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Wired headphone sales are exploding

bbc.com

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Re: Wired headphone sales are exploding

#381

Post by ahhhhnoooo »

lb1lf wrote: post #360
throw0101c wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In a similar vein, vinyl records make the unit of music an album, and I like it in situations where the artist has created "an album" rather than "a collection of ten-ish tracks". I don't see how this is different between a record and a CD.

There's one (related) difference - an LP can hold approx. 45 minutes of music, a CD can hold 80-ish (The original spec called for 74, but I think the most I've seen on a single disc is 82-ish minutes). Unless an artist is very disciplined, that means what would be a decent album at 40 minutes worth of music in LP days would be half an album today. Again, this is a shortcoming in people, not in the medium itself - aft…

Additionally, vinyl has two sides. So you get this lead in and end track on both sides. The flow is different.

Re: Wired headphone sales are exploding

#382

Post by evrenesat »

It's funny how this coincides with a time when BT headphones have finally become cheap, reliable and capable enough. I recently bought two different sets from Lidl: one for €8 and the other for around €12. Both have ANC and a battery life of around 5 hours, and the sound quality is quite respectable. I've been using headphones all the time since I was 11, so that's 37 years with many different kinds of headphones. Even now, I have more than ten headphones that work. IMHO, Bluetooth headphones have never been closer to becoming a natural counterpart to mobile phones for everyone.

Re: Wired headphone sales are exploding

#383

Post by happyopossum »

Setting aside debates about which is “better”, this article appears to be based on crap. The link to the supporting analysis uses the words “through the roof”, but here’s what it says:

“ wired headphones rebounded in 2025, growing 3% (about $15M).”

So now a 3% growth in sales is “exploding” and “through the roof”? No, I don’t think so…

Re: Wired headphone sales are exploding

#384

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

mcdeltat wrote: post #149
beloch wrote: post #83

This 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 a…

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 simply because we said so! It's just the peak of trend following bullshittery and…

> 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.

Re: Wired headphone sales are exploding

#385

Post by ahhhhnoooo »

UltraSane wrote: post #281
ahhhhnoooo wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

The best meals I've ever had were damaged by their use, and many were quite artistic.

Re: Wired headphone sales are exploding

#387

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

gzread wrote: post #346
vladms wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can't use a power bank at the same time.

You can with a data splitter. I haven't seen any power banks with that integrated which is a weird miss for an obvious product feature.

Re: Wired headphone sales are exploding

#388

Post by genthree »

kelnos wrote: post #142
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All that and they cost a fraction of the price! Wireless headphones are a strictly inferior product to wired, and it astonishes me that Apple convinced anyone to buy them. They're a total rip off.

It's weird, because I absolutely agree in principle, but 90% of my headphone use is wireless now. And I hate it: latency, glitches, randomly just deciding not to connect anymore, deciding to connect in the lower-quality headset mode when I want to listen to music, and refusing to switch to the high-quality mode, battery running out at inconvenient times, the cat knocking them off my nightstand and under the bed where…

Similar story here, I love wired headphones but have to admit that, after being gifted my first set of AirPods, my actual use of any sort of personal speaker device went up like 20x or more. It’s exactly that factor of being able to get up and walk around without a thought that does it. That’s the reason I’ll often not put wired headphones on in the first place, but no such concern with wireless.

(I actually don’t like 3.5mm jacks as much as some people do, though, as my experience has been the ports get janky over time if they’re under any strain at all, which they will be on a mobile device and which is always a back-of-my-mind source of stress when using them, but quarter-inch jacks are awesome)

Re: Wired headphone sales are exploding

#390

Post by NBJack »

exitb wrote: post #368
NikolaNovak wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- they last forever . I still have sennheiser hd380 pro cans from 25 years ago that sound great. - cannot overstate lack of lag and simplicity. You plug in and it works, perfectly, every time, forever. - easily switch devices. I use my headphone on my phone, tablet, laptop, Synthesizer, Groovebox etc without a blink. And my phone never stops playing music and connects to our car my wife just started the way bluetooth…

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.

Most high end headphones have a replaceable cable. What have you tried on the expensive end of the spectrum?
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