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Comment by JakeTheAndroid | Hacker News Reader

As a random aside, has anyone else noticed that headphone wires don't get tangled the way the used to? It used to be next to impossible to untangle headphones you put in your pocket. But I don't have anything Apple, so I haven't gotten into the AirPods at all, and my phones have kept the headphone jacks, so I still use headphones with wires.

I have noticed that the wires just don't get tangled like they used to. It takes a few shakes and maybe a pull to get them undone, where it used to take several minutes to get your headphones in a working state. Did "tangle-free" technology become ubiquitous or am I just imagining things?

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At some point the popular wire insulation changed from a kind of super-flexible silicone-like plastic to a resin-based PVC-free version. Partly for environmental reasons, but it had the side-effect of making wires a little stiffer and slicker. It's also why a couple generations of Lightning cables were known for splitting at the bend point.

I'm not sure if this 100% explains what you're seeing, but it's probably a factor.

Thanks for the insight here, very interesting. I have been wondering what the shift could be, and this makes a lot of sense at least in part.

I noticed that wires that are not perfectly round (they’re kinda rectangular with one very thin and one wider side) don’t tangle as much as the round ones and I’ve seen a lot of those in recent years. So form might be a factor as well.

My experience has been the opposite. I have IEMs with a fairly nice 4-core braided copper cable and it takes a minute to untangle them if they're in my pocket. My other headphones don't fit in my pocket so no problems there.

I will yield braided cables still tangle like a mfer. My Massdrop X Senn gaming headphones have a braided cable that is constantly tangled up. I got a pair of braided headphones with my S10+ and they are stiff as hell yet they still tangle.

Most of my headphones don't have a braided cable though, and all of those are so easy to untangle.

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