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Comment by rpmisms | Hacker News Reader

I sincerely hope that headphone jacks will return as a fad. Not everyone has bluetooth wireless charging everything, nor do many want that. If you must get rid of the 3.5mm port, why not have dual USB-C to charge and listen at once?

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This doesn't really fix your "charge-while-listening" dilemma, but I'm surprised more people don't bring up just buying earphones that use USBC as input. No dongle to lose. Sure, they're a little more expensive, but for someone like me who rarely uses headphones and really only cares about having earphones that stay in my ear/aren't uncomfortable, it's made transitioning to a newwer iphone easy.

Because it will not work with the rest of your gear.

Just last night I met some new people at a bar/restaurant, we went back to one of their places, and spent the evening drinking tequila while passing around an aux cable to share music while we hung out and talked for hours. And many, many times I've been a passenger in a car that only has an aux cable for listening to music, and I've been able to put on music.

I realized how silly it would've been to be unable to participate in those moments.

Or how silly it is you're using wires when bluetooth speakers and bluetooth-enabled radios have been around for the past 10 years or so...

Yeah, sure sounds like fun doing the entire bluetooth "oh, let me pair, wait it's not coming up in my list, maybe you need to unpair first..." etc. dance over and over instead of just swapping out a cable in a second.

Tangled cords, frayed and broken cables, finding room for those cables...yeah no thanks. And maybe you need better devices, never a problem on my iphones. Just pop in my airpods and just works. Or start my truck and it just works. Or switch on my bluetooth speaker and it just works. Seriously, bluetooth has evolved to the point that wires don't make sense to me anymore.

Many cars disable Bluetooth pairing while the car is in motion, so you couldn't even "be the DJ" if your phone was not already paired with your car/truck beforehand. It's fine if it's just you and you are pairing just your phone, but if your friends wanna participate on a road trip and just want to use their phone it could be a problem.

Having a headphone jack does not prevent you from using Bluetooth. Not having a headphone jack makes your phone objectively less useful.

You were presented with a usecase where a wire provides a convienence that Bluetooth can't match. How can you just ignore that and say wires don't make sense?

That seems like a pretty fringe use-case, the last time I listened to my music at someone else's house, I just paired my phone with their soundbar, took all of 30 seconds to do.

Even aux ports aren't that common in cars, certainly less common than bluetooth in recent cars - a 3.5mm -> FM Transmitter adapter seems like it would be more universal.

Because then you can't buy earphones that have been carefully engineered by audio companies to produce good sound, because those all come with 3.5 mm jacks.

> just buying earphones that use USBC as input

Ugh. No way. Phones are pretty much the only devices that are letting go of their headphone jacks. A USB-C headphone is extremely limited in its use, and is guaranteed to cost more than one with a 3.5mm plug. How are you going to watch a movie on an airplane with your USB-C headphones?

Bluetooth headphones are just as bad. You can get a passable set of wired headphones for < $30. Good luck finding a pair of bluetooth headphones worth it in that price range.

FWIW I've been pleasantly surprised by Walmart's sub-$10 Bluetooth headphones, made by Onn. Particularly impressive is their bass response, easily beating much more expensive earbuds I have had. Obviously Bluetooth buds aren't for audiophiles but these are very impressive for the price!

I happen to like my Very Expensive IEMs. I prefer not using the shitty "pixel buds" that google prefers I use.

Like this? https://www.geargeek.co.uk/type-c-to-3-5mm-headphone-jack-au...

Sure, dongles give you the option when the headphone jack is removed. It's just one more thing to remember to bring and possibly lose though. I like being able to grab just the phone and earbud headphones and not have to worry about it.

You could glue the dongle to the headphones.

Or just leave it plugged in, i don't think the glue is really necessary. I bought one of these, on the grounds of some good reviews on audiophile sites:

https://www.hidizs.net/products/dac-cable

It's tiny, so it just becomes part of the earphone cable.

Oh wow, I didn't know there were DAC cables, and this is pretty cheap as far as DACs go

It's quite a bit more than a stock phone adapter (46 USD vs 10-15 USD), but still a lot less than, say, a Dragonfly Red (200 USD). And far more compact than the latter.

I have the Sonata paired with some 30 GBP Chi-Fi earphones in my walking-around bag, and a Dragonfly Red paired with some 130 GBP Chi-Fi earphones in my cycling bag. The bike bag can afford to carry the bulkier equipment!

Now i just need to get a motorbike or something, so i can logically justify buying a Dragonfly Cobalt and some really nice earphones ...

And then you can't use the headphones anywhere else.

Then I won't be able to use them with my Macbook Pro

Dongles wear out the USB-C port.

The USB-C port is designed for 10,000 cycles, so you can plug/unplug your dongle/power 5 times a day for 5 years without wearing it out, which seems like it would be good enough for most people.

"This device is not compatible with the Google Pixel device."

Aren't these things standard yet?

I got the LG G7 not too long ago, not only has a jack but also a built in DAC

All phones have built in DACs.

There is a significant difference between the barebones DAC and a phone like the LGG7 which has a big focus on audio, both through the jack as well as through their boombox speaker.

They don't all have DACs attached to output pins.

I've heard some good things about the LG G7 regarding audio. It seems to be able to drive the HD600 pretty damn well even without an external amp.

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