[Kirby64]

> Nothing could sell a phone with a jack, but then you don't need to pay 300$ for some crappy Bluetooth headphones

Have you looked at the price of actually mediocre Bluetooth headphones recently? They’re like… $20 for a distinct fine set of true wireless headphones, including the case, even from a real brand. Certainly comparable to $20 wired headphones.

[prmoustache]

All <$100 bluetooth headphones sound like shit though while you can somehow get, not hifi quality but decent cabled ones for less than $50

[Kirby64]

Either your standards are much higher than mine or you haven’t been exposed to current gen Bluetooth gear. Decent picks sound perfectly fine even in the sub $100 category. Anker, Nothing, or even Sony have some decent stuff in that price range.

[999900000999]

Fine.

I don't feel like having to charge two devices.

On long international flights a traditional headphone jack beats Bluetooth every time.

Bluetooth headphones last as long as their batteries do. Wired headphones, particularly ones with replaceable cords, last forever.

I'm not sure why your being argumentive here, it's a known fact that Bluetooth has to compress everything down and sacrifices quality to do so.

[Kirby64]

> On long international flights a traditional headphone jack beats Bluetooth every time.

Current gen over ear ANC headphones have battery life in excess of any international flight. Most in excess of a round trip, even. True wireless ones don’t, but that’s not typically what you use on a plane. If you’re using the in flight infotainment, you’re corded anyways… so it’s a bit of a moot point. I can’t possibly imagine flying without ANC headphones at this point though, which requires a battery. The cable is also such a pain on a long flight. Any time you get up or move around, it’s inevitable you have to relocate or move the cable around to prevent it from getting snagged. If I could have Bluetooth on every infotainment system I’d love that.

> I'm not sure why your being argumentive here, it's a known fact that Bluetooth has to compress everything down and sacrifices quality to do so.

My point is that although that’s technically true, it’s practically not true. The quality is sufficient that you’ll hardly notice for most environments. If you’re in some listening room, sure fine. Use your fancy wired headphones.

In public, with environmental noise, etc or especially on planes? The picture is a lot muddier.

[999900000999]

ANC gives me headaches.

You know the neat thing about phones with an audio jack, you can use Bluetooth or wired headphones.

Apple figured out they could print money by selling AirPods and now every phone brand has some crappy Bluetooth headphones they want to sell.

Thus most phones don’t have jacks anymore. I don’t see any advantage to the end consumer.

[Kirby64]

> ANC gives me headaches.

Sorry that occurs with you. I know some people are much more sensitive to it than others. Also, lower quality or older ANC products have a much stronger “head pressure” effect which is definitely undesirable. Modern high end stuff from Apple, Sony, or Bose basically have all eliminated that effect in my experience.

I’m not sure what your vendetta here is against phones without jacks. There’s so, so, so many decent USB to 3.5mm jacks that are nearly free these days. Same with ones that also offer pass through charging.

The fact is today Bluetooth headphones are 99% of the market for phone users, and for the rest of folks the dongle is a perfectly suitable solution. In fact, dongles are a way to offer superior performance to most phone 3.5mm jacks. If you really care about the audio performance of your headphones, most phones offered mediocre or even outright bad audio quality out of their headphone jacks.

[NoGravitas]

You can start getting decent bluetooth headphones from $60 to $80 if you are picky about the brand. Anker has had several winners in that range over the last 10 years.

[justsomehnguy]

$20 BT would get you a proper BT phonecall experience but they wouldn't give you a remotely good music playback at all. BT have a lot of codecs but a $20 headset including tax and markup would not include all the fancy ones by the cost alone.

[Kirby64]

> BT have a lot of codecs but a $20 headset including tax and markup would not include all the fancy ones by the cost alone.

What do you mean by this? AAC or SBC is perfectly fine for $20 headphones. Definitely for that quality of headphone. LDAC or Apt-X are pointless for a headphone in that price bracket.

[999900000999]

For 100$ I can get wired headphones that don't try to squeeze my head and order to do some noise canceling nonsense. This is really annoying for myself, it's like every single Bluetooth headphone has to add noise canceling and they have to sacrifice comfort to do so.

I have some $70 wired headphones from AliExpress that literally beat anything I've personally tried wireless up to like $300 or so.

[Kirby64]

Or just… don’t buy ones that have noise canceling? Not that hard and often cheaper. Again I’m comparing $20 headphones here. Nobody is saying $100 wired headphones aren’t gonna be better than $100 wireless ones for sound. But, if you want ANC for planes or something then you are going to be using wireless headphones anyways.

[eru]

> But, if you want ANC for planes or something then you are going to be using wireless headphones anyways.

Why? I used to use wired Bose noise cancelling headphones in the late 2010s.

[Kirby64]

And basically all current gen ANC headphones still offer wired options as well, including Bose. But they still come with wireless if you’d opt to use it. My comment was in reference to the ANC “clamping on your head” which is sort of irrelevant to wired vs wireless.

Also, a significant advantage to wireless when using ANC is you don’t have to deal with cable noise. Especially in a quiet office environment, noise from the cable moving around on your body gets amplified and you can hear it.