They certainly have their place but they can’t/don’t check all the boxes to replace wired headphones. It’s not like having a thin cord running from your ears to your pocket is a big enough issue that having to charge another device before eventually throwing it in the garbage after a couple years is a worth tradeoff.
Bluetooth and nfc audio codecs have gotten so good that unless you’re running high impedance headphones with an amp/dac, wireless is effectively indistinguishable from wired, at least for most applications, and especially if using a mobile device.
Audio quality wasn’t even on my radar since I’m not an audiophile, but them being at parity doesn’t sway the argument one way or the other. Good technology typically outpaces the thing it replaces in all aspects. In this case, BT is effectively neutral or worse in many cases which is why I don’t feel like it should replace the old method (headphone jack removal) but rather coexist alongside of it. I feel like we’re going backwards wheh dongles enter the picture. It gives me flashbacks to the very early days of mainstream cellphones/smartphones and all the proprietary connectors that came with it.
Until it can stream hi-res lossless without compression I’m sticking to wired. For a long time I’ve been eyeing the AirPods Pro and I finally tried them out at the Apple Store; they sound like trash. I don’t know how people put up with it.
I’ve got the Audio-Technica ATH-M50 (Bluetooth version, can’t think of the specific model number) and it’s just terrible unless I use the cord with a nice DAC.
They certainly have their place but they can’t/don’t check all the boxes to replace wired headphones. It’s not like having a thin cord running from your ears to your pocket is a big enough issue that having to charge another device before eventually throwing it in the garbage after a couple years is a worth tradeoff.
Bluetooth and nfc audio codecs have gotten so good that unless you’re running high impedance headphones with an amp/dac, wireless is effectively indistinguishable from wired, at least for most applications, and especially if using a mobile device.
Audio quality wasn’t even on my radar since I’m not an audiophile, but them being at parity doesn’t sway the argument one way or the other. Good technology typically outpaces the thing it replaces in all aspects. In this case, BT is effectively neutral or worse in many cases which is why I don’t feel like it should replace the old method (headphone jack removal) but rather coexist alongside of it. I feel like we’re going backwards wheh dongles enter the picture. It gives me flashbacks to the very early days of mainstream cellphones/smartphones and all the proprietary connectors that came with it.
Until it can stream hi-res lossless without compression I’m sticking to wired. For a long time I’ve been eyeing the AirPods Pro and I finally tried them out at the Apple Store; they sound like trash. I don’t know how people put up with it.
I’ve got the Audio-Technica ATH-M50 (Bluetooth version, can’t think of the specific model number) and it’s just terrible unless I use the cord with a nice DAC.