But of course we all know that the big manufacturers don’t do this not because they can’t but because they don’t want to. Planned obsolescence is still very much the name of the game, despite all the bullshit they spout about sustainability.
But of course we all know that the big manufacturers don’t do this not because they can’t but because they don’t want to. Planned obsolescence is still very much the name of the game, despite all the bullshit they spout about sustainability.
This article seems to omit the most important fact about headphones - how do they sound?
I love repairability and all, but it hardly matters if I don’t want to use them in the first place because they traded off too much quality for repairability.
I don’t think the writer has them on hand - this is a news article not a review.
Codec support is a bit of a bummer. Otherwise I would have bought them.
Isn’t the codec for headphones just meant to handle the communication between the headphones and device while the device can handle transcoding from the input codec to the output codec?
Or do you mean the quality of the codecs supported puts an upper limit on sound quality?
Some more recent bluetooth codecs (such as LDAC or aptX) are better ahead in audio compression, which given bluetooth’s limited bandwidth (and given than higher bandwidth usage means also more battery consumption), is something to keep in mind at all stages. In general, bluetooth audio quality is quite a mess of codec negotiations that happen mostly transparently to the user when an earphone connects. When a call is placed and the headset needs to also send audio besides receiving it, further codec changes are negotiated on the spot, prioritizing latency vs quality. Here’s a quick (kinda) guide to the most common bluetooth codecs any given audio device might use: https://www.whathifi.com/advice/what-are-the-best-bluetooth-codecs-aptx-aac-ldac-and-more-explained
I’m also confused here. I’d have thought that any format decoding would happen on the phone.
Bluetooth does use compression to get higher quality sound out of the relatively low bandwidth (vs what a wire carrying an analog signal can handle, which is continuous in both time and amplitude domains, so effectively infinite sample rate and bit depth, though it’s limited by what the DAC can put out as well as what the recording ADC (and/or mixing software) picked up in the first place).
There’s a set of codecs in the Bluetooth standard and devices don’t have to support every codec in that list (iirc some are proprietary and need to be licensed, plus more support requires more circuitry or firmware if it’s decoded by a programmable decoder). I’m guessing that’s what they are talking about but asked in case they did mean they thought not seeing mp3 and flac on the list meant they can’t listen to songs encoded in those format.
Edit: closed a bracket
Nice lesson, thanks.
Yup, I fiddled with the Bluetooth codecs a bit when I had issues with my headphones, and I got them to sound way better even with other devices using Bluetooth and taking up bandwidth on the chip. This was on Linux, so I’m not sure what options Windows and macOS have for this (I gave up looking on my Mac and now just use wired headphones at work).
Biggest complaints I’ve seen aren’t with sound quality, it’s with the noise cancelling being bad and the shape of the ear cups (the latter could have just been the shape of that user’s ears were the problem).
Mind you, these were reviews from Fairbud XLs released about a year ago. Things could have improved or gotten worse in that time, in any way. I can’t tell you for sure.
That said, I don’t think it makes sense to correlate focusing on repairability and quality of the product going down. I actually went out and found the reviews I’m referencing simply because the concept is absurd and I needed to know for sure.
Always keep in mind what you say online, Poe’s law is forever in effect.
Nah I wasn’t being sarcastic.
As I understand it, in engineering these types of mobile space constrained devices you essentially have a “budget” of space. Every hardware feature you include generally eats into this budget and if you want things to be user accessible or repairable it eats into this budget majorly.
That budget has to come from somewhere, so you can pay it with things like reducing the size of your battery or reducing the size of your drivers which in turn represents a reduction in sound quality.
I am not a huge sound nerd, but I own a pair of these buds and had to take them out at a busy railway station because it was weirdly quiet and couldn’t hear the trains. I think the noise-cancelling is great.
I also own an XL pair, and I have two complaints:
I have a big head, and it puts some pressure on the thing as clamps on my head, I’ve broken two of the little plastic parts between the pads and the top arch so far. It was from material exhaustion, they snapped. Silver lining was it was super easy to swap out, literally 20 seconds with only a screwdriver and a single screw, and I got their customer support to send me a replacement part in a week both times.
I hear odd noises when I try to use it when plugged in and charging. I suspect it might have to do with Windows, but still. It’s barely usable, but the charge lasts long enough to make me not care.
Lol sound is not the selling point for any of those pods. Portability is the name of the game
They’re almost all small. You’re a bit off center too.
They’re not gonna sound as good as real, over ear headphones. But there’s still a pretty wide sound quality spectrum for ear buds.
They’re headphones. They sound ok at best.
What a lame answer. Are you this lame in real life? There’s OBVIOUSLY a HUGE spectrum of quality for iems, WHAT are you talking about? It’s a valid question on the ops part. You wanted to be snobby but it’s just a bad take that reveals how judgdy and smug and completely out of touch you are. Nobody thinks of you as cool, you don’t have friends IRL, I hope your dog dies. I hate the internet fuck you you’re the straw that broke the camels back. Would be a pretty cool place if people like you weren’t in it. I quit
Is— is this a Lemmy copypasta?
LOL
Personally I don’t really give a fuck about headphones quality unless it’s particularly shitty, because if I want quality I’m using one of my headsets (preferably one that doesn’t use Bluetooth), but ok.
Also what the fuck is judgy about my personal preferences ? I’m not going to think less of someone because of their choice of audio hardware lmao. And personal preferences are personal. Yes I am a bit anal about the sound quality of my headsets but that is strictly a me problem.
It is probably the completely unnecessary condescending tone of your comment.
Yeah that comment was too concise, which often comes off as condescending according to my friends. Also I used the wrong term because I meant earbuds specifically.
Which is not to say that earbuds all sound bad, it’s just that imo, when you’re starting to look at (especially Bluetooth) earbuds that sound on par with a good pair of, say 150€ over ear cabled headphones geared for sound quality, imo it’s too expensive for something that I’m not gonna use extensively (because I’d much rather use over ear headphones for prolonged use, if only for comfort)
Perhaps we have different definitions of those words. Imo, a headset is over-hear (or on-ear) headphones + mic, like you’d see in a call center. Sometimes they only have a speaker on one side, and they’re tuned for speech, not music or general listening.
Headphones, on the other hand, are any kind of speakers you wear on your head. They’re usually on ear or over ear since in-ear is typically further distinguished by the term earbuds.
Headphones are usually the better sounding of the three. My Bluetooth headphones (Sony over-ear cans) sound way better than any earbuds I’ve used, and my wired headphones (AKG cans) are a bit better than that.
I’m not a native English speaker so, yeah, I used the wrong term because I forgot that the word “earbuds” exists. But what I meant is simply that sound quality is not the selling point for earbuds.
If I go for earbuds I want them to have good battery life and be comfortable because I have weirdly shaped ear canals, and I’m only going for “decent” sound because the ones that actually sound on par with a good pair of over ear headphones are like twice the price, at best. Also, yeah, wired is usually my go to for quality. My favorite so far on that front are my ATH M50X but they are not super comfortable for extended use because of my big ass ears so I’m still looking for the holy grail in that price range.