They also lack any and all useful features. Even just the ability to tap for pause is critical to my daily life.

I just wonder if wired fans just never skip forward a song, or adjust the volume. Or even use active noise canceling.

I’ve used many pairs of wired headphones over the years, cheap and expensive, and never had ones with a cable that didn’t eventually fail, unless they mostly stay plugged into a single device.

The article prominently highlights mobile usage, in which case wireless headphones easily win on longevity.

Those hd380’s will last your lifetime. Almost like Sony’s MDR-7506 if you can keep it from getting sat on.

I prefer wired ones, mostly playing devil’s advocate here.

Every pair of cheaper earphones or earbuds I’ve had fail have failed due to the cable.

We switched my oldest to a pair of BT headphones because he seems incapable of keeping track of the cord. It gets caught, he pulls, and something has to give. Longest lasting set he had in 2025 was BT.

> they last forever

Sadly have to disagree. I use Beyerdynamic though where you can order parts to repair em yourself, which i already did.

[edit] cannot recommend their wireless stuff produced in China, the worst i ever had. The big corded cans are still manufactured in Germany.

> Tack on that they don't have latency, though I've never really tried to track vocals on wireless cans

The truth is that the OS usually hides the latency of wireless heapdhones, e.g. airpods, by delaying video to keep it in sync. The real latency is somewhere around 100-400ms if the RF environment is crowded. Even worse is that the latency isn't actually constant, but drifts all the time.

At many IT conferences organized by hackspaces, everything is done by volunteers, including broadcast and video/audio postproduction. And that is actually one of the most common issues: our volunteers use wireless headphones even if we ask them repeatedly not to.

We cut talks in postproduction primarily based on audio, e.g., when does the applause start/end, when does the speaker's introduction start/end, etc. Obviously, that doesn't work reliably if the audio latency is nondeterministic.

Even worse, as different venues have different audio setups, there are sometimes real audio/video sync issues that need to be fixed. But if our volunteers are using wireless headphones, they won't just set the wrong offset, but they end up trying to fix issues that don't even exist.

And then you get complaints from viewers that e.g. the livestream audio/video is out of sync, even though it's not. The issue turns out to be caused by the viewer's laptop and wireless headphones not supporting the latency compensation technique I explained earlier. And there's nothing we can do about that.

Wireless headphones tried to fix something that wasn't broken, and made it worse. In German, we'd call that "verschlimmbessern".

> bluetooth'd 3M ear muffs.

How do you rate those?

I made my own, but they sucked balls. I have some Plantronic cans which have ~10db nrr, but they are falling apart now, and I'm looking for alternatives with decent NRR

> only one wireless option -Bluetooth- and it is a terrible product from a user experience perspective

That’s an implementation problem, not a technology problem. iPhone with AirPods here - your scenario just does not happen. There’s even an option for “yes be stupid and connect to my car even when I’m in the middle of a phone call” if you really want to use it…

A lot of people buy vinyls for the albums art.

Not trying to argue against your point, but most of the Bluetooth latency comes from the codec, not from it being wireless. Bluetooth LE Audio comes with LC3 which supports a codec latency of as little as 2.5 ms.

This is the big one for me, I hate all that lag with bluetooth, signal interference, and constantly wondering which device my headphones have connected to. So much easier for so many reasons, with a wire!

I’ve been using AirPods on audio and video calls for many years now, and I notice no latency. Same with my bluetooth mouse.

Real time covers a lot of different things, and have a lot of different solutions.

Do you mean real time like games? “Wireless” headsets are perfectly fine and usable. Real time audio? Wireless transmitters and receivers exist and are used (granted with wireless in-ears but IMO that’s mostly so the don’t fall out) at the absolute highest level of audio production and live events.

You definitely can’t just say wireless isn’t used for real time.

This is like saying “Candles are superior to lightbulbs because they burn out quicker and thats an advantage in some situations”.

I’m not sure how, its an aesthetic choice but an inferior technology by every metric that counts.

Candles still have a place, we still buy them, but we can’t reasonably call them superior either- even if, candles actually would have a real advantage of not requiring power. Vinyl doesn’t even have that.

I would argue that vinyl sounds better thanks to the Loudness War[0]. CD is technically superior and should sound better but it's been compressed to hell and back during mastering in ways that vinyl simply can't be due to physical limitations. All that wonderful technology and they can't simply let it be so we get good sound quality.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

For me the fact that vinyl discs wear out is their decisive disadvantage.

Many decades ago, those who bought vinyl and desired adequate audio quality never listened to vinyl discs, but they copied them immediately to magnetic tapes and always listened only to the tapes, keeping the vinyl discs only as a master source, to avoid wearing them out.

Vinyl is for plebs, hiring troubadours for your party is the way.

Any media that is actively damaged during every use is inferior.

There’s always one.

Why do you have a lot? I have one pair of AirPods and I don’t think it’s ever gone flat on me. I have to charge it less than once a week and it gives me a long notice period before.

I just hate the move to wireless for things that don't need to be wireless and having to constantly keep things charged. I got so frustrated with my $100 magic mouse at work a few weeks ago that its now in a drawer and I'm using a $10 POS Dell mouse. My wireless mac keyboard just has the wire permanantly plugged in. And wireless headphones? I've never gone down that road, and never will. I bought a handfull of the $10 Apple 3.5mm to lightning adapter because I lose them frequently, and when I'm eventually forced to upgrade to a phone with USB-C, I'll buy a handfull of the 3.5mm to USB-C adapters.

But you have wired earpods, both lightning and usb-3. I cannot be happier with those for my iphone and ipad, resp.

> removing the option of using wired headphones

I am personally a fan of wired headphones with USB-C connectors. I am only ever going to use it with my phone, laptop, or desktop anyways - and all of they have at least one USB-C port.

In theory it could also be the best option for audio quality: if you move the DAC all the way to the headphone itself you minimize the length of the analog chain, which should also reduce the possibility for it to pick up any kind of noise or interference. Additionally, the DAC can be perfectly tuned to compensate for any imperfections in the headset itself, which should result in a better audio output than a random 3.5mm headphone paired with a random external DAC.

The obvious downsides are that you lose any kind of influence on the audio signal itself by forcing you to use a specific DAC, that the integrated DAC is yet another component which can break and be basically impossible to replace, and that a 3.5mm plug is far less likely to break than a USB-C one.

On the absolutely high end you probably want headphone and DAC separate, but for a Teams call or some casual on-the-go Spotify a fully integrated mid-tier headset / headphone seems to be the better option to me.

> Here, you must use <NEW TECH> simply because we said so!

Because the integrated battery adds an expiration date to a device that could otherwise last decades if maintained properly.

Same as Apple tightly coupling the iMac screen with the Mac's software support cycle even though nothing would stop them from just adding, say, a USB-C port that can act as video input.

> we're shoehorned into wireless because corporate decided it.

You can still buy such phones. You need to take the brand loyalty blinders off first.

What's interesting is that Apple was the one responsible for removing the jack from their phones but they've stubbornly kept them on all their computers.

The only port in common between a 2015 Intel Macbook Pro and a 2026 Macbook Neo is the 3.5mm headphone jack. But also, the only port in common between a 2015 Intel Macbook Pro and a 1991 Powerbook 100 is the 3.5mm headphone jack.

There is an adapter 3.5mm jack to USB-C which works great, so from my perspective there is no option removed.

I keep the adapter with my wired headphones (which I bought many years ago), and I did not encounter any issue (falling, heavy, etc.), it's just a slightly longer wire and a couple of euros spent to buy it.

It was the solution to the "analog loophole" "problem". The idea of the "loophole" is that the hole must be plugged shut to eliminate piracy.

I have a set of IEMs that I bought at least 8 years ago, and they still work fine. And the wire is even replaceable, though I haven't needed to do so.

If your wired headphones are only lasting a couple months, then likely you're buying at a price point where quality suffers.

Agree with the tangle of wire, though.

I've replaced wires of my main headphone 2 times over 10+ years. 40 dollars for something I use 8 hours a day, not too bad.

Just to be clear the parent is still 100% correct that wired headphones: * Do not need charging * Are hard to lose. * Offer better audio * Never glitch out with pairing.

BLE Audio offers lower need for charging and better (but not equivalent) audio. So 2/4 are not as bad with BLE Audio (and arguably only 1 since you still need to charge). The other two 2/4 are related to the form factor. Wireless headphones have advantages but they are not the decisive winner.

> you can connect to multiple devices simultaneously

I don't want to connect to multiple devices. I want to select one device and be 100% certain that it's switched to that device as a source. Even with 100% Apple devices this is not perfectly reliable with bluetooth.

Putting the cable in another audio jack makes it physically impossible that the audio comes from the wrong source or to the wrong output device. And it is a lot more convenient than untangling the mess once the bluetooth devices get confused about what to do and requiring you to manually disable bluetooth at some devices just so it gets the message.

I wasn't able to find the answer on that page or with google, does bluetooth LE solve the dogshit quality when using the microphone?

>when it's as easy as just using a small USB-C to 3.5mm audio jack converter to use wired headphones.

As someone who uses wired earphones exclusively and must use those USB-C adapters you suggest, it's not quite "just as easy" because there are several problems:

- it's an extra $10 dongle to buy and potentially lose. I've lost several of them over the years

- adds more mechanical stress to the USB-C jack. The office Apple USB-C 3.5mm adapter protrudes out from the phone and I've had several close calls with the wire getting snagged on a door knob which can damage the USB-C port. I've never been comfortable with this Rube-Goldberg dongle contraption that adds more risk to damaging a $1000 phone. It's a fear I never had with the built-in 3.5mm jack on my old iPhone 5. There are 3rd-party right-angle USB-C to 3.5mm on Amazon (including magnetic ones) but the ones I tried interfere with phone cases and they don't sound as good. (Apparently Apple uses a more premium DAC chip in their USB-C adapter.)

- can't simultaneously charge the phone while listening unless you buy a different USB-C adapter that has both 3.5mm input and a USB-C passthrough charging port. These are bulkier.

- it's an extra dongle that's easy to forget. I once got on a transatlantic flight and realized that I forgot my USB-C earphone adapter at home. I panicked and dreaded the idea of nothing to listen to for 8 hours but I was luckily saved by a friend that didn't need to use hers and let me borrow it. Why can't I just leave the USB-C dongle connected to the 3.5mm 100% of the time so there's nothing to forget?!? Because I often need to connect the earphones to things that don't need the adapter.

With all those drawbacks, I still use the USB-C adapters because I have to. But it has definitely made life more complicated.

Because that small audio jack converter cannot drive my wired headphones, so now it's not a small dongle but another smartphone-sized gadget with usually another rechargeable battery, and at that point I might as well use my laptop as portable music player.

And if you ever held e.g. Apple's adapter in your hand you'll know how incredibly flimsy its cable is, and how such adapters easily act as levers to mechanically strain the USB-C port. There's a reason headphone jacks are robust - they were actually designed for use with audio devices in mind.

Actually, no.

We know as a matter of fact that Android does NOT handle your audio properly when you transmit audio over USB-C then converter. It used to work fine with 3.5mm.

https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/250602/how-to-di...

And you could run into weird issues like this

https://support.google.com/pixelphone/thread/238773737/assis...

Which nobody needed to worry about.

You really cannot see? The experience is vastly inferior: the required dongles have a huge list of annoyances, and you either cannot charge at the same time or have to use an ever more finicky splitting dongle.

I have bought probably two or three dozen different kinds of USB-C adaptors over the past few years, for old USB peripherals, for HDMI and display port, etc. They always last a few months then develop unreliable connectors and begin failing on any computer I try them with unless I baby the exact angle of the cable. There's something about USB-C that makes them particularly vulnerable to strain relief issues. Never had these kind of problems before with anything other than apple magsafe connectors. Certainly not from trusty old analogue jacks.

I tried the Apple one for a while but it’s badly shielded and picks up interference a lot. I mean really obvious buzzing sounds if near certain sources of RF. Switched to wired ear buds with a lightning connector and no interference issues. So I’m sad I can’t plug in my high quality headphones or hook up my phone to my mixer when I want without having noise.

Why would you want to carry around an additional dongle? It's just one more thing which you can forget and which can break.

If they replaced it with a second USB port, not simply removed the jack, there would be far fewer complaints.

Part of it is jack longevity. I've never had a headphone port die on me, but I have multiple old phones with dead lightning or USB-C ports...

It's just one more thing to buy and lose. I know I own both Apple's lightning-to-3.5mm adapter and the USB-C-to-3.5mm. Right now, I know where my nice big-cans headphones are, but it's not with either adapter. I'm pretty such I know where my cheap wireless buds are. The lightning adapter should live in the same travel pouch, but I'm not 100% sure if it's there because I frequently use those with devices that have a 3.5mm jack, so they might have been separated. I know for a fact my USB-C-to-3.5mm adapter has been separated, and I've not seen it for over a year. I know it's in the house somewhere, so I certainly wouldn't buy another one (especially considering how infrequently I used it before), but I have no idea where it is and so if I did want to use my iPad with my nice headphones, I can't.

Contrast that to the simplicity with devices that still have a 3.5mm phone - my daily Android phone, my Macbook Air - I can just plug any old headphones in and not have to go searching for the adapter.

And despite the fact that I also own two bluetooth headphones, my wired big-cans headphones have far superior sound quality to either of them. I know it's not a fair comparison because they were well over $100 compared to $10 for the others, but I'm still limited to what I can use them with - which in my case is absolutely everything except my Apple kit (laptop excepted).

I've done that for years and it's a 'tax' for being allowed to use my actual headphones. Every single converter I've used will shit the bed after 6-12 months thanks to shitty cabling, and I've used both the official converters as well as third party ones. Eventually it becomes a fucking pain in the ass when it dies at an inconvenient time.

In comparison the headphones I've been using have lasted me for over 10+ years with no issue, and any decent high quality set of cans makes the 3.5mm cable easily replaceable.

> Can you imagine Europe's reaction?

And they'd be right to do so. The correct approach to creating a new standard is plan interoperability from the start. If a vendor plans lock in by introducing a new standard, they should get shut down immediately and told to do better.

Oh yes, Europe bad, regulation bad. Maybe add some nuance to your thinking.

> no innovation allowed unless it interoperates with other products that don't exist yet

Products that don't exist yet... so, future innovation? No innovation allowed unless it incentivises and streamlines further innovation? Count me in!

> interoperates with other products that don't exist yet.

Are you claiming no other wireless earphones exist other than apples'??