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Wired headphone sales are exploding

bbc.com

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Re: Wired headphone sales are exploding

#461

Post by chrismorgan »

raffraffraff wrote: post #432
LinXitoW wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bought a tiny lapel clip Bluetooth receiver that has buttons and a headphone socket. Charge over USB, pair with phone, turn any headphones into Bluetooth. If the battery runs out, plug the headphones straight into the phone. However, the noise cancelling gap is real. I'd kill for wired IEMs with an inline battery + buttons, and noise cancelling mic & circuit in the earpieces. Closest is the Sony cans, which have wi…

I have some Sony headphones from a decade ago with a detachable cable. Noise cancellation works just fine when wired, and you get better battery life since the Bluetooth part isn’t active. The only time you can’t use noise cancellation is when it’s charging (Micro-USB, doesn’t do audio over USB in case you were wondering).

Re: Wired headphone sales are exploding

#463

Post by parpfish »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #335
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…

- 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…

> they last forever

Until my cat finds them.

Any serious set of wired headphones better have replaceable wires because apparently they are delicious

Re: Wired headphone sales are exploding

#464

Post by TeMPOraL »

shalmanese wrote: post #315
Gigachad wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the MacBook isn’t particularly short on space. The MacBook neo appears to have massive blank space blocks where the speakers are. The 3.5mm jack is fine, there isn’t any need to replace it on the MacBook where you can afford to have both. On the iPhone it makes more sense to use the usb c for audio.

That hasn't stopped them from periodic stalinist redesigns in an attempt to purge other ports from their machines. But the audio jack always survives.

I'm guessing there are some key "user journeys" for scientific / industrial customer base, that involve using 3.5mm jack for something other than audio signal, and said customers would probably sooner change hardware suppliers than deal with dongles and all the problems of introducing USB into the signal path.

Re: Wired headphone sales are exploding

#465

Post by dddgghhbbfblk »

LinXitoW wrote: post #412
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…

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.

The touch functionality is useful until it isn't. My Pixel Buds will activate touch controls randomly and unnecessarily all the time when I'm trying to use them in bed, from the contact with the pillow or sheets. Drives me nuts.

But also, I don't think it's either/or for most people. I use both wired and wireless headphones all the time depending on the use case. Wired sounds far better and is more reliable, wireless is more mobile. Different use cases.

Re: Wired headphone sales are exploding

#466

Post by pavlus »

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…

* They don't need charging, but you will hear static regularly when attaching/detaching/touching things. Also, they pick up RF interference (TBF, BT ones also drop packets in RF-noisy environments, but they seem to be more resistant to it)

* They are harder to lose, but the ones with non-detachable cords need repairing the cord if it rips, which happens frequently. Never happened with BT headsets I own.

* For BT headphones with detachable cord I agree, that BT channel reduces quality slightly, compared to cord on the same device. It's not as bad as vinyl/tape, though. You have a chance to notice it on lossless. but not regular MP3s.

* Wired don't need to pair, but need your awareness of the current relation between the cord and your body and surroundings, otherwise you will be constantly re-attaching them, or ripping cords. They don't glitch or lag, but pick static and RF.

Wireless is really convenient, if you can afford headphones that last a full day, or a pair of them to switch between and don't have many sources of sound to play to the same headset, even at different times. There are own standards that skip BT and use analog RF to skip the lag and drops (with a dongle), but they too have the issue with RF interference. You either can have digital with lag and rare drops, or instantaneous analog with frequent noise without drops.

Re: Wired headphone sales are exploding

#467

Post by hamdingers »

doubled112 wrote: post #357
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 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.

Going cheap is the problem here, good earbuds and headphones have replaceable cables.

I'm the same way as your oldest, if I'm up and moving around while wearing earbuds/IEMs I run the cable through my shirt.

Re: Wired headphone sales are exploding

#468

Post by moregrist »

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.

Cord failure is definitely a problem, but if you’re moderately capable with a soldering iron, it’s easy to repair the cord if the failure is away from the headphone side. It’s even fairly easy to replace an 8mm or 0.25” jack.

Your soldering skill (and sense of adventure) would have to be far better than mine to even consider doing that for wireless earbuds.

Re: Wired headphone sales are exploding

#469

Post by pxoe »

dehrmann wrote: post #460
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…

I compared the mic quality of Airpods Pro 2, Airpods 4 ANC (similar), and freebie Apple 3.5mm wired earbuds. The earbuds won. My limited research suggested either 1) compression and transmission take a lot of power, so the Airpods don't do as good of a job as something with a bigger battery can afford to, 2) the mic position is worse, or 3) Bluetooth doesn't have enough bi-directional bandwidth for two good signals.

4) The Bluetooth standard is just kinda bad. Technically there should be enough bandwidth for better quality audio, but the existing profiles like headset mode drop audio quality down to 8-16 kHz sampling rate in mono, not just for mic but for audio you're listening to as well. It's a huge flaw and it's been bad for decades with seemingly no improvement at all (at least certainly not in a way that could be widespread and commonly used).

It's so bad you'd almost wish for a brand new wireless connectivity or wireless audio standard, or even resort to some proprietary 2.4 GHz nonsense, because it's genuinely so horrid. You could have the best most expensive headphones in the world, but because of Bluetooth and its ancient profiles and mic support it's gonna have baseline absolute garbage mic quality no matter what.

Re: Wired headphone sales are exploding

#470

Post by zadikian »

happyopossum wrote: post #383

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…

And a 30% increase in sales across a cherrypicked 6wk time window. This is one of those articles that's more wishful thinking than real news, even though I have the same wish.
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