Hacker News Reader

Comment by _ph_ | Hacker News Reader

While I can understand that bluetooth limits the data transmission rate, now it becomes even more puzzling that the AirPods Max don't support data transmission via lightning cable. With that they could fully support lossless and high res audio in full quality. How can Apple release such expensive, some people even used the word "overpriced" headphones without that features, especially with the new tiers of Apple Music coming?

View on HN

I tend to agree with this.

For me the holy grail is USB-C powered earbuds with active noise cancelling.

That way I don't have to worry about battery running out either.

I often work for 10+ hours and 4 hours of battery on AirPods pro frustrates me when I have to regularly charge them during the day.

Then with USB-C could also get superior audio quality than Bluetooth.

I'm considering getting the Bose QC20 as a compromise. But still... they're also somewhat battery dependent.

For what it’s worth, I’ve got the Bose QC35 and regardless of whatever the battery claims are, I often get multiple working days out of them.

They also have a pretty light clamping force compared to most over ear headphones I have or have used, so even with glasses they’re quite comfortable to wear all day.

And if the batteries do run out, they still work as headphones (sans ANC) with a cable.

The QC20 kinda seem like the worst of all worlds for me. Wired so you’ve got cables to catch on things, battery-dependant, in-ear…

I've got the QC35ii as well and absolutely love them. Best comfort and ANC.

But I'm specifically looking for earbuds with good ANC.

I've got puffy hair and when I take the QC35s off my flattened valley hairdo looks absolutely ridiculous :-)

AirPods pro have good ANC - almost as good as QC35 - but their battery life is too short.

And it's just for desk use; so I don't mind if they're wired.

Hope that helps explain my context! I sound like an absolute fusspot.

>For me the holy grail is USB-C powered earbuds with active noise cancelling.

Well you're in luck because Huawei, Samsung and Razer make these things.

Thanks for this comment.

I've tried the Razer Hammerheads and the ANC is terrible. But will give the other two a go. Cheers.

I wouldn't have high hopes though. Getting ANC to work in consumer earbuds(not earphones) is a tough nut to crack. Even the big players like Huawei, Sennheiser and Samsung struggle with it. They seem to only work in a narrow set of cases like being next to an AC unit or a food blender but get stuck at day to day sounds like cars, trains, crowds of people talking, dishes and cutlery clinking, doors slamming, etc. Sometimes I feel like they even amplify these sounds instead.

I'm impressed you can wear earbuds all day. I can't even wear headphones all day, let alone earbuds. Earbuds for me max out at about one hour at a time before they get too uncomfortable.

I find it depends. I wear glasses and have fairly big ears [0], so headphones become painful fairly quickly.

Some earbuds are uncomfortable, I can't stand the standard iPhone ones, and the Samsung's' wire makes a lot of noise when touching something ever so slightly.

I have a pair of intra-articulars with foam tips (like the ones you buy for studying) and they're very, very comfortable. I can wear them for hours on end. The tips come in several sizes, so it's important to pick the right one.

The only issue is that they're not easy to put on: I have to squish the foam, put them on, then hold them in place a bit until the foam expands. In an office setting, if I have to do this often it gets old really quickly. Noise isolation is great, too, so I can't leave them on if I have to talk to someone.

---

[0] I've tried "around ear" phones, but they don't go around enough, and end up pressing on the outer ear, which, with the glasses, gets painful.

I have forgotten I was wearing my Shure 535s to the extent that I have looked for them while wearing them.

Ha, yeah, my intras are actually Shures, too, the 425.

Bought mine around 2010-2011, I remember it being a pretty big purchase as a student. Probably one of the best investments I've ever made, I still absolutely love using them.

Heya, pardon my jumping in randomly here, but I read your comment with interest.

I wasn't aware of these Shure earbuds, so I've been reading up on the 535s and they look pretty great.

Can you comment on the sound isolation? Please feel free to go full audiophile on me.

And is the passive noise cancelling reasonable?

Thanks :-)

I have the 425s, which is the model below, but only the insides are different, so I can answer your question.

Sound isolation is very good, but it depends on the tips being the right size for your ear canal. Some only swear by the silicone ones, others by the foams. Note that it's a lot like wearing earplugs, so you'll hear your steps if you have harder soles, etc.

Personally, I've always used the foams, I found them more comfortable and good enough for my needs. The silicone ones wouldn't hold well or were too uncomfortable.

However, when it was time to change them, I bought a set of Comply tips and isolation was much better. They're a bit longer, so you shouldn't buy too many at first before you check whether they bother you. They're also somewhat more rigid, so you have to hold them in a bit longer while they expand, so they're not very practical if you need to put take them out and put them back in often.

The Comply tips sound really good, will try them out.

Thanks for the insightful reply.

Yeah I guess I just got lucky with the shape of my ears.

I can wear Apple earphones or Bose QC35 headphones all day with zero discomfort.

Ears aside, the rest of my body is far less cooperative.

For me, the holy grail is a 3.5mm plug.'

Fantastic audio quality, and I can plug my headphones practically every audio device manufactured in the past 100 years (except for the iPhone).

YMMV as they say. My work laptop has pretty bad background noise on the headphone out, audible even with a cheap audio-conferencing setup while doing nothing. If I plug in an external display and start giving the CPU a workout, it becomes torture.

Bluetooth on the same computer is silent, and the ausio quality seems limited by the headphones (Sony WH-1000 with LDAC). I know some computers and phones have good analog audio quality, but the point is it's not universal, especially when using an "enterprise" computer which you can't choose.

I just upgraded from a Pixel 2 to the 4a, and I love having a 3.5 back so much. I really hope the removal of them is a temporary blip in tech history

https://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/mobile-accessories/phones/...

Samsung makes these. ANC is certainly not Bose/Sony quality, but I've heard they're decent.

Thanks will check these out. Maybe the ANC will be good enough?

> ANC is certainly not Bose/Sony quality

I wish Bose would just make a USB-C powered version of their QC20. I don't understand why I have to rely on battery powered ANC when it's already a wired device.

I think the real question is why AirPods Max have received tons of praise for their unmatched audio quality when they were released, and now suddenly are talked down to second tier because they don’t support lossless?

I mean, surely all those audiophile testers were aware that they are listening to compressed music? Or is this a recent realisation?

To be honest, I don't think that this is a big limitation in practice. The AirPods max do sound excellent and I do think that "lossless" audio is a bit overrated, a high quality AAC file can sound quite amazing. So personally, I am more interested in the spatial audio which is fully supported. But considering that some people think that lossless audio is important it is not understandable that the Apple flagship headphones which just have been released do not support it.

The problem seems to be with the data rate that is possible over Bluetooth, isn’t it?

Yes, for wireless mode bluetooth is probably the limitation. They could have supported data via lightning cable, if they had wanted it, but currently only analog audio is supported via a custom lightning cable.

But isn’t analog audio identical to lossless?

Not when the headphones re-digitize the analog signal, which I suspect is how they are designed to support the signal processing and noise cancellation features.

But as soon as signal processing and noise cancellation enter the picture, there will be signal loss. So even if lossless could be transmitted wirelessly, there will be loss due to signal processing.

At most what could be gained is one less ad/da conversion to go through.

The the question presents itself, why not buy wired analog headphones in the first place.

That custom lightning cable is 3.5mm on the other end, so it’s not surprising that it’s analog-only. What is apparently surprising to some people is that the headphones re-digitize the analog signal before processing the signal (and eventually converting back to analog for the actual headphone drivers). Personally, that isn’t too surprising to me for noise-cancelling headphones, although I have no idea if it’s the case with other noise-canceling headphones that accept analog input.

Some wireless headphones works passively with 3.5mm without power on. In my experience, MDR-1ABT works great maybe because it's just BT version of MDR-1A, but WH-1000XM3 and Beoplay H9i (both NC) work bad maybe because it's not optimized for it. I wonder there are any NC headphones works great for both.

The praise that I heard was about the quality of the transparency mode and the integration with Apple's ecosystem. On the reviews that I saw the reviewers were very careful not to claim unmatched audio quality.

I think the audiophile testers are usually more concerned about the sound-stage than they are about the compression considering the market the Airpod Max's are aimed at - particularly for Bluetooth Headphones.

To add on top of that, they own the full stack, they can (as they already did in the past) use their 100% proprietary way to achieve this. They don't obey to common standards.

Because now they can sell you two pairs of earphones.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com