My earbuds are connected to a bt receiver that functions as a (not great, but okay) dac via usb too. Pro is that I can use the receiver with all my headphones, con is that it looks like an iPod shuffle gen 3
Both have their pros and cons. I miss my Westone 1 IEMs that I had back in college. My buddy’s dog chewed them up. They were comfortable and super light, had great sound quality, a cord that wasn’t obnoxious. Not having a cord is great though too especially when I’m working. Multipoint connection is great too. I can be listening to stuff on my phone with it in my pocket, no cable getting in the way, and when I get a call on Teams, my Pixel Buds just switch over to the computer.
it kills me that urbanears stopped making the Plattan Bluetooth model, it was basically the perfect design for on-ear headphones
Note the 3.5mm jack, it could do both wireless and wired, and you could even use the jack to output music! like come on how is this not the standard design? i have seen the light and now every time i look at other headphones they just seem obviously subpar
And also no latency. Even expensive Bluetooth headphones and earbuds have crap latency. The systems that don’t are either proprietary and not widely supported (e.g. aptX) or expensive 'phones-and-dongle arrangements that must always travel in a pair and still don’t compete on latency with a pair of dollar store earbuds.
I can find over 600 aptX capable headphones as well as over 850 phones, also any laptop I ever had supported it (Linux though, so probably not always “official” lol).
Low latency is a thing, you can get this as low as ~30-50ms either through aptX LL / Adaptive, whatever the manufacturer apps do or by manually meddling with the settings for SBC. Will get rather unstable though since you effectively get rid of the buffer. Really depends on your usecase what you prefer.
Personally I love having ANC headphones that support bluetooth but also got a headphone jack in cases where I sit in trains, buses or planes for hours and want to play some games or listen to music with a DAC.
Unless you’re using them for gaming or some other interactive medium, latency doesn’t really matter though. For music, latency is irrelevant and for video, your device will take care of syncing the audio and video playback so it’s a non issue. Audio quality is an entirely different matter of course.
Your video player “can” account for latency if you configure it correctly which I imagine the majority of people don’t do, and simply put up with it. Ditto with your music playback always lagging 1-2 seconds behind your control inputs. I have never used a media player on any platform that automatically figured out audio latency. Maybe the iDevices do if you pair them with Airpods, I don’t know; I don’t own anything Apple and I never will.
It also matters for music production, and makes life a lot more pleasant for audio/video editing. Plus, latency is just annoying in any setting.
Your video player “can” account for latency if you configure it correctly which I imagine the majority of people don’t do.
Windows and Android do this automatically out of the box, don’t know about other platforms.
Ditto with your music playback always lagging 1-2 seconds behind your control inputs.
Since music isn’t an interactive medium, this doesn’t really matter much (also the latency is more like 100 to 500 ms depending on a variety of factors)
It also matters for music production, and makes life a lot more pleasant for audio/video editing
Well of course, if you’re doing that A) this is not an application for wireless audio solutions so…uh…duh and B) you’re probably not on a phone if you take video or music production seriously 😅
There’s nothing to configure with modern android and Windows devices, it just works from my experience. Watching a video on YouTube or on the native media players at least you get a fraction of a second where it’s out of sync and then it pauses the video for whatever time necessary to get back in sync, and no issues from there on out.
The only instances where I notice it doesn’t work are games and video editing software, but yeah, those are just not use cases where wireless audio is appropriate
The reason wireless earbuds took off is that phones with headphone jacks stopped getting made.
Consumers didn’t prefer wireless earbuds. They preferred thinner and more water-resistant phones.
other way round, manufacturers realized people don’t particularly care about aux jacks and so they went ahead and got rid of them so they could get said benefits.
I personally switched to wireless back when my phone still had a headphone jack. It’s just the better overall experience for me, and I suspect that I’m not alone in that. I’m going to continue arguing for manufacturers to keep including a headphone jack, but it’s not because I prefer wired headphones personally.
Apple has gone out of their way to make it near impossible or impractical to repair their phones. I’m not spending my time making a list you’re not going to read. If you’re actually interested in learning, seek out Louis Rossmann on YouTube. Here’s just videos JUST Apple https://www.youtube.com/@rossmanngroup/search?query=Apple
You know how many people I know that have a cheap phone. One. Do you think my nieces and nephew would “settle” for cheap phones in grade school… LOL no. And if you’re like “Well it’s the parents…blah blah blah” then you’ve completely clocked out on the 8 hour bully sessions kids can receive, so don’t start.
You vastly underestimate Apples marketing and influence. I’ve argued with so many people that “well I like my AirPods” despite the fact phones UNTIL Apple killed the 3.5mm jack, had Bluetooth audio. The entire reason to remove the jack was to push sales of over priced e-waste.
LPT: pull up on your ear while inserting earbuds, this will let them squeeze further into the ear canal which has been the difference between them refusing to stay in the ear, and being rock solid in there. Better seal against outside noises as well.
You really think that’s a dunk? “Wireless” just means you plug it in when not in use. There’s nothing hard about plugging in a 3.5mm audio jack. I’ve never been sufficiently convinced to actually use wireless headphones. They seem like more of a hassle for a worse listing experience.
what universe do you live in? wireless is obviously more convenient since you just put the buds in your ears and click play, with wires you have to also put in the wire and you have a physical cable that can get caught on things or get in the way.
just get a pair of cheapo wireless earbuds and genuinely try using them, you’ll most likely realize that it is actually way more convenient and that actually you just wanted to be a reverse hipster.
My experience comes from previous attempts at using wireless headphones. It’s just easier for me to plug in and not have to do literally anything else for a premium listing experience.
I have earbuds that don’t need to be charged and use a cable for easy connectivity and sound quality.
My earbuds are connected to a bt receiver that functions as a (not great, but okay) dac via usb too. Pro is that I can use the receiver with all my headphones, con is that it looks like an iPod shuffle gen 3
Both have their pros and cons. I miss my Westone 1 IEMs that I had back in college. My buddy’s dog chewed them up. They were comfortable and super light, had great sound quality, a cord that wasn’t obnoxious. Not having a cord is great though too especially when I’m working. Multipoint connection is great too. I can be listening to stuff on my phone with it in my pocket, no cable getting in the way, and when I get a call on Teams, my Pixel Buds just switch over to the computer.
it kills me that urbanears stopped making the Plattan Bluetooth model, it was basically the perfect design for on-ear headphones
Note the 3.5mm jack, it could do both wireless and wired, and you could even use the jack to output music! like come on how is this not the standard design? i have seen the light and now every time i look at other headphones they just seem obviously subpar
You know what’s easier than a cable? No cable.
I’ll give you sound quality, but the whole reason that wireless earbuds took off is the hassle of wires.
Fight! Fight! Fight!
And also no latency. Even expensive Bluetooth headphones and earbuds have crap latency. The systems that don’t are either proprietary and not widely supported (e.g. aptX) or expensive 'phones-and-dongle arrangements that must always travel in a pair and still don’t compete on latency with a pair of dollar store earbuds.
I can find over 600 aptX capable headphones as well as over 850 phones, also any laptop I ever had supported it (Linux though, so probably not always “official” lol).
Low latency is a thing, you can get this as low as ~30-50ms either through aptX LL / Adaptive, whatever the manufacturer apps do or by manually meddling with the settings for SBC. Will get rather unstable though since you effectively get rid of the buffer. Really depends on your usecase what you prefer. Personally I love having ANC headphones that support bluetooth but also got a headphone jack in cases where I sit in trains, buses or planes for hours and want to play some games or listen to music with a DAC.
Unless you’re using them for gaming or some other interactive medium, latency doesn’t really matter though. For music, latency is irrelevant and for video, your device will take care of syncing the audio and video playback so it’s a non issue. Audio quality is an entirely different matter of course.
Your video player “can” account for latency if you configure it correctly which I imagine the majority of people don’t do, and simply put up with it. Ditto with your music playback always lagging 1-2 seconds behind your control inputs. I have never used a media player on any platform that automatically figured out audio latency. Maybe the iDevices do if you pair them with Airpods, I don’t know; I don’t own anything Apple and I never will.
It also matters for music production, and makes life a lot more pleasant for audio/video editing. Plus, latency is just annoying in any setting.
Windows and Android do this automatically out of the box, don’t know about other platforms.
Since music isn’t an interactive medium, this doesn’t really matter much (also the latency is more like 100 to 500 ms depending on a variety of factors)
Well of course, if you’re doing that A) this is not an application for wireless audio solutions so…uh…duh and B) you’re probably not on a phone if you take video or music production seriously 😅
If you have 1-2 seconds of audio delay with bluetooth, something is wrong. SBC bluetooth audio has like 200ms max.
Which is noticable if you make an effort, but for non-interactive media, it’s negligible imo.
There’s nothing to configure with modern android and Windows devices, it just works from my experience. Watching a video on YouTube or on the native media players at least you get a fraction of a second where it’s out of sync and then it pauses the video for whatever time necessary to get back in sync, and no issues from there on out.
The only instances where I notice it doesn’t work are games and video editing software, but yeah, those are just not use cases where wireless audio is appropriate
If you’re listening to podcasts or music, latency doesn’t really matter.
No, what did it was removing headphone jacks and selling only crappy non-repairable headphones.
Horrid quality and batteries are rarely replaceable. Pointless.
The reason wireless earbuds took off is that phones with headphone jacks stopped getting made.
Consumers didn’t prefer wireless earbuds. They preferred thinner and more water-resistant phones.
other way round, manufacturers realized people don’t particularly care about aux jacks and so they went ahead and got rid of them so they could get said benefits.
I personally switched to wireless back when my phone still had a headphone jack. It’s just the better overall experience for me, and I suspect that I’m not alone in that. I’m going to continue arguing for manufacturers to keep including a headphone jack, but it’s not because I prefer wired headphones personally.
Lol, people downvoting you like they weren’t manipulated into spending 10x as much for a product that can’t be repaired, all in the name of profit.
you do realize cheap phones exist, right? and second hand ones, and phone repair shops exist.
Apple has gone out of their way to make it near impossible or impractical to repair their phones. I’m not spending my time making a list you’re not going to read. If you’re actually interested in learning, seek out Louis Rossmann on YouTube. Here’s just videos JUST Apple https://www.youtube.com/@rossmanngroup/search?query=Apple
You know how many people I know that have a cheap phone. One. Do you think my nieces and nephew would “settle” for cheap phones in grade school… LOL no. And if you’re like “Well it’s the parents…blah blah blah” then you’ve completely clocked out on the 8 hour bully sessions kids can receive, so don’t start.
You vastly underestimate Apples marketing and influence. I’ve argued with so many people that “well I like my AirPods” despite the fact phones UNTIL Apple killed the 3.5mm jack, had Bluetooth audio. The entire reason to remove the jack was to push sales of over priced e-waste.
Don’t @ me with this “you do realize” BS.
I guess if I listened to crappy music I wouldn’t care about the sound quality.
Ooh, BUUURN! BUUUUUUUUUURN!!!
You know what’s easier than no cable? Not losing your ear buds
Haven’t been able to use ear buds outside of the house ever since they got rid of the jack
I’ve never lost one in at least a decade of using them. But, I don’t use the kind that just balance on the edge of your ear.
LPT: pull up on your ear while inserting earbuds, this will let them squeeze further into the ear canal which has been the difference between them refusing to stay in the ear, and being rock solid in there. Better seal against outside noises as well.
You really think that’s a dunk? “Wireless” just means you plug it in when not in use. There’s nothing hard about plugging in a 3.5mm audio jack. I’ve never been sufficiently convinced to actually use wireless headphones. They seem like more of a hassle for a worse listing experience.
what universe do you live in? wireless is obviously more convenient since you just put the buds in your ears and click play, with wires you have to also put in the wire and you have a physical cable that can get caught on things or get in the way.
just get a pair of cheapo wireless earbuds and genuinely try using them, you’ll most likely realize that it is actually way more convenient and that actually you just wanted to be a reverse hipster.
My experience comes from previous attempts at using wireless headphones. It’s just easier for me to plug in and not have to do literally anything else for a premium listing experience.
I really dont get cable simping here on Lemmy. It’s awful UX and yall can’t hear the sound difference anyway lmao
Depends on the earphone. But majority wouldn’t care.
TWS is hands down more intuitive.