211–220 of 431 posts
> "Bose Connect app was found to be tracking what users were listening to and sending that data back to the company to be sold". I did not know that!
Utterly disgusting.
Apps are quickly becoming this weird add on that I really don't want.
Only a slightly related tangent, but most headphones and other loudspeakers can be very effective microphones when wired into the right circuit. While speakers are often wired directly to a one-way DAC, that's not always the case. Sometimes the analog lines are all fed into a multiplexer and it can be routed to a ADC. Sometimes it's wired to a general purpose IO pin. In such cases, reprogramming could turn that speak…
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> If I want to avoid this sort of thing, I'm thinking / hoping it's sufficient to simply avoid headphones that require an app. Or just get one with a good old 3.5mm jack. Beyer Dynamic, AKG and Shure have several options much cheaper than these Bose or Sony headsets which still give you at least 10x the audio-performance. For headsets, if you care about usability, portability, longevity and performance, wired is stil…
usability and portability are what makes BT headphones great. Which BD or Shure gives me 10x the audio-performance while still being able to be used without cables (optionally)?
There’s still lots of places you won’t find Bluetooth, but there’s very few places you won’t find a connector for a 3.5mm jack.
As someone with both Bose QC IIs and the Sony WH-1000MX, this is annoying but not much I can do about it - they're expensive and I doubt I could resell them for as much (would reselling even be ethical now?). I also really like noise cancelling, especially now I am working from home.
I mean you can just not use the apps, can’t you? The headphones don’t magically ship data home through the device. The app is what you agree to their privacy policy through and is what reads all the metadata through usage and then sends it home. I deleted all of my headphone apps the first time I saw the note about sending all audio titles to Bose in the privacy policies.
Glad I've been using analog earbuds under non-connected noise-cancelling 'over-earphones'.
With music playing the removal of external noise is enough for me. They do well enough blocking distracting noise used as simple ear plugs too. At least the ~£20 Sennheiser ones I use do.
I tend to use passive headphones with 3.5mm jack, they have no electronics in them except the small speakers. They do not collect data. They are also used by musicians when doing audio mixing so its should sounds neutral and good. That the headphones does not have electronics and batteries means they will last longer and thus be be better for the environment.
> they will last longer and thus be be better for the environment This isn’t necessarily true. My wireless headphones have been with me for years. My wired earbuds are cheap enough that I can lose or damage them without care. The former are far better for the environment.
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Geez, that's brutal. I'm glad I'm seeing this....it never crossed my mind that this sort of thing would be something that might get built into headphones. If I want to avoid this sort of thing, I'm thinking / hoping it's sufficient to simply avoid headphones that require an app. Does that seem right?
> If I want to avoid this sort of thing, I'm thinking / hoping it's sufficient to simply avoid headphones that require an app. Or just get one with a good old 3.5mm jack. Beyer Dynamic, AKG and Shure have several options much cheaper than these Bose or Sony headsets which still give you at least 10x the audio-performance. For headsets, if you care about usability, portability, longevity and performance, wired is stil…
It's complicated.
The lowest level opinion is "Bose and Beats are awesome, soooo much bass!!!" That's the typical consumer.
The level above that is what you said. That's sometimes called mid-fi. At least these things don't have major flaws anymore.
The next level is companies and products specifically focused on high performance - Stax, Audeze, Sennheiser, Etymotic, etc and their best models. That's the "audiophile" level (and here truth is mixed with a lot of bullshit also - stay away from head-fi.org, it's a cesspool of pseudoscience).
And the level above that is when you realize imperfections in headphones can be corrected via DSPs, for the most part.
I have the Sony noise cancelling flagship model. By default, it's deeply flawed. It's tuned to the taste of the average consumer at Walmart ("moar basssss!!!"). But apply the oratory1990 corrections (from Reddit) and they sound like some nearly-flawless high end devices. The corrections are based on precise lab measurements of the headphones, and basically revert some of their flaws via digital processing.
The future is DSP.
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usability and portability are what makes BT headphones great. Which BD or Shure gives me 10x the audio-performance while still being able to be used without cables (optionally)?
By portability I mean it can be used anywhere, with any equipment. There’s still lots of places you won’t find Bluetooth, but there’s very few places you won’t find a connector for a 3.5mm jack.
The article should have buried sony for how egregious they are. They require the app to collect location information, and ear. https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/articles/00233341 I'm not sure what else they collect.. but those are the 2 bad ones. They've got a few settings that are software controlled (one being the bluetooth's internal volume) What happens if you get a software update and you open the app on…
I am fervently glad that I'm happy with my WH-1000XM3 in its stock configuration. I took one look at what the permissions they wanted for the app, and said "No effing way." I shouldn't have been too surprised, though, given that it was Sony that brought us rootkits on music CDs.