If I want to avoid this sort of thing, I'm thinking / hoping it's sufficient to simply avoid headphones that require an app.
Does that seem right?
Every effing time they convince users to install an app they magically have a tool to steal peoples personal data.
Not just headphones: the kids toy drone can be controlled using an app from the cellphone? The security camera just purchased doesn't use standard protocols over a web browser but needs its own app? The IoT system doesn't use standard protocols as well but forces the use of their app? Bad, bad and bad! And so on for every piece of hardware that needs a proprietary app that -betting all my horses on that- will ask for full permissions to access everything.
In this context, headphones are among the easily replaceable accessories with secure and better sounding ones. Just get wired ones and avoid architectures that force the use of wireless phones just to make a bigger business out of a misfeature.
Or you could just get some basic noise-isolating bluetooth headphones. It sounds like most/all of these headphones that spy on people are ones with active noise cancelling.
Or just get one with a good old 3.5mm jack.
Beyer Dynamic, AKG and Shure have several options much cheaper than these Bose or Sony headsets which still give you at least 10x the audio-performance.
For headsets, if you care about usability, portability, longevity and performance, wired is still the no-brainer choice.
I’ve returned them and replaced them with much better, naturally damping, closed head-phones. And the audio is so much better, at a fraction of the cost.
Noise cancellation in the hifi-space is just snake oil, and I’m not having it.
It just blocks/reverses sudden sharp, loud noises (shots). It will let normal speech and such (and pretty much everything else) right through.
No, but noise cancelling headsets are often sold as premium headsets, with the obvious implication that they are to have high sound-quality. And quite often, they don’t.
It's not for hi-fi. Livable-fi in combination with noise cancellation is a bonus. The headphones are for noise cancellation, not hi-fi.
(These cans are usually not too bad with noise cancellation turned off. But when you turn it on, it's because noise cancellation is what you want.)
The problem with the wire, at least the provided one, is that it's pretty stiff so it picks up a lot of noise and the plug doesn't lock to the headphone side so I'm not sure how well it would hold during prolonged usage. But the plug is standard, so at least the cable can be changed easily.
But if you want to buy headphones today with NC, most of them will be wireless.
There’s still lots of places you won’t find Bluetooth, but there’s very few places you won’t find a connector for a 3.5mm jack.
It's complicated.
The lowest level opinion is "Bose and Beats are awesome, soooo much bass!!!" That's the typical consumer.
The level above that is what you said. That's sometimes called mid-fi. At least these things don't have major flaws anymore.
The next level is companies and products specifically focused on high performance - Stax, Audeze, Sennheiser, Etymotic, etc and their best models. That's the "audiophile" level (and here truth is mixed with a lot of bullshit also - stay away from head-fi.org, it's a cesspool of pseudoscience).
And the level above that is when you realize imperfections in headphones can be corrected via DSPs, for the most part.
I have the Sony noise cancelling flagship model. By default, it's deeply flawed. It's tuned to the taste of the average consumer at Walmart ("moar basssss!!!"). But apply the oratory1990 corrections (from Reddit) and they sound like some nearly-flawless high end devices. The corrections are based on precise lab measurements of the headphones, and basically revert some of their flaws via digital processing.
The future is DSP.
With proper corrections based on objective measurements, any headphones can sound neutral and balanced.
That's just an audiophile meme, there's no reality to it.
> you'll never get the noise cancelling ones sounding good because there are 2 processes affecting the sound
That's so wrong I'm not even sure where to begin refuting it.
Seems like you're picking a lot of audiophile mythology along the way.
The WH-1000MX are very good headphones, but sony gonna shit the bed. (PSN anyone)
- Them being hugely defensive about the fan backlash over Tlou2 https://www.altchar.com/game-news/sony-contacts-website-over... - They've removed early release credentials from reviewers who give sour reviews - The shit return policy for the digital only games - The way they are trying to push digital only
etc. I realize Sony isn't the only one doing this but with every iteration it feels like they are trying to be as crap as possible.
I'd hope so - as far as I know there's no way for a Bluetooth headset device to get internet access via the thing it's paired with. It's getting harder and harder to be confident about this kind of thing, though.