31–40 of 496 posts
The 1/8th inch RCA stereo jack is the best interface ever created. The fact that it's essentially unchanged from when this 44 year old used it in middle school is pretty good proof.
The US power plug and socket is also unchanged, and yet it's a crap design.
Corded headphones at my desk use to make me so angry. Always tangling. And with earbuds, cord noise. I don't miss corded headphones.
I have never really gotten used to wireless buds, and still find myself reaching for wires half the time: - Wireless buds don’t connect 100% reliably; sometimes I get one and not the other, or neither. Sometimes they will randomly disconnect during use. - Sometimes the sound glitches out randomly, which is so irritating that I don’t care how good the sound supposedly is the rest of the time. - Gestures and voice are…
It would be nice if they all had Tile or similar tech, but if their batteries go dead just sitting there (super annoying thing about the bose) then it’s useless too.
(FWIW also tried the Sony wf1000-xm4s and hated them.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US power plug and socket is also unchanged, and yet it's a crap design.
What's so bad about them?
https://www.quora.com/Why-are-the-electrical-plugs-and-socke...
Photo of a type G plug (this is an adapter): https://www.rcjaz.ca/jazrider-type-british-3pin-electrical-a...
They suck otherwise. I have these wired earphones I bought 5 years ago for $99 that I use most of the rest of the time. They sound better, fit better, connect 100% reliably, and I don't have to worry about their batteries dying in the middle of something because they randomly decided not to charge last time I put them in the case.
I'd rather have no wires, but AirPods are a significant compromise to get rid of a wire...
I find it's rarely worth it. Only the one use case, actually. Same for the watch.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's so bad about them?
Easy to mispolarise, not earthed, not safe when partially inserted.
I've never given polarization any thought and never had any problems, so I don't buy this being an actually a problem in practice.
> not earthed
NEMA-1 aren't earthed, but NEMA-1 sockets have been forbidden since the 60s, so that fails the "unchanged" part of coldtea's assertion. NEMA-1 plugs may still be used on Class II double insulated appliances, which is fine. And NEMA-5 does have a ground.
> not safe when partially inserted.
I've never worried about it, never been hurt by it, and never heard of anybody being hurt by it. This is a "problem" that I often hear described by Europeans online but it's totally alien to me. Please remember that we only put 120V through these things, which is substantially less nippy than 240V.
The 1/8th inch RCA stereo jack is the best interface ever created. The fact that it's essentially unchanged from when this 44 year old used it in middle school is pretty good proof.
Pro audio equipment usually prefers connectors such as XLR [0] (or even heavier-duty cables like Speakon [1] if you need to carry large amounts of power). They're a lot bulkier but immune to all these problems: the ground pin connects first, the connector physically latches into place, and they're typically used to carry a balanced signal over a twisted pair so they're mostly immune to interference. The only place you'll find a TS/TRS connector on a stage is on a "patch cable" for making short-distance connections, like from a guitar to an amp -- and you have to be very careful not to touch them unless the sound guy tells you it's OK, because those pops will be loud over a PA.
Newer (and more expensive) equipment is moving in the direction of avoiding analog altogether and transmitting audio over Ethernet using protocols like Dante [2].
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XLR_connector