Comment by ishields | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ishields | Hacker News Reader

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For me it comes down to a few things. Bluetooth has some major downsides: First, you now have to charge your headphones or you can't use them. This is a HUGE downside when coming from something that literally never needs to be charged, I mean considering nothing else, would you rather have something that needs to be charged daily or something that never needs to be charged? Second, transmitting audio over bluetooth requires digital compression, which affects sound quality. For some this might not matter, but when I listen to music on headphones I want the highest level of quality. This is probably less of an issue for anyone considering airpods, as apple's headphones, even the wired ones, have never been great. Now the classic response to these points is "But just charge them at night, I never have to worry about it!" or "I can't even tell the difference in quality!" and these things may be true, however for me, if I'm sacrificing sound quality (even if it's minimal) and sacrificing unlimited "battery life" (in quotes because there is no battery life for wired headphones but you get the point) I better be getting something well worth it in return. In this case, that something is what, not having to plug my headphones in? Not having a wire connecting me to wherever the sound is coming from that literally never gets in my way except MAYBE very occasionally when working out? I'm sorry but that is absolutely nowhere NEAR worth the tradeoffs. It's not that I'm against bluetooth headphones, it's that the benefits do not outweigh the costs. How many times have you really found yourself genuinely bothered by wires on your headphones? I know for me the answer is almost never (realistically only when working out, which is the only situation where I'd even consider wireless headphones)

When you can get bluetooth headphones that last 40 hours I don't see battery life as an issue.

Quality sounds fine to me as well. Are there any blind tests that show people can notice differences with Bluetooth? Even if the difference is slightly noticeable I doubt you would notice wearing headphones on the move, at the gym, in the office etc.

> How many times have you really found yourself genuinely bothered by wires on your headphones?

Multiple times a day. Any time you're doing anything active besides just walking (e.g. reaching for things, carrying something) or putting on a jacket the wire gets in the way. Getting them caught on a door handle and having in-ear headphones ripped out of your ears is really unpleasant.

Which is better, unlimited "battery" or a 40 hour battery? It may not be a big issue for you, but for me that's a very significant tradeoff. And I haven't looked into studies but I have personally done multiple side by side comparisons of the same headphones/speakers connected via bluetooth vs wired and have yet to find a set where I was not able to notice a difference in the sound quality. For me, that's enough, but I'd encourage you to try it out yourself or seek out some studies (I haven't even bothered looking).

In the end it seems more of a question of which bothers you more:

1. degraded sound quality and drastically shorter (since one is unlimited) battery life or

2. having a wire from your headphones to your audio source.

For me, there's no question that 1. is more of an issue, for others, 2. is a bigger problem. I consider bluetooth an alternative to wired headphones but absolutely not a replacement since both have tradeoffs

I think an apt analogy for the transition towards wireless audio is that of desktop to mobile computing. In the same way that mobile isn't an end-all to desktop computing for professionals, wireless headphones aren't meant as a replacement for everyone, such as audiophiles.

That said, I've personally tried a half-dozen wireless headphones over the past few months. I strongly feel that the technology has progressed to where the tradeoffs of battery life and sound quality are minimal for the general consumer.

Right now, price is probably the limiting factor in adoption. However, as the price decreases over the next 3 years, I think you'll find that wireless will become the primary means of audio consumption for the average Joe.

> Quality sounds fine to me as well

I would happily bet any amount of money that I can tell the difference between my nice pair of IEMs and the stock apple ones every time. It's not the bluetooth transmission that's the problem, it's the actual sound producing hardware. Customers like you dwarf customers like me, so Apple and Beats don't bother to produce great sounding phones beyond a certain point--it even appears AirPods have basically stock earphone sound quality.

I would love the convenience of AirPods, just upgraded with nicer drivers, and would be willing to pay $400 for them. There just isn't a big enough market, so I'm left feeling the pain of people that fall outside of Apple's inner circle.

This is even more perplexing to me because Apple consistently puts screen quality as a very high priority. I'm just flabbergasted at how much they could be dropping the ball for audio.

A deaf person can tell the difference between nice IEMs and the stock apple ear phones. I don't think anyone is disputing that. Now take some nice bluetooth IEMs and compare them to similarly priced wired IEMs, then it gets a little more difficult. Bluetooth transmission is very much a problem when it comes to sound quality, since the audio needs to be compressed to send wirelessly.

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