alt Hacker NewsThis isn't a Vinyl vs CD thing where a clearly inferior technology lives on due mainly to sentimental reasons. There are a number of concrete advantages to wired headphones over bluetooth headphones.
- They don't need charging. Charging may seem like a minor inconvenience, and we're used to charging a lot of devices. However, even a minor inconvenience is still an inconvenience.
- They're harder to lose. When Apple almost immediately started selling accessories to connect their airpods together (i.e. Cables), it was pretty obvious that going completely cordless was not entirely superior.
- For an equivalent price point, wired headphones produce higher quality audio, and the top-end is a lot deeper.
- Wired cans don't need to pair, don't glitch out, don't become laggy, pair with the wrong device, etc.. Bluetooth was never really meant for use as an audio connection, and it's never really become 100% foolproof. With Apple's proclivity for proprietary standards, I'm amazed they (or others) haven't rolled their own wireless audio standard by now.
Too many android phones copied Apple and ditched the venerable audio jack, but a few kept it, and I've always insisted on it when buying phones. It's old but far from obsolete.
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And latency!! Anything that needs to be real time is impossible without wired headphones. Even the lowest latency wireless is noticeable.
Vinyls are not necessarily the inferior technology. Given the choice, I'd prefer to play vinyl in some cases. In social settings vinyl's short length and need to be flipped creates a dynamic social environment. Someone has to regularly choose new music to play, acting with intent to do so. Someone has to regularly walk to the machine. These create dynamism and flow. CDs are much longer, and less tactile. There's less of the my turn your turn, who is going to flip the thing.
They sound worse, if clarity is your goal. And they are huge and wear out. I agree with you 99%, I just wanted to point out that across some dimensions they are the superior technology.
> They don't need charging.
This is it. I have a lot of wireless headphones and every time I need to use one, it isn't charged. It's very exhausting and I don't want to deal with that. So I use them as wired headphone if possible, or dump them in the discard pile if not.
Bluetooth also opens your devices up to spying/tracking/monitoring/hacking/fingerprinting.
> "Too many android phones copied Apple and ditched the venerable audio jack"
I understand this is a personal preference, but I never understood the anger some people had over the removal when it's as easy as just using a small USB-C to 3.5mm audio jack converter to use wired headphones.
I agree but stuck with Apple ecosystem. I like the cheap wired lightning headphones they do. The audio quality is acceptable on public transit, they’re cheap enough to lose and the mic is surprisingly good. Weirdly if Apple stopped making these I would jump ship for an Android phone with 3.5mm.
They have no latency, which is essential for gaming.
Honestly I don't find these days bluetooth to a mobile device that bad.
However, some of the other devices in my home are absolute crap with bluetooth headphones, particularly my windows desktop and my steam deck.
Wired headphones are infinitely more durable when good. I had a single pair of Sennheiser HD25II for 16 years now and I use them to run 16km a week, often in the rain.
What annoys me the most is that the industry collectively decided that 3.5mm jacks are obselete, removing the option of using wired headphones, for no(?) good reason. We could at least agree that wired and wireless each have their own pros and cons, but no, we're shoehorned into wireless because corporate decided it. Here, you must use <NEW TECH> simply because we said so! It's just the peak of trend following bullshittery and represents a lot of what is wrong with capitalist society.
All valid points, but I don’t miss having a tangle of wire in my pocket or that wire failing after a couple of months meaning I have to get a new set of headphones.
FWIW, Bluetooth LE Audio [0] solves most of these problems in my experience. Battery life is way better, pairing is almost instant, you can connect to multiple devices simultaneously, the latency is almost imperceptible, etc. The sound quality is still worse than wired, but it's close enough that it doesn't bother me personally.
Very few headphones support BLE Audio, and you need to enable some experimental Bluez flags for it to work on Linux, but both of these should improve with time. But it makes such a huge difference that I'd argue that it's worth the effort, even right now.
[0]: https://www.bluetooth.com/learn-about-bluetooth/feature-enha...
> With Apple's proclivity for proprietary standards, I'm amazed they (or others) haven't rolled their own wireless audio standard by now.
Can you imagine Europe's reaction? They'd fine Apple to the moon -- no innovation allowed unless it interoperates with other products that don't exist yet.
I work with a lot of audio in a professional capacity. You're correct if you're saying that neither tech is universally "teh best".
And you're correct that wired phones have a lot of advantages.
Tack on that they don't have latency, though I've never really tried to track vocals on wireless cans. I have a pretty nice collection of what I consider to be quality mid-tier stuff for my studio (hd280, dt770, mdr7506, k240), and I think they mostly sound better and I can use them longer than I can use the various wireless stuff I use.
And the "real" UHF wireless audio I use professionally (well, to collect rather than listen to audio) is very reliable and good sounding but also, like, $1000/ch once it's cased and cabled and properly accessorized.
However, for almost all of my day to day listening I use either airpods or a some bluetooth'd 3M ear muffs. I even went back to airpods after going through both wired and other wireless solutions.
I don't enjoy having my in-ears ripped out along with my pocket. And universally the cord ends and the physical connector on my phone are the weak spots that have had me replace stuff- I haven't bought a phone in the 5 years since I got one that could charge wirelessly and never has phones plugged into it, and I don't intend to get another one any time soon (knock on wood that my case keeps the screen from breaking and needing me to repair it).
I have a bluetooth receiver with an analog out that I keep in my workbox, which I used for program music at a show tonight. It's nice to start my truck and my podcast just starts playing, too, without having to get out my phone and plug it in.
You're right that wired stuff is better for some things. I still find wireless stuff to be superior in a lot of situations.