
Normal use
But like… Clearly there’s something we’re doing differently here.
Pocket? Idk, it seems natural to me that moving around with a device in your pocket, plugged into a pair of headphones would cause bending and twisting of the cord, which would wear it out over time.
And lots of other stresses, like accidentally getting them caught on something and yanking them out of your ears, wrapping them up to put away in a bag/pocket, etc. It’s no wonder I wore out so many pairs.
OTOH, the only wired listening device I own now is a headset that I wear at my desk, which I expect to last forever because it’s subject to none of those stresses.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Guess I’ve just been lucky. I assume some people might also pull out the cable at the cord instead of at the base, I’ve seen that happening with charging cables sometimes.
At the moment I also have to use a little C to 3.5mm adapter and could maybe see that taking some damage but so far so good.
I could see the (USB-?)C adapter taking the worst of the wear-and-tear, and maybe being more resilient than plugging the 3.5mm directly into the device. Imagine the travesty if it turned out that USB-C adapters turned out to be the solution to fragile headphones all along!
Are you taking a belt sander to it? That might be the difference.
price is probably a big one, a $3 $10 $20 and $100 earbud will last wildly different amounts of time.
I’ve found any type of exercise wearing wired phones wears them out fast.
Okay that’s a fair point my lazy ass had not considered. Although cycling hasn’t caused me any issues.
And they would inevitably get tangled up in your pocket every time and you had to deal with the cord somehow when you connected, usually under your shirt or something. I went through a new corded headphone every 3 months or so. Meanwhile, the free pair of airpods I got from work are still going after ~5 years.
Just buy ones with detachable cables, or, better yet, mod headphones to use standard connectors such as MMCX (a set of Koss KSC75s). This also allows for different male connectors (3.5, 2.5, 4.4, quarter inch, XLR…) to suit different needs. There’s even bluetooth cables that can plug into otherwise wired headphones. Audiophile world > convenience world.
Modding headphones is way beyond my skillset and time I can invest.
Then just buy a set with detachable cables by default. I only suggest it for the KSC75 because they’re so good sounding and comfortable for cheap.
I’m just not so sure it’s worth it. If the cable frays, I still have to pay $ to replace it every time.
Some of my cables are in the $100 range. They aren’t fraying for many years, they’re outstandingly well built. This is the benefit of detachable cables, is the ability to buy third party. Apos makes a really nice, durable cable, that never gets bent out of shape. The point is that you never have to replace the entire unit.
Lithium ion batteries will degrade over time. It’s an inevitability. The cost of replacing an entire set of AirPods is far more expensive than replacing one cable every thirty something years. They’re unrepairable.
The AirPods Max are an excellent example of the issue. Big, expensive headphones that have peak battery capacity for three years, if you’re lucky–as opposed to the Sennheiser HD600, a set that people have daily driven for thirty years straight, sometimes replacing a cable, sometimes replacing an ear cup. Components, versus entire units.
I’d rather my headphones not be a subscription service.
I’m going into my third pair of ear buds because the batteries only survive for 1h after 2-3 years if you are a heavy user, my wired JBL is still going strong.
I remember they used to last me for years around 2005-2010. Now it is like every year at latest i need to get new ones because the cable got fucked.
I bought a pair of wired earbuds off of wish or temu, something like that, they were like eight or nine dollars.
Honestly compared to any Bluetooth headphones I’ve used, equivalent or better sound quality. And the wire can be pulled out and replaced for just a buck if need be. I’ve had them for 2 years now and they have been wonderful.
Also Moto phones with their operational 3.5 mm jacks for the win.
All this romanticizing the past, but who members having to play with the jack until it was just the right in and out to get full stereo. I member. Who members breaking a wire for the left speaker only, so you only have right audio. I member
The real problem is that new phones dont have it, while there are actually people who use it.
To be honest i dont use it either, but i still prefer having it. Just in case you know? Phones without it did not get cheaper after all…
There are still phones that have it. Sometimes even pretty good ones. It’s just that they are not advertised so heavily. I recently learned about HTC U23 or 24 or something. Now I feel dumb because I never bothered to check because I always thought all good phones don’t offer headphone jacks anymore.
LG had it to the end, it was amazing. Still keep my v60 around for listening to music.
I think you meant new iPhones* don’t have it. There are new models coming out every year with a headphone jack.
You can still get a Sony Xperia 1 VI, or a 5 VI, or a bunch of mid range devices with headphone jack. There are offerings with headphone jack, so if you want one, you can get one.
Now the problem is we love to complain but not put our money where our mouth is. Has the lack of headphone jack made the iPhone sales suffer? No, they’ve gone up. Does Samsung sell fewer Galaxy’s? Nope. Is the Xperia range a massive success because they have a headphone jack? Not by any stretch of imagination…
…because most people don’t actually care enough to vote with their wallet instead of yapping away while they buy a jack-less phone anyway.
That’s because getting a headphone jack is lower in the list of priorities than, say, having a great camera. If I could get my current phone in a version having a headphone jack, believe me that I would. I just wasn’t prepared to compromise my camera quality for it.
Who remembers being able to fix it with two inches of electrical tape?
Yeah I remember sitting in class wiring my headphones back together
You’re the second person to say this but I’ve been using the headphone jack for like 3 decades and haven’t encountered this issue.
Are you purposely saying “remembers” wrong or do you think the actual word is “members”?
I expect it’s a South Park reference. 'member South Park?
They’re probably referencing ‘member berries.
Having lived through that period but absolutely never experiencing this I wonder… Could the (port on the) devices just have been shitty?
I remember crackling when turning the plug and mono when not being inserted properly, though
I remember getting horrible feedback in my car’s stereo when I tried to simultaneously charge my mp3 player from the car’s cigarette lighter adapter and run an aux cable. Somehow this resulted in a feedback loop that ruined the audio quality. I had to either charge or listen to music, not both.
Meh. I don’t miss getting the cord caught on door handles and having the earbuds violently yanked from my ears!
On the other hand, bluetooth headphones never catch on a doorknob and yank out of your ears
I didn’t believe the hype about wireless headphones until I bought some with noise cancelling and all that for around $130.
Pros:
1 - You don’t realize how “tethered” you feel on older headphones until you really try to use wireless headphones. There’s a certain freedom you feel when you realize you can place your phone on a hotel table but lie down in bed.
2 - Noise cancelling and noise passthrough is a transformative experience when travelling or find yourself abroad. Airports are much easier to feel relaxed in when 80% of the noise or so can be filtered out as you wait for your flight to board. Additionally, the flight experience is less annoying (no engine drone gets through, even passengers can mostly be ignored) but you still have the option for pass through if someone absolutely needs to talk to you.
3 - Many of these headphones come with some kind of EQ feature, which can occasionally mean that you get speakers with more tunability and thus slightly better bang-for-buck that works globally across apps.
4 - Audio quality. Since these are expensive drivers, you’re often going to get better sound quality than those cheap 30 dollar throw aways were ever going to give.
Cons:
1 - Latency. These things could never be used in professional audio situations other than listening to a pre-rendered song for quality judgements. I don’t thing gaming would be nice with these either, even if I’ve tried (and failed) to play counter strike on these on occasion to keep noise levels down.
2 - Mic quality of the built in is lacking on my particular headphones (Sennheiser CX Plus). They’re really only intended to capture the outdoor for noise cancellation IMO, not the greatest for calls or recordings. They’re servicable, but it’s the area I’d like the most upgrade (and it would probably improve noise cancellation features as well.)
3 - Environmental / Sustainability Concerns: Other than people just “losing” these devices with built in batteries that are bad for the environment being a problem in and of itself, there are other long-standing concerns I have about these devices. They often require proprietary non-open software to configure, meaning if the software gets delisted, you will no longer be able to configure them until someone comes up with some kind of alternative using reverse engineering (good luck). Batteries are likely to degrade over time, meaning you’ll eventually end up with a worthless ear bud on the left or right and the only solution will be to throw them out. These things are often pretty bad scoring on repairability metrics, and I can’t even blame the companies producing them here because they’re so small.
4 - Despite passthrough being a feature, it’s hard to convey to people that you can actually hear them through the device. There should be some kind of blinking light on the outside that indicates that passthrough is enabled or something.
So I actually do love these devices, but #3 of the cons is really the biggest real issue I have with them. If they’re going to cost over 100 dollars, I would like to know that these things won’t just become ewaste in the same way that cheap crappy wired headphones end up being as well (which sea life often chokes on or gets tangled up in.) If they costs a premium, I would really like to know that they aren’t a figurative dead end when they eventually fail.
They also didn’t add an extra layer of compression between the player and your ears - because they had a fucking headphone jack and wires that could transmit audio data without compression.
And they knotted up in your pocket/purse
Tbh I like the convenience of not being physically attached to my phone when listening to music. That said, the removal of headphone jacks from phones is a disgrace.
And they used to get tangled on everything all the time, got caught on things all the time, frayed and wore out all the time, had janky connectors that had to be jiggled to sit in just the right position to get stereo sound, and got tied in knots when you put them away not matter how carefully you wound them.
There’s a reason everyone is using Bluetooth now, gramps.
Bluetooth is lower fidelity, and I’d rather have tangled cables and ports than batteries that only last 5 years or less.
Don’t know where you pulled the 5 year from. I’ve got mine for longer than that and I have no problems with the battery. Also, didn’t notice the lower fidelity, but I mostly listen to podcasts so I not gonna dispute that claim. Why I bought the bluetooth earbuds was because no matter how much I paid for wired earbuds (up to 120€) none of them survived more than 2 years. Approx after a year one would stop working and some time later the other would die too. So yeah, if you enjoy the shitty ultra thin wires that’s great, but in my experience even cheap bluetooth earbuds work minimum three times longer than wired ones.
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Bluetooth as an audio standard is factually lower fidelity
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The average expected life span of a Li ion battery is 5 years
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I don’t know how you kill headphones so quickly, but you can 100% get quality wired earbuds for a third of the price of wireless earbuds with nice, thick, threaded cable. The YouTuber dankpods has a few videos about this with recs for cheap, good headphones.
Bluetooth as an audio standard is factually lower fidelity
Is this an analog vs digital thing? Bluetooth runs at a high enough bitrate that most people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. And especially compared to the quality of the cabled headphones that used to be common any Bluetooth earphone is better
Cabled headphones have gotten a lot better and cheaper, and no it’s a compression thing, here’s an article about it
https://www.soundguys.com/understanding-bluetooth-codecs-15352/
And as I said, they have bitrates high enough that most people won’t notice a difference. Especially since the files/steaming they’ll be listening to have lower bitrate than Bluetooth.
Regardless, what matters most is the earphone quality and while there might be better and cheaper options now, that’s not the cheap bundled headphone people are nostalgic of when they post things like this.
Apple Earpods are very high quality actually, and are praised as a good cheap option by audiophiles
I carry my phone in my pocket so the wire that’s close to the jack bends very frequently and gets damaged. I’m glad you were able to find good wired buds. I searched for years and wasn’t as lucky as you. But since I switched to no-name bluetooth earbuds I’ve had no problems so I’m very happy.
Are you claiming that the battery stops working after 5 years? As far as I know the maximum battery charge gets lower with time but the device is still functional. It just lasts a bit less.
Yes the expected life span of a lithium ion battery is only 5 years, everything you get after that is just luck of the draw.
It’s minimum 5 years if you charge them every day. I charge mine maybe once a week when I use them regularly. So claiming that all lithium ion bateries last 5 years is misleading. Most manufacturers claim you have minimum of 2000 charging cycles.
It is minimum of 5 years on AVERAGE for lithium batteries.
The way you charge does not change the average.
If you have earbuds with a case, you charge them every time you put them in the case, and to add insult to injury a majority of those batteries are not replaceable when they 100% could be. That’s really my biggest gripe, they’re made to be not only finite, but disposable. It’s just such a waste.
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It might be lower fidelity but it’s not like it’s bad. I got some AirPod Pros using my credit card points and they’re awesome, plus the active noise cancellation means that they have more space to work when they aren’t fighting the metro system or whatever else. I did have some $100 ones that were pretty mediocre so I totally get that bluetooth can be bad but so can most anything else.
People chasing that last 2% of sound quality…I’m not going to waste our time saying that it doesn’t make much of a difference but they need to understand that almost nobody gives a shit. The only people that need to care are doing it for their job and that’s an entirely different situation.
And none of that even gets on the fact that without a cable to manage I can deal with them much more comfortably on the metro, in a car, on a bicycle, while walking, etc. I don’t need to think about where my phone is and I can even share them far more easily and comfortably. The battery, for my use case, just goes and goes and I barely need to charge them. They do everything better except for sound and they already crossed the threshold for great sound quality ages ago so that one is irrelevant to 99% of users.
Right but you could better quality and the same quality of speakers for literally less than half the price, and they’ll be more repairable because all you need to do to fix them is solder some wire. I also disagree that they do everything better but that’s really subjective. I can see using wireless headphones at the gym and things, but wired headphones still very much have a place imo.
It isn’t just the gym. When was the last time you went outside?
(The last paragraph is a summary of sorts if you don’t want to deal my wall of examples)
I like being able to sit on the metro or bus and use my phone normally, and then when I go to leave I don’t need to reorganize the wire to get it in a more comfortable position for walking around. When I drive, since the microphone in my car isn’t very good, I don’t need to think about dealing with a cable and putting my phone somewhere it can be safely and securely within reach. Being able to understand that other people have different needs I know that there is such a thing as a woman and they, unfortunately, don’t always have pockets that make dealing with a wire super straightforward.
In the summer I don’t want to have a wire down my t-shirt. It’s uncomfortable and I definitely want the thing hanging around loose, either.
When I’m at home it’s nice to not have to deal with wired headphones, and when I use my laptop for calls and stuff it’s so much easier to be able to use wireless earbuds. I can get up quickly to close a door, turn off an oven, frickin’ whatever the hell I want. Most of the time I use my PC, regular speakers, and Yeti Nano so this isn’t an issue but understanding that other people have different needs I can see why someone without those things would need a better solution.
I live where I rent bikes to get around a lot. I rarely want music while I’m biking but I’ve needed directions sometimes and having my phone plugged in while pedalling, even if the wire was long enough, would be a great way to shorten the life of the connection at the phone. Being able to understand other people have different needs I also know that others use headphones much more often, especially when we have safer bike infrastracture.
For you:
Understanding that different people have different needs I totally get why someone might want wired headphones. A little better sound quality if you’re into that kinda thing is fine. The cost is certainly a component and I won’t tell anyone who can’t afford Airpods that they need to spend that kind of money on headphones. I didn’t even do that as mine only cost $70 after my points took care of the other $310(these are AirPod Pro 2s, I also know that regular airpods are far cheaper but still pricey).
I also use wired headphones on my PC because Windows is ass and the firmware on the airpods as well will sometimes not behave either. I only use them because one specific meeting program doesn’t have anything to clean up the echo from my speakers so I need to cut that sound out entirely. Regardless, I understand how valuable a simple wired connection is. Sometimes my keyboard doesn’t behave without being plugged in, and whenever shitty Windows crapped out on my work computer and the bluetooth connection died I had to plug in to deal with that. I only use wired mice but frankly I really should get a wireless one as well to have that flexibility, though the cheapo wired one ready to go in a box nearby is fine.
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I never said wired headphones don’t have a place but you’re not getting that other people have different priorities.
It’s like saying we should all own GMC Savanas for the extra space when it would be better for 99.9% of people to grab a Honda fit or just take public transit, and then use U-Haul, a carshare program, or just borrow a friend’s car when they need to haul something once a year.
Ultimately, people just want to listen to music at all and in a comfortable way. The disadvantages of a wire are not worth the marginal increase in sound quality when it comes to daily use.
It just seems like cables bother you more than me. But I also don’t live in a city with a lot of walkability or good public transit. I would use wired headphones on my college campus, when I was done with them, I’d wrap them around my phone, unplug them and then slide the coiled wire loop off my phone and put them in my pocket. I also don’t care if the wires are out while my phone is in my pocket and my headphones are in. I’ve never run the wires through my shirt.
I used to run in highschool, and I just got used to holding my phone while I ran with headphones in. Idk man, maybe I’m just old lol.
And they do, yea. I’m just saying that I won’t try to tell you what you find important or should care about and we should acknowledge that most people want wireless. There’s still a big market for wired headphones and there’s always value in that having that cheap spare pair or two even for people who prefer wireless.
Anyway I hope I didn’t come off as trying to shame you out of your preference. My only goal was to show the other side of the coin.
But your statement is now relying on skills and equipment that - sure, don’t have that high of a barrier to entry - aren’t within everyone’s skill level, or budget vs storage capacity.
For what it’s worth, I personally wouldn’t go back to wired headphones, but I also want a mic jack because I want to play music to non-Bluetooth stuff and cars I don’t own/don’t trust with my privacy.
On the other hand Bluetooth can crackle if the airwaves are too noisy, you have to spend more for the same audio quality (and it’s still going to take a nosedive when calling someone because A2DP codecs like AAC or AptX aren’t available in HSP mode), and the buds have limited batteries which makes them unreliable for long-term wear.
It’s all about trade-offs and individual requirements. Of course these days you’re pushed to get wireless ones because most phone manufacturers are too cheap to include a headphone jack.
There’s a reason everyone is using Bluetooth now, gramps.
Such as not having other options with their current phones
Or not being up to par with Bluetooth. Seriously, you would still see Bluetooth everywhere even if you had a jack. I prefer Bluetooth over cabled alternatives even now with a phone that has it, so does my brother my sister my friends and family. I’m also sorry to say this but even my grandparents have preferred Bluetooth
I’m sure bluetooth is fine, it’s just that unfortunately most didn’t get much of a choice in the matter.
Good for you. Clearly not the case for everyone given the thread. And considering including a jack wouldn’t impact you all anyway, Im not sure why you care.
A friend was complaining that he was always losing his air pods. I told him about my awesome idea to sell a little cord that would connect them so they were easier to keep track of.
He was like, ‘Dude! That’s a great idea… You’ve got to start selling those before someone beats you to it-’
Then it dawned on him and he called me an asshat.
Last time I used wired headphones on my old phone, I was riding a bike. One of the buds slipped out of my ear and got caught in the front wheel, dragging my phone out of my pocket and smashing the screen. 10/10
I wish I could watch a video of that.
Also, headphone cords go under clothing when doing activities like that.
https://www.isadoraduncan.org/about-1
Isadora Duncan’s death was as dramatic as her life. On September 14, 1927, she encountered a young driver in Nice, France and suggested he take her for a spin in his open-air Bugatti sports car. As the car took off, she reportedly shouted to her friends, “Adieu, mes amis, je vais a la gloire!” — “Goodbye my friends, I go to glory!” Moments later, her trailing shawl became entangled in the rear wheel, breaking her neck instantly.
How fecking long was the shawl?
Famous-1920s-dancer-long, apparently!
same
