the whole bluetooth-only earbuds for phones thing really was a con...

I will never forgive the person who started taking away the 3.5mm jack from phones. What an absolute waste of oxygen.

i love wired earbuds!!
i love spending $5 for high quality audio!!!
i love not having to worry about losing them because they're attached to my phone/computer!!!!!!!!!!
- I feel like a disgusting old person, but I still do prefer actual wired earpieces. The sound is decent, the technology is solid, they last forever, and yes they never get lost. Maybe my ear is big, but earbuds have always fallen out of my ear, which really ruins the experience.
  The amount of times I've had to help a student find their tiny lost earbud
  
  I also highly prefer wired. If that's not an option, the best compromise I've found so far is a model where the two actual earbuds are wired together and they only connect to your device via bluetooth. It's a short cable, so you can very comfortably wear it behind your neck so you don't have worry about them falling out or losing them. Decent sound too and they've lasted more than a year so far despite being cheap compared to other bluetooth earbuds

I've hated this from the beginning and people act like I'm crazy for it. So happy to be among my people here

Many new phones don't even have a digital audio converter built in anymore, so the basic USB C to 3.5mm pass through dongles don't work. You have to get a dedicated DAC dongle and many can't even charge the phone while they are in use, it's insane.
- Oh now that's fuckin annoying. The dongle was always an acceptable compromise to me
- A forgone conclusion in retrospect. Particularly with a company like Apple who has a vested interested in no longer supporting 3.5mm alternatives to begin with. Companies want you in their ecosystem to keep selling you their products. Although simply not supporting it for cost related and technical reasons is also a factor i'm sure
  cursed prediction: proprietary headphones get sound quality privileges on their manufacturer's devices... users pay a subscription fee for "compatibility" with non-proprietary headphones
  
  cursed prediction: proprietary headphones get sound quality privileges on their manufacturer's devices... users pay a subscription fee for "compatibility" with non-proprietary headphones
  This is already partially true, Galaxy Buds and Pixel Buds have better support/features on their vertically integrated Android flavor compared to others.

And to think of all the fucking batteries going into e-waste because of them. They managed to cram 3 into TWS earbuds
- the cost of convenience

Good, cheap wireless noise-cancelling headphones are one of the few legitimately wonderful technological advancements of the last 10 years. Very few things help my with my ADHD as much as these fuckers.
Annoying coworker breathing like a 400 m runner? Headphones. Loud, stressful supermarket? Headphones. The little kid downstairs throws it's third tantrum of the day? You know it.
Cables can suck it. I will wrestle Bluetooth anyday before getting my head yanked back because I forgot my headset has a cable and i suddenly got up to get some water.
- (some) full size headphones get a pass IMO because they actually have enough space for an antenna that has a range greater than 6-12 inches, often have a backup wired input, and are generally held together with screws so you can actually replace the battery when it starts to go in like 2 years. individual wireless buds are the disposable vape of headphones. The sound quality is still likely to be worse, but I can at least understand the tradeoff, and the ANC requires it be stuffed with electronics anyhow so why not also make it wireless.

fuck touch controls btw

When they removed the headphone jack from almost all smartphones was genuinely when I stopped buying smartphones. fucking bastards lol
little individual buds with nothing to stop you from losing them down a storm drain or in the grass or whatever and no room for antennas or anything are just like, not that great of an idea to begin with, but fine, some people like them. Except bluetooth is such a dogshit protocol that designing a custom set of chips for both phone and earbuds that extend the protocol and are supposed to make everything run smoothly was the only way to get such a product off the ground and not be a flop. But it only takes one to be a trendsetter and then it kinda doesn't matter if the other copycat products are any good, everyone just wants the cool buds. If they don't work reliably you better just buy the latest flagship, your 2 year old flagship obviously is just dogshit and you can't expect phone manufacturers to actually test their products for compatibility. Oh and they might not work worth a shit with that flagship either, especially with the 2.4ghz band being so utterly destroyed by noise
And of course the batteries are typically completely unserviceable so the lifespan is like 2 years tops, maybe a bit more if you baby them and dont mind the degrading battery performance. All to "improve" away one of those technologies that basically worked great and didnt need it. I have headphones from 1975, another from the late 80s, another from the late soviet union/early independent ukraine, and some more modern examples, and they all work with any device with a headphone jack and reliably sound anywhere from fine to excellent. All but a few of the cheapest modern examples are basically infinitely repairable too, if the jack goes bad it takes 15 mins and little skill to resolder them. Occasionally the cord is annoying, but thats the price you pay for shit actually working reliably and not being a brief transition state of e-waste.
And don't get me started on Chi-Fi, the shit you can get for barely $20 now basically blows the pants off of any bluetooth ever made. And the mic quality of a wired mic that sits right next to your mouth is 5x better too
- Chi-Fi
  I really really like these cheap buds I got from Faaeal, they sit in your ear but not inserted in your ear canal, so you still have situational awareness and can hear what’s going on around you.
  Most of the chifi buds I’ve seen are like Moondrops where they go in your ear canal, do you know of any that are like my Faaeal Iris buds?
  
  Faaeal
  huh idk what I expected by that description but it was defs something more exotic than 2005-style big round buds
  I think Faaeal technically qualifies as chifi but BGVP also has a couple higher end options. I never liked that style though so I don't have personal experience with any of them https://bgvp.aliexpress.com/store/1101353038/pages/all-items.html?productGroupId=10000001069587
  https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256802602143691.html
  https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805418464331.html etc. these brands all have at least one or two flat options
  Seems like "flat" or "flat head" is the search term

you really would think bluetooth would be good by now and not routinely a pain in the ass but no
- I swear it actually gets worse over time as devices try to cram more complexity into the protocol it craps out for me constantly regardless of device. I could write a thesis on how much shit Bluetooth has caused me over the years and anyone who says to me "it just works" instantly becomes my sworn enemy
  
  My theory is that its at least partly the incredibly polluted nature of the 2.4Ghz band but bluetooth as a protocol has also always been fuckign atrocious
  
  yep i still find myself constantly having to forget and re-pair shit especially when multiple host devices are involved, really seems like that should be a solved problem.
  
  That’s unfortunate but I feel like it has gotten incrementally better especially with exercise centric earphones where before I had to have line of sight between the phone and the earphones otherwise the audio would cut out also the general improvements over time are volume used to be independent between sending and receiving devices, range was extremely limited, pairing was slow and unreliable, RF interference was a constant problem, much better battery life
  I’ve been using Bluetooth since 2010 when I got my first smartphone. I’ve had various iPhones and androids but iPhones have always been more reliable with their BT implementation not sure why. Some devices just suck though
- It is, you just can’t buy bottom of the barrel garbage.
  And don’t ignore your phone itself. I know Sony in particular has some of the worst Bluetooth connectivity. Which is very funny because they make a fuck ton of Bluetooth headphones.

I tried out wireless earbuds and they fucking suck. Shelled out for some decent sennheiser momentum 4 in ears thinking I'd get decent quality....
bulky little box that doesn't fit in my millenial skinny jeans pockets anywhere which was not a problem with wired cos i just thread through my fucking clothes duh
heavy ear pieces rly hurt my ears after an hour of use
the active noise cancelling amplified certain noises like talking to painfully loud levels. Transparency was turned off
apt-x with lossless still sounded worse than my shure in ears
the right earpiece came broken it always thinks its in my ear
shitty firmware that takes ages to update and cooks my phone doing it?????? Have to interface with a clunky app to change settings which require me to remove the headphones to change them
always felt like someone could yoink them out of my ears at any point
lossless codec breaks when i go outside for some reason and i have to drop it to high quality instead
multi device pairing is broken and when my laptop outputs a sound while I'm listening to music via my phone it deafens me with glitches audio
if its not deafening me with anc/glitchy audio the headphones are actually significantly quieter than my shure in ears
randomly the right earpiece will click which apparently is a common fault with the headphones
returned and refunded
Shure wired in ears with replaceable cables will always be the goat absolutely nothing beats them they last for years and never break and the audio quality is perfect along with foam eartips that actually isolate the noise (invaluable for my sensory problems). If thats too pricey lots of chinese earbuds now have replacable cables which wasn't the case when i got my first pair of shures over 10 years ago. Killed them by accidentally running them under a tap after a solid 6 years of daily use. I'm sorry i ever doubted them
- You can do a true wireless IEM with the Schure True Wireless Adapter. I'm running Linsoul 7Hz Timeless off of mine. Bigger box than fully integrated true wireless buds, but it does allow you to drive MMCX IEMs and it has a very good battery in comparison. The 2 pin options are worse than the MMCX options only FIIO and KZ makes them.
  The only good (tech wise) true wireless buds are typically the flag ships from tech brands (Sony/Apple/Beats/Samsung/Google) but the audio quality is typically average compared to wired IEMs or a Schure True Wireless setup, the Sony flagship WF-XM1004/5's are better, but the battery basically thins out too much over time.
  I've had Galaxy Buds / 2 Pro / WF-XM1004s/ Schure True Wireless, and the glitchiest ones have honestly been the Sonys. Maybe the momentum 4 TW are just a bit janky in terms of wireless hardware and sound hardware, because I have had a good time with the Schure True Wireless adapters.
  
  the Sony flagship WF-XM1004/5's are better,
  uh about that
  and the glitchiest ones have honestly been the Sonys.
  oh you got there lol
  Same those are the only individual buds I've ever owned/used for any length of time and I literally gave them away I disliked them so much. I got them for cheap thankfully. I'll keep my wired headphones and earbuds tyvm

I stole 20 dollar skullcandy airpods from Walmart and they still work 2 months later surprisingly. Sounds as decent as airpods too
- Skullcandy is the best cheap brand, I find
  
  its been that way for ages too lol, hardly gonna pass audiophile muster but if you don't mind bass out the wazoo they've been the standard decent in-store brand for >10 years now. I'd still go for the wired ones tho. or go online for moondrops, those things will blow anything in their price range out of the water. Harder to shoplift them from china tho

I like when I'm walking through home depot and the audio starts to break up. It's like, " hey dipshit, you left your phone on the bike."

Controversial opinion but I think if you can afford them wireless bone conduction headphones are neat. I wear them while walking or riding a bike and still have situational awareness. I can play computer game with them while my partner watches TV. I often forget I’m wear them because they not in my ears, just over them.
- Bought a pair for my mom because her exercise of choice is swimming and they work great underwater (the submergible ones). She's very happy with them
- After earbuds started offering transparency mode I don’t really see a use for bone conducting headphones.
  Possibly in scenarios like riding a bike where wind noise could be a problem. But audio pass through on ear buds will work for 99% of people.
- Doesn't it feel weird??
  
  Not really, less than ear buds

The removal of headphone jacks from phones was bad, and was definitely motivated by capitalist desire to sell wireless headphones.
But
One wireless earbud in is by far my favorite way to listen to things and even though I have an old phone that still has a headphone jack I haven't used wired headphones in literal years.

When I was using my Sony Xperia, the headphone jack was pretty darn nice. I got some truthear hex IEMS and honestly the isolation was better than any NC headphones I've used, but I may just be lucky w the fit.
<be>
Bluetooth is cool, but so much e waste will become of true wireless, and even just most battery powered headphones because of the difficulty replacing battery. I know fairphone headphones have a replaceable battery which is neat.
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IEMs are pretty cool. You can get cable replacements, Bluetooth adapters, and straight to USB cables too. Can recommend

I have a pair where the battery is shot and can’t be replaced, not sure why I didn’t see that coming or why I maybe did and didn’t care at the time.
My next phone is going to have a headphone jack again for podcast listening, I do most music listening on an old ipod anyways.

I can still find headphone jacks, tho you have to look. I finally had to give up on getting one with a removable battery a few years back and that really pissed me off
- that's the bigger scam tbh. But both are so fucking bad.

i used bluetooth for my car once and it totally fucked everything up. now when i use an aux cord it tries using both (even though i turn off the bluetooth) and produces crackling. fuck bluetooth
- Doing a factory reset shouldn't be too hard, what's the car?
  
  in my rage i forgot to mention it was beforr my current car and i havent touched bluetooth in my current one lol

Well i guess it has pros and cons. A pro would be for example that you can connect it to the bluetooth speakers in your car, or any other device where cable wouldn't do. A con is that cable is simply more sturdy and less fickle.
The same goes for internet connectivity. All bigger servers are connected over cable, because it simply is more reliable and has higher throughput than wireless. But also, with wireless, you can move around the house without worrying about stumbling on cables and accidentally plugging them out.
- "bluetooth-only" not the mere concept of bluetooth. phones before 2016 could still do all the things you mention.
  also wifi is a pretty bad analogy tbh. not only is it not nearly as shitty and unreliable as bluetooth, but the typical use case is way different. listening to music from a device in your pocket or hand to speakers in your ears is pretty different from running ethernet around your house (and if even a small amount of effort is put in you could run ethernet around your house in such a way that it isn't in the way, even if ugly. if anything the cost is more prohibitive than dealing with a bunch of cables)
- A con is that cable is simply more sturdy and less fickle.
  Maybe versus bad Bluetooth devices. But when you have two devices that are actually good I’ve had very little issues with Bluetooth. With my iPhone and AirPods I’ve had a single digit number of issues with it connecting.
  Meanwhile I’ve gone through an ungodly number of earbuds and audio cables in my life. Never again having to resolder the headphone jack on my phone is well worth it.

I've found this is one of the areas in the market where brands actually make a big difference, and some quality legacy brands clearly don't give a shit. Active noise cancelling is a godsend for someone like myself with ADHD or autism in loud spaces. Then there's some brands that have LDAC high quality audio over Bluetooth. I found that Anker Soundcore is pretty great in these respects, and they have some pretty inexpensive models. However, the controls on my now two year old models are hit and miss. I disabled the wear detection on the headphones, and the touch controls on the earbuds. The headphones don't respond to volume controls on the phone, and they don't work when connected to my computer so only the computer controls the volume 🤷‍♀️.
The earbuds were a design that is shit for staying in your ears while active, so I'd recommend carefully reading reviews and get a set that have the little stem that hangs down from your ear maybe?
Other than that, they sound really good, have tuneable eq, strong noise cancelling, and a lot of models of their headphones allow you to use an aux cord.

True fact I have a pair of MDR-7506s that I use for all headphone-related purposes. No bluetooth ear bud can hope to compete.
- REAL
  and that's 1980s technology, the essentially identical MDR-v6 has been around since at least 85, good sounding headphones were a solved problem lol
- The ear pads disintegrate so quickly on those. I modified mine to have a detachable cable since the coiled one was so long
  
  Agreed, I replaced the pads on mine with higher quality ones almost immediately.
  
  yeah the stock ones are pretty rough

Bluetooth is shit for music and should be replaced with something that can do lossless audio
- If you’re using earbuds you probably wouldn’t be able to notice the difference. If I’m using earbuds it’s because I’m out and about, or somewhere other than home with background noise.
  Nicer wireless earbuds will have ANC so you can actually hear what’s playing, and not everything else around you.

I've always used the $20 ones and they work great, have a 50 ft range and last for a few days before I have to charge them.
- Which brand? I tried a few cheaper BT headphones and they were terrible. Anker is the cheapest I have tried that has good quality

I found ear buds just do not like the distance from my ears to the pocket my phone lives in (upper thigh, front pocket).
Headphones were a lot better, but broke in that one spot they always do (earpiece swivel bracket). >.>
- idk a wireless pair offhand but my sony wired headphones (mdr-v6/mdr-7506) have a metal bracket at that exact spot, and are such common, long-running products that you can actually buy spare parts when they break. Something to think about! I've had the same problem with earbuds, the 3 ft from pocket to ear is too much somehow
  
  I went out of my way to choose durable headphones for my current pair, but they only came in wired.
  I wonder if earbuds are just designed for very short people or something

If my next phone doesn't have an audio jack for ear/headphones I'm just not gunna listen to stuff
- Fortunately there are still brands that keep making models with aux cords, I always found a good number of options with Xiaomi

Can't relate. I use my Samsung buds everyday for years now. Audio is great, touch controls are incredibly useful, calls are effortless. For use during work, particularly physical work, wireless ear buds are UNBEATABLE.
- lol i was talking about samsung buds

I bought a pair of shitty cheap ones many years ago and they were one of the best purchases. The sound quality was shitty, and they fell out sometimes but they broke within two years so I could take them back and replace them. Of course the shop didn't have the same ones anymore so I got a refund and bought slightly more expensive ones.
They were still shitty and broke within two years. Rinse and repeat for the last ten years. I'm not getting better quality, but at least I get new ones every year or two.

I still use wired headphones, just now I have to choose between charging my phone or using my headphones because they use the same port now. (I bought one of those splitter things once but it didn't work for me, idk why. Maybe I just got a faulty one)

I purchased anker ear buds for everyone in my family after my apple airpods failed after 18 mos and they have been running strong ever since! Still 80% charged after a 2 hr half marathon. A week or two between case charges. Zero complaints on audio quality. Would never ask for the wire back or try to convince myself that audiophiles listen to music on their phones if they care about quality.

I got a really nice pair when I got a motorcycle because I didn't want to deal with the wires. It's the best pair of earphones I've ever used. They cancel out all the loud wind and engine noise of the bike, have incredible sound quality, and surprisingly the Bluetooth maintains a steady connection.
These things have me in the top 1% of Spotify listeners worldwide for the past 3 years lol
- What model do you have?
  
  I am not the motorcycle (they?). But I really love my Sennheiser momentum 4 over ears. They have fantastic sound quality and solid noise cancelling. I think the Sony wh-1000mxs still win the noise cancelling battle though.
  Also to the mod who deleted my comment. I am not the motorcycle man was me gendering. MYSELF.
- I'm sure you've thought about this more than I have but are you sure those ANC earbuds are providing good hearing protection? they may not be rated for that, tho certainly better than nothing

I like my JlabGo’s if you need a recommendation. Got em for 40 bucks (at an airport) almost three years ago and haven’t had any issues w em.
- people in this thread lol
  "wow it really was a scam that manufacturers removed the headphone jack from phones and essentially forced ppl to buy short-lived, inferior bluetooth models if they wanted headphones. That really sucks"
  "hey you must want a recommendation for yet another random pair of bluetooth headphones"
  The problem isnt the individual model of headphones, though some are certainly better than others, it's the whole enchilada, manufacturers deciding en masse that wires are no more.

So got a momax wireless but never figured it out. Charged fully and doesn't seem to even turn on. Only flashes light occassionally. Its a touch control which means no buttons that makes it even more confusing. I can't find instructions legit anywhere. Anyone have ones like this