Link: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260310-wired-headphones-are-better-than-bluetooth?position=3&category=fascinating_stories&scheduled_corpus_item_id=d43f5330-cfad-49d1-95fc-a0f3b4bb0162&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Ffuture%2Farticle%2F20260310-wired-headphones-are-better-than-bluetooth&ICID=ref_fark

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Any advice on what's good?

It turns out that my old iPod Nano still works perfectly.

I have the Innioasis Y1 which is regarded as a starter DAP. The Fiio Snow Sky Echo Mini is the go to DAP for new people. The HiBy R1 is high rated as well.

A lot of people will tell you "just use an old Android phone", but am in the party that thinks having an app store takes away what a DAP delivers and that's freedom FROM connectivity. No ads. No algorithms.

Pros: The Skullcandy ones have built in Tile so even a ham-fisted gibbon like me can actually find them around the house/car.

Cons: Expensive. Battery doesn’t last all day. Mics are shit for calls. Constant re-pairing due to needing to switch between 5 devices. Random disconnecting.

I have to charge enough things in my life already.

I can attest to the Echo Mini. Most people will never need a better player in terms of sound quality.

Back in the day skullcandy was said to be overpriced and not very good (but good looking). Try Sennheiser if you want something sturdy and good sounding (but quite boring looking)

Best of both worlds, cheap $20 Bluetooth "necklace" with wired earbuds so I don't lose them!

So can they start putting headphone jacks on phones again? I miss it almost every day

Bought a second hand LG when Bluetooth was still in the earlier stages. The thing is still kicking today.

Thanks! Both Snowsky Echo/Echo Mini and Innioasis Y1 are on my list of potential buys. Do you find any minor annoyances with it?

Yeah I want something dedicated to music, without anything else.

How's the music management? I heard it got some updates making it better to scroll bigger libraries lately

Yeah, sometimes songs that I've labeled in MP3 tagger don't show up with an artist. It's just but that's only occasionally. I can fix it too. Turning it off can be a pain, you have to go through the menu to do it. Other than that it's pretty easy. I put a theme on it that makes it looks like the iPod OS.

Me too, but only because the fuckers stopped putting jacks on decent phones.

You don't need to even have an appstore installed to make an old phone be a decent DAP. The real issue IMO is that while some of the older Android phones had some decent DACs, but they couldn't power anything much more demanding than ear buds which any decent DAP can do just fine. Also a DAP battery will last many times longer.

I love wired headphones until the catch on a desk chair arm and rip off my head

Yeah, they’re acceptable.

I had plenty of Sennheisers back in the days of actually having a 3.5mm jack to plug into. Shouldn’t have tried other things really.

Weird how I never had issues with disconnecting, even though I'm using BT headphones since it was humanly possible, and I tried dozens different models and companies. I wonder what the difference is

They exist, but they suck (I've bought so, so many). Ironically, the best one to use for Android is made by Apple and it still kinda sucks. Not to mention you can't charge while using them.

With those USB-C to Headphone jack dongle adapters, where's the DAC? My (aging, days from replacement) S10e has a headphone jack, and thus a built-in DAC. Apple's 30-pin connector had pins for stereo analog audio, it's how speaker docks worked. Can't say about the Lightning connector, but I know USB-C doesn't have analog audio pins. Unless there's some standard I don't know about that repurposes some of them that all devices use. Or, is the dongle a USB sound card with a tiny little DAC and amp built in which is probably small, underpowered and very cheap?

man i don't know where these luddites are buying their headphones. you can get very reasonably priced buds and mobile phone and live in the future

i think this is more a fashion and audio "hifi" wankery

Acceptable only? Is it because of the looks?

Looks are fine, it’s just things that get annoying. One sometimes doesn’t charge. They have a touch panel on each one so you’re forever changing things. Sound quality is just ok - not a problem, just not a wow.

Unpopular opinion: I love wireless headphones and earbuds. I use them exclusively for many years now and I can't imagine going back to wires.

I'd agree with you if it wasn't for the lack of replaceable batteries. Waiting for my first type-c earphones with ANC (that will not be very good). Hopefully it will work as long as my 3.5 JBLs...

It can actually be both ways, most USB-C to headphone jack dongles have a tiny DAC/amp circuit built in (they are really tiny and cheap), but there is actually a method for sending audio over USB-C that some phones can use. The latter method is usually fairly device or product line specific, I'm not sure if it is an actual standard or not.

Can't argue with that. Batteries should be replaceable.

Only one of my headphones (I own a lot, it's an expensive rabbit hole) that isn't a pair of ear buds or IEMs can be powered by a phone or dongle, and I bought that pair specifically because the Nintendo Switch headphone output was super anemic. I have to use a stand alone DAP or stationary amp for everything else.

Ah ok, I have the wired ones so no buttons or such, and my closed HD ones was like you say, good but no wow, the open ones, like the 598 with a good DAC are very very good sounding IMO.

I’m using a Arctis Nova Pro Wireless set that has replaceable batteries.

I use wireless for sports, wired for gaming/audiobooks.

I bought Xiaomi phones for many years just because they had headphone jacks and IR blaster while other brands got rid of them.

I own quite a few of those! I leaned a bit heavier into the higher end of the Beyer and Hifiman lines as I prefer their house sound. Many of those you mentioned won't do well from any dongle I know of. They "work" technically, but they won't sound right or loud. The Sonys, Focal, AKG K550, and Phillips X1 are probably OK. It's odd just how well even the high end Focals do from low power output. The Q701, HD650, DT880-600 and HE-560 are all too demanding for any phone or dongle I have ever used, most DAPs too to be honest. Technically I have the AKG K712 not the Q701, but they are mostly just a tweaked later version of the Q701 with nicer pads.

The later he-560s were not necessarily lower end, they sound the same imo (I owned the v1 and the v3), but they had come cost saving things like ditching the wood grain because of returns and cost and more importantly they ditched the evil mini smc connectors for the cable. I actually prefer the headband of the v3 to the v1, but it is a preference thing and you can actually buy both from Hifiman directly and swap them out (I did this with my Hifiman HE-6). The HE-560 v4 sucks though, I really hate that style of headband.

I don't have pics handy, but I own the HE-400, HE-500, HE-560 v3 (v1 is long gone), Arya, and HE-6 (heavily modded now). The HE-6 is by far my favorite, but it is stupidly hard to power properly. They did a remake of the HE-6. but it has that stupid he-560 headband, so you'd have to mod it to make it decent. It also doesn't sound quite as nice as the OG, but it's pretty close.

Sorry for the rambling!