So they finally seemed to have come up with their original design after 3 years of selling non-repairable TWS earbuds, great. I genuinely appreciate that they are trying to give users more sustainable options. Perhaps they can walk back the decision to remove the headphone jack as well so that people can use wired headphones directly which doesn't use battery in the first place.
The audio quality on these battery powered blue tooth headphones is fucking awful. IM not a purist by any stretch, but a decent pair of head phones is a whole other world of music vs anything AirPods like.
I recently fell off of team 3.5mm-jack when I discovered USB-C headphones! These include their own DAC and that means they have the potential to be *much* less noisy than the usually cost-reduced DAC included in the handset. Plus this way I can splurge for one decent set of headphones and get the same mix on all my devices, which is good for composing.
So, the 3.5mm jack can die. I'm now on team "dual USB ports" to solve the charging-while-listening issue. Let's go team!
Isn't that exactly why audiophiles - in the broadest sense, not just the golden cable types - stick with jack headphones? The DACs and amps built into headphones, or even earbuds, being very likely subpar compared to the one they can pick separately.
Headphone DACs/amps have been a thing forever and they're typically the size of a pack of cigarettes.
(Disclaimer: I made peace with BT since getting the Sony WH-1000XM4 earbuds, and later WH-1000HM4 headphones. I got them originally for the noise cancelling and LDAC support, but they're good enough that I don't hear a major difference with my friend's fancy Audio Technica)
Well sure. It's also why I use an external audio interface on my desktop, since the 3.5mm jack in my desktop's motherboard is noisy and glitchy. For convenience on the go I prefer USB-C headphones (for casual listening I don't care as much) but you can just as easily swap that out for a USB-C DAC, into which you plug your analog headphones of choice.
The point is, the handset's output over USB-C is digital! You're not stuck with whatever analog components it includes (or doesn't), those can be swapped out pretty easily.
As someone who plays around in the pro audio space, it's crazy how much you can spend on an interface. Especially "back in the day" (~20 years ago), most on-board stuff was pretty much trash and PCI sound cards (from Creative Labs and the like) were very common.
But you still can't charge it while you've got your headphones in.
Are there not high quality usb c to headphone jacks, with good DACs?
I've still got a phone with a headphone jack, clinging onto life so not something I've investigated. Surely that's going to be the direction for folks who want an analogue socket?
Hm. I have Sennheiser and Bose Bluetooth headphones and found AAC and AptX HD codecs on highest quality settings (on Android in dev tools) to be really good and almost indistinguishable from wired connections.
I wouldn't call myself an audiophile, but my hearing is pretty good and I'm sensitive to quality loss
Funny that you picked these, I have had 5 different people tell me to try them, and I own a pair.
I have some pretty broad musical tastes. If I throw on some modern, electronic music, or anything pop, these do a pretty good job.
The moment I dip into jazz, into anything where the range between the quiet parts and the loud parts (read pre 1990) is large they just dont perform any more. No amount of EQ is going to make up for that missing range.
The best example of this that I can give is Caltrains A Love Supreme. On something good there is a looming undercurrent in the track, the humming is alive. The track is lifeless on every bluetooth headphone I have heard. Hell even my Sonos speakers in the kitchen do a better job.
There’s a massive difference between bluetooth earbuds and $200-300 (ish) noise canceling Bose headphones. Yes, those are obviously going to sound good. I love mine.
But you can’t really find a decent budget option on bluetooth. I hate mine and only use them for audiobooks. You could find reasonable budget wired earbuds even 15 years ago.
Not the parent, but wvwn if quality was decent. I have wired headphones. Good ones. And I just want to use them. Sure there are USB-C DACs you can add to your phone but meh.
Get the idea, but I take my phone for sport runs multiple times a week, including in rainy weather. As of now I still have one with a headphone output. The idea of having to carry two devices and getting the worst of all worlds (more weigth, the unreliability of bluetooth combined with cables) doesn't really fill me with awe and wonder.
I used to feel this way too. I don't care so much about sound quality, as I'm mostly listening to podcasts and audiobooks, but I didn't want to be reliant on teeny little batteries that have to be recharged every couple of hours.
As it turns out, the unexpected benefit of not having wires is that the cord doesn't get caught on everything all the time, and that's good enough to overcome the poor battery life for me.
As someone who wears headphones basically all day at work (painter...) I 100% agree. It's a whole different experience, in a different dynamic.
On a similar note, 80% of the time I'm wearing my Sony linkbuds -- the ones with the "they have a hole in them" passthrough, even though they have the shortest battery life of the multiple sets I own.
Realistically, beyond the (not dismissing) "they are trash when the batteries die" aspect of things, taking your headphones out for 10-20 minutes every 4 ish hours... Is probably a good thing for our ears and minds alike.
Do you really have to recharge every couple hours? I use AirPods and find that they last for several (3?) hours when the mic is being used simultaneous with the speaker (zoom/phone), but much longer (5?) when just being used for playback. For me, this is plenty — especially because I don't use both ears at once. There's always way more than enough time to charge one while using the other.
What wireless 'buds have only 2 hours of battery life when for just playback?
I’m pretty sure my AirPods Pro have only about two hours battery life, but that’s probably because they’re at least three years old by now. I still love them though and would buy them again in a second if need be. I also don’t use them for music, just meetings, podcasts and audiobooks.
I assume you have the 1st gen one — I can only recommend the 2nd gen pro, I didn’t even originally want it, just got a good deal if I buy both this and an ipad, but I use the airpod each and every day for multiple hours, and I only have to think about charging the case after several weeks. The noise cancellation on the other hand is otherworldly.
If only they weren't also so insistent on also obsoleting analog outputs and thus 75 years worth of headphones.
Even worse, considering that they have to include DACs for speakers anyway, they still refuse to route analog audio out to the type-c connector - just to ensure that cheap passive adapters will not impede their shameless grift.
That "cheap passive adapter" has a ridiculous amount of complexity (both in the dongle, and in the chip you would have to connect it to to make it functional) that you're overlooking. You can't just 'route the DAC in the speaker to the Type-C connector'. That's not how these systems are built at all, and certainly not something that would be functional even if you could just route the speaker DAC to a 3.5mm connector or Type-C connector.
If this is so non-trivial, Chinese OEMs like Huawei have in fact succeeded in analog output. This is despite the fact that their receptacles are on a 50mm long flex PCB, you don't need another 2 signal layers or an extra daughterboard.
The laws of physics are the same everywhere across the world. Just because Apple is incompetent, it does not imply everyone else is.
You're talking to someone who works with folks on the USB-IF committee. Analog output through the DP/DN/SBU pins is not standard these days. A mux isn't even necessary in many implementations. Also, this functionality in USB Type-C is straight up deprecated. Just because it's technically possible (and sure, I agree, it is technically possible) doesn't mean it isn't more costly, less efficient, and wasteful vs. just putting the codec directly in the USB-C to 3.5mm dongle.
Here's the rationale than USB-IF gave in the ECN:
>> Few hosts support analog audio accessory. Those that might could be confused when connected to a device supporting corrosion mitigation, but no detrimental behavior should be seen. This should be a corner case of a corner case so likely zero to very low ppm of this condition. Note, any compliant host that supports analog audio accessory today is also required to support digital audio accessories, so there should be no impact to users."
Sure, if you use the audio adapter accessory mode, you can just get CC1/CC2 resistors. But then you just push a ton of complexity (even more-so than the standard codec for headsets) into the device. You need additional analog muxes above and beyond the codec, which aren't free. Nobody implements this anymore, cause it's much easier to just shove the codec into the dongle itself. Also, it's deprecated as of the latest USB-C specifications (precisely because nobody uses it now).
The Apple USB-C to audio jack connector is excellent. Objectively and testably excellent. It's nine bucks, and it works on anything with a USB-C port.
There's no grift here, shameless or otherwise. Apple stopped shipping a headphone jack on their phones for iPhone reasons, and the other manufacturers eventually followed suit because, for all the people on HN who complain about missing headphone jacks, consumers don't actually want them anymore.
I have a decent hi-fi system in my home and listen to a lot of vinyl and tapes, and my pair of Technics EAH-AZ80's sound pretty damn good using music streamed from Roon ARC (FLAC, some 320 MP3's).
I have heard a lot in the past few years of people praising cheap IEM's (I still don't get the difference between IEM's and a pair of wired headphones) and am curious to refresh my iPod Classic to use with some but I wouldn't know where to begin.
EQ can make a huge difference, and these days autoeq.app and the open data behind it make getting good EQ settings incredibly easy.
If you still like you want to use your wired headphones, something like the Fiio BTR5 is pretty excellent - you can use it either wired via USB-C for highest quality, or via bluetooth for convenience.
I don't even care about quality, but BT has too many random issues. When I had to replace my iPhone with a new one (with no jack), I basically stopped listening to music on the go.
Just use/buy an "old" phone with a jack? It is easy to find used phones (2021 or earlier) with headphone jacks. I have a 2017 phone and plan to upgrade to a 2020 phone.
That makes a lot of sense until you realize those are no longer made and are not updated with security fixes, in many cases.
It makes very little sense to buy a network-connected device which can’t be updated. And if you say “put Linux on it” it could be argued that you don’t know what tools like phones are for.
I only buy phones with great support for LineageOS [0], which is basically the open source version of Android with some adaptations... Even if I bought a 2024 phone, I would install LineageOS to make sure there are no backdoors on my phone.
Aren't the backdoors gonna be in the baseband firmware that no phone allows you to modify?
I always felt that we basically "lost" with open source: Intel did the Management Engine and phones stuck everything in the baseband.
There's no real possibility of having fully software-hackable hardware. Someone else ultimately has control of all hardware, if they want to exercise that control.
Running all sort of apps that wouldn't exist native on Linux (banking, whatsapp, ...) or whose equivalents although better and safer on Linux aren't compatible with what the mass uses.
I finally settled with a phone (Nokia 8110 4G) that does just the phone, the hotspot and the occasional low quality photo, then a Thinkpad for serious stuff, and don't miss at all a smartphone. But I have no use for social media etc. most people mileage will vary.
Actually I would be interested in Graphene OS, but it only supports devices that are either too old or too costly for a mere curiosity, therefore I will wait.
As someone writing this on a pinephone the primary issue with the statement is the lack of context. You 'put linux on it' and get OSS, and control of your own device. But most of the time lose 90% access to the abilities of ios/android installs...
I can sudo pacman -S dub & ldc2 + fav editor of the week. But had to spend hours getting an android emulator working to sign up to use the telegram install that came with most/all of the distros I've tried!
TLDR: you get a pocket laptop instead of a phone, despite owning a "phone"
> TLDR: you get a pocket laptop instead of a phone, despite owning a "phone"
Yes, exactly, thank you. You get a project that never ends instead of a useful tool. Maybe that’s what you want, and that’s fine if so, but that’s not what I want.
Headphone jack is a driver of innovation and early adoption as well. Look at mobile payments for instance, 1st available on 3.5mm. It's a good connector to have.
They only cost a couple bucks and can stay connected to headphones. One of mine has a microphone block that I generally keep plugged into my untrusted work laptop to ensure it isn't listening to me.
OP means that the third sleeve/fourth connection point on the jack (the one responsible for mic data) isn't passed through, ergo the only connection to the recipient device is the output. In other words, it limits a TRRS jack to a TRS one.
Whatever OS you're using, you're not magically going to regain access to a physically disconnected signal.
My laptop recognizes it as an actual microphone. Unless some software is able to change the microphone selection to the internal microphone, it will just be listening to silence.
Not sure what you are using but on Windows I can set my "default" but each application can still individually select which input they want.
IE an untrusted process running should be able to pick the inbuilt mic.
Maybe linux has permissions around device inputs that can be used to stop this but if a person is worried their untrusted laptop might be listening to them then I suspect such a permission layer is already breached.
jraph is simply pointing out that a laptop likely has a built in mic which can still be surreptitiously used no matter what the user plugs in and says is their preference. Untrusted is untrusted.
_carbyau_'s interpretation is correct, I meant to say that if you don't trust your laptop, you can't block for sure its internal mic by plugging a fake external mic. An untrusted app could always select the internal mic.
Yeah, you can, as you have connectors which allow USB-C pass-through on top of the 3.5 mm.
Another alternative is 3.5 mm to Bluetooth adapter from your headset. Though those are usually (?) male, and hence only work on a female 3.5 mm.
You can buy these for a couple of EUR/USD on Amazon from any Chinese brand. Fairphone themselves also sell a 3.5 mm to USB-C adapter. But this does not have USB-C pass-through.
These all do have a disadvantage: physical bloat / potentially making device less comfortable.
The Qudelix 5k is a pretty well liked 3.5mm to Bluetooth converter in audiophile corners. I've been using one for ~2 years now, it does a pretty good job, plus, retains the option for plugging in via USB.
FM radio using the 3.5mm jack has nothing to do with the jack itself. You could make a USB-C to 3.5mm jack that does FM radio reception too… or any long cord. The reality is nobody (comparatively) wants FM radio anymore. They barely did when it was released. With widespread data plans you can just stream it via the internet, it’s more convenient, it sounds better, and reception isn’t an issue indoors or in bad signal areas.
Good TWS headphones are better than the vast majority of wired headphones.
For example, Sony's headphones have lossless Bluetooth, and so do Samsung's, and the quality of the headphones themselves is quite good, even by audiophile standards, for in-ears.
You can also get bluetooth adapters for traditional IEMs, Fiio and KZ sell good ones.
At the end of the day, there really is no technical reason why bluetooth headphones have to sound any worse than wired headphones.
> Good TWS headphones are better than the vast majority of wired headphones.
Maybe, but there are no high end TWS headphones. None of them stand up to even $200 wired IEMs.
>You can also get bluetooth adapters for traditional IEMs, Fiio and KZ sell good ones.
I wouldn't call any of the TWS adapters for IEMs good. I have the Fiio ones, they are a pain in the ass to use and connect. And everyone I've heard from says the KZ are worse than the Fiio ones, so I'm not going to try them.
Get a Bluetooth DAC instead like the Qudelix 5k or Fiio BTR series.
> At the end of the day, there really is no technical reason why bluetooth headphones have to sound any worse than wired headphones.
True, true. I just wish they'd make good bluetooth headphones. I'm sick and tired of dealing with adapters, even the bluetooth ones.
> Maybe, but there are no high end TWS headphones. None of them stand up to even $200 wired IEMs.
That's completely subjective - Crinacle for example is a popular reviewer and disagrees. By all objective measurements they stand up to many 200$ wired IEMs.
> I wouldn't call any of the TWS adapters for IEMs good. I have the Fiio ones, they are a pain in the ass to use and connect. And everyone I've heard from says the KZ are worse than the Fiio ones, so I'm not going to try them.
> Get a Bluetooth DAC instead like the Qudelix 5k or Fiio BTR series.
I've personally had no issues with use or connection with my KZ adapter - my girlfriend still uses it, and doesn't report any issues (beyond battery life, as it's been 4 years now). I imagine it might also depend on the phone.
> True, true. I just wish they'd make good bluetooth headphones. I'm sick and tired of dealing with adapters, even the bluetooth ones.
I guess it's up to subjectivity. I personally find my wf-1000xm4s and xm5s really quite good after AutoEQ. I'm not the only one either, plenty of reviewers find them, once EQ'd (which is super easy on Android), to be competent IEMs, even compared to other 200$+ wired IEMs.
That's so long as you don't use an iPhone. If you do use an iPhone then yeah, you're screwed as you can't avoid audio compression and you're reliant on manufacturer EQ (though it's perfectly fine for Sony)
> Good TWS headphones are better than the vast majority of wired headphones.
Even not so good TWS headphones are more expensive than pretty good wired headphones.
> Sony's headphones have lossless Bluetooth, and so do Samsung's
Unlike Bluetooth which you have to pray to god that it will pick the best codec, wired connection is already lossless.
> there really is no technical reason why bluetooth headphones have to sound any worse than wired headphones.
... until you enable microphone, then it turns into a potato 16kHz mono stream. A successor codec was only finalized in Bluetooth 5.2 and I don't believe there are major earbuds that support LC3 yet.
> Even not so good TWS headphones are more expensive than pretty good wired headphones.
I would expect so, it's just a more complicated and expensive product to make. Even so, nowadays the difference is quite small.
> Unlike Bluetooth which you have to pray to god that it will pick the best codec, wired connection is already lossless.
I don't have to pray, there is a toggle switch for lossless audio, I just have to select it. It's easy to verify which codec is being used too, it's right there on the app.
And while a wired connection is already lossless, you can risk having a crappy amp on cheaper devices, and often you also have to deal with microphonics from your cables (especially those that have a mic built in). So while it can be as flawless as a lossless codec, it's not always.
> ... until you enable microphone, then it turns into a potato 16kHz mono stream. A successor codec was only finalized in Bluetooth 5.2 and I don't believe there are major earbuds that support LC3 yet.
Sony's headphones do support LC3 as of last week (it came in an update), but yes that's still a valid point as it's only recently being addressed.
You don't find it jarring when sound effects don't sync up with what's supposed to cause them on screen?
As an aside, mobile games aren't the only thing people play on their phones. I emulate every game console I ever owned on my phone as well as using it for a PC display over Sunshine.
I don't think we've cracked the design yet for no wire between the device and the earphones. I have the Shure BT2 set and I would list my relationship as "I tolerate them". It dangles, and if I wear a coat with a metal zipper it has connection issues when my phone is in my pocket.
I'm not convinced the new separate ones are better. Behind the head may still be the better option, and sliding them down around your neck when you need to be social ticks a lot of checkboxes for me as well.
There’s something about having two independent Bluetooth headphones that makes them much more than twice as likely to get lost. And I suspect that part of it is having both ears blocked and thus needing to take one out much more frequently.
Also there are a disproportionate number of tech people who have ADHD, and multiple small objects do not just have a high probability of getting lost, they have a virtual guarantee of doing so. Multiple times before they are lost forever.
Craze??? Wireless has been the standard for portable electronics for almost 20 years. It’s the norm. I could never go back to wired. Too bulky, unreliable, and fragile.
Go watch any live broadcast of a band past 20 years. You'll notice they use wired, not wireless. Why would they do that? Because the latency is lower, the sound quality is higher, and the bandwidth is higher.
Don't use wireless unless you absolutely need to. And you probably do not.
That being said, I like wireless for a simple reason. No wire near the head is very practical with regards to movement, and I used to destroy 3.5 mm headset wires multiple times a year when I was at school. But those days are long gone.
How do they solve that in live performances (also in talkshows)? They use mics there, and they use some tape or way to attach the mic to clothes.
> Go watch any live broadcast of a band past 20 years. You'll notice they use wired, not wireless. Why would they do that? Because the latency is lower, the sound quality is higher, and the bandwidth is higher.
Nope, I've had plenty of unreliable wired in-ear headphones. When used like the wireless ones of today they lasted a couple of years at most before the cable inevitable breaks (usually near the 3.5mm connector) from always moving
I've had to replace my wired headphone cable 3 times in the last 5 years due to wear, unexpectedly each time. I still use them because my current AirPods don't last a full work day, but I'll probably switch to AirPods Max next refresh.
I suspect my particular penchant for wearing through cables isn't super common, but at least for me personally, I find wireless more reliable for that reason.
> I've had to replace my wired headphone cable 3 times in the last 5 years due to wear, unexpectedly each time. I still use them because my current AirPods don't last a full work day, but I'll probably switch to AirPods Max next refresh.
How many cables are you able to buy for the price of a pair of air pods with broken batteries?
My headphones use a proprietary interface on the headphone side so each replacement costs £20. I’ve never had an AirPod battery go bad, but apparently they replace them for £50 (or free in the first 2 years with AppleCare+).
However the main issue isn’t the cost, it’s the fact that I suddenly don’t have a working headphone until I get a new cable.
It's easy and cheap to get USB-C to headphone jack adaptors, so anyone who wants to use wired headphones can do so. (The Apple one is $9, and we know how they like to gouge on accessories.) I've also seen simultaneous headphone-and-charging variants for under $10.
Personally, I could never stand using wired headphones with my phone, so I wouldn't want to do it. But the option's there.
Have you ever tried to put a phone with one of those sticking out of it in your trouser pocket? The long USB plug ensures it doesn’t really work unless you fancy breaking your USB-C port.
(Used wired on-ears and IEMs for a while, tried using an adapter for a bit, switched to Bluetooth over-ears recently. Appreciate the convenience, don’t appreciate One More Thing I Must Charge.)
I'd wager that a small single-digit percentage of Fairbuds customers will ever buy a replacement battery. Very few earbuds will reach the end of the battery's useful life before being lost or damaged beyond economical repair.
Indeed. I go through a pair of TWS every 12-24 months - so far that has never been because of battery life. It's 20% dropping/damagingand 80% losing one of the earbuds.
>I'd wager that a small single-digit percentage of Fairbuds customers will ever buy a replacement battery.
We're talking about the sustainability of the products design since that's what the manufacturer can control, not the behavior of the customers which the manufacturer can't control.
The Fairbuds retail for more, and I'd wager they have smaller margins, so the cost is much higher. That alone implies a higher environmental cost upfront.
I didn't realise the fairphone didn't have a jack input. I had a fair phone 2. I'm slowly starting to think the company is a scam. My fairphone could have lasted quite a while longer but they stopped making the part I needed. I mean we need more things like this in the market place so there could be 3rd party but there wasn't any option (this was a couple of years ago now)
I'm still rocking an FP3, but the biggest issue is Android 13. It's great that they still provide these updates but 13 alsolutely blows on this device compared to 12. Everything is slow. I'd try Lineage OS but I have a feeling my banking app won't work, and tbh I'm done with all that messing around.
I'll likely upgrade once the EU finally forces all phone companies to release phones with user replaceable batteries, and someone produces a phone that isn't gigantic. There aren't any medium sized phones any more. Everything's half a foot long.
I’m surprised to see this is Still a popular opinion. I could never imagine going back to wired headphones. That feeling of my
head being tethered to a device is not something I’d want to revisit.
That said, they certainly
make much more sense Financially. I’ve spent far more money on headphones since going wireless.
You can get/buy a USB-C to 3.5mm adapter. Annoying that there isn't a 3.5mm port on the phone itself but in the grand scheme of things not a huge inconvenience & life goes on.
