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
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.
On points of audio quality - wired $130 headphones will sound even better, due to cheaper technology allowing to place better components, not having to install local (probably crappy) DAC, and due to wireless audio being lossy, even with aptX.
It’s about options, buddy! Having a headphone jack does not prevent you from using Bluetooth headphones.
I definitely agree with this.
I feel like you’re forgetting the market segment of high-end wired headphones. Your point about wireless headphones sounding better confused me because of this.
I’m hoping these start getting recycled for their batteries, like the EU has plans to do.
Anyway, I feel full size wireless headphones are somewhat less problematic as they have bigger batteries, and you can always fall back to wired use (in most cases). But the proprietary app concerns are definitely valid.
The only pro that you make here that has anything to do with wireless headphones is #1, being untethered.
Noice cancelling, an EQ, and audio quality have nothing to do with being wireless.
Regarding latency, wireless mice have less latency than wired mice so I’m sure it’s possible but not with Bluetooth as the tech currently stands. Mic quality and pass through again, aren’t wireless-exclusive features.
You are correct, but like my Bose QC25’s when I had them, it can be really annoying for something to have batteries and be wired.
Wireless earphones with noise cancelling completely transformed air travel for me!
You should write professional reviews.
I’m confused how your pro #2 has to do with wireless headphones, as you could find much cheaper wired headphones with noise canceling even 20 years ago. I’m not sure about pass-through, but I imagine that’s more of a feature now because of technology upgrades.
I even used those wired headphones while mowing the lawn with noise cancelling and could hear the music without having to crank the volume to max. I think there might have even been an EQ button with different settings pre-made (however weren’t customizable to my knowledge). Not sure whether that’s also just because of the technological process now or not.
I’d say battery life is another con for wireless headphones, both for the headphones themselves and the device being used. I have worked a job where we’d have some shifts as long as 10-12 hours and with wired headphones, I’d still have 20-30 percent of the phone battery left, even if I had been listening to YouTube videos with the brightness all the way down. However, with the wireless headphones either my headphones or my phone would die before the end of a long shift like that and I’d be stuck without my music for the last 2-3 hours, even just listening to music with no video.
My experience with earbuds (not headphones) that were “noise cancelling” before active noise cancelling was a thing was never all that great. The seal is too difficult to design in the same way over the ear headphones can be for passive noise cancelling. This is probably due to ear size differences and all that, so ymmv on whether or not passives work. Obviously, passive noise cancelling over-the-ears are going to be better, but that’s basically always going to be true for any debate of Headphones vs Earbuds IMO.
I think there’s a confusion caused by mixing up headphones and earbuds, which I think are for two very different markets. Earbuds have always been for the more casual audience.
My experience with battery life has been pretty much non-perceptual, but I did make note that I’m not sure how long the batteries in these devices can even really last. I agree that the disposable nature of battery-based headphones are a bit disconcerting.
Oh that’s true, my headphones with noise canceling were also over-the-ear. I found that turning on the noise canceling worked great and brought down the sound of a lawnmower really well by playing sound waves opposite the waves of the motor to cancel each other out. I wasn’t thinking about another pair of ear buds.
The wireless headphones that I was using went around your head and didn’t pump the sound directly into your ear, but were supposed to use some bone conduction. I’m not sure if that’s part of the battery issue that I saw. I just know that my phone itself would die before the end of my shift if I was using Bluetooth headphones (provided the headphones didn’t die first) and I would still have battery left after using wired earbuds.