Headphone Thread 5: Beats are good now?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Headphone Thread 5: Beats are good now?

wolrah: May 8, 2006; what?

Tomfoolery posted:

I'm probably being irrational about wanting a mic as part of my headset, but I've convinced myself I do

I use both. The headset mic is nice for voice chat so I can get up and go get a drink/snack, let the dogs in/out, etc. and still chat with my friends, but the desktop mic will almost always be better quality if you're creating content or anything like that.

Also with a desktop mic you'll never accidentally transmit yourself peeing.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2023 00:46

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 20:17

wolrah: May 8, 2006; what?

Natural 20 posted:

Whereas I know nearly 100% for sure that I'm going to get that little box, try to put it down a coat pocket and leave it somewhere on the underground never to be seen again.

You're exactly right. My girlfriend is on her third set of Pixel Buds, having washed the first ones and lost one of the second set, and rarely goes a week without having to search for the charging case.

IMO "true wireless" earbuds are the stupidest example of the market following Apple in to style over substance. Worse controls, worse battery life, worse wireless performance, requiring a special charging system rather than just a standard cable, infinitely easier to lose/damage, etc. all just to get rid of a wire you can barely feel on the back of your neck. Is that wire really that bad?

# ¿ Sep 25, 2023 15:50

wolrah: May 8, 2006; what?

Zorilla posted:

I'm wondering if a cheap IEM like the 7Hz Salnotes Zero paired with something like these wouldn't be the worst idea in the world:

That's exactly what I plan to do when my old skullcandy behind the ear set gives out. I'm hoping by then that LE Audio has reached maturity.

I'm mostly using the Zeroes wired right now through an Apple adapter, so the wireless ones haven't been used much.

Definitely agreed on standard charging versus proprietary nonsense. Proprietary charging should never exist except where standards simply will not do what needs to be done.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2023 19:38

wolrah: May 8, 2006; what?

BeastOfExmoor posted:

Probably an unpopular opinion in this thread, but TWS were a complete game-changer for me. I never wanted to gently caress around with my wired IEM's, but TWS buds take less than 5 seconds to put in or return to the case. You never get the wire caught on something and yank it out of your ear. Having the case makes it super easy to just drop them in your pocket. I just put them in the pocket with my keys, which makes them easy to keep track of. Features like transparency mode, ANC are significant advantages over wired or almost all wired-together bluetooth models.

Having just mowed the lawn with my wired IEMs in, I totally get the "wire caught" thing as it happened a lot, but the behind-the-head style wireless solves the same problem. They're equally easy to put in and don't need to be returned to a case.

Features like transparency mode, ANC, etc. could be implemented equally well, but unfortunately development of high end products went pretty much exclusively to full wireless when Airpods came out. There's nothing inherent to that format which makes those features possible or even easier, but people are willing to pay a lot more for earbuds if there's not a wire connecting them so those features haven't moved downmarket enough for what's being sold with a wire still.

shrike82 posted:

TWS are more prone to connection issues since both buds have to be connected wirelessly but you get the benefit of having the buds charge when you're not using them since they're in the case. I'd often forget to charge my neckband earbuds.

I will 100% give you the point about charging. I have two pairs of the behind the head style for exactly that reason and still regularly ended up with both dead before I started using the wired ones. If you have to put them in the case to not lose them they will at least stay charged most of the time, assuming you remember to charge the case.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2023 02:26

wolrah: May 8, 2006; what?

The right bud in my Moondrop Space Travel set stopped charging after about a month of ownership due to an invisible layer of buildup of some kind on the contacts. I couldn't see it or feel it with my fingers, and it didn't clean off when rubbing the contacts with an isopropyl-coated q-tip, but after getting frustrated last night I just started scraping at the contacts on the bud itself with a metal tool and one of the two felt rough so I kept going until it didn't. Immediately after that bud was able to charge for the first time in a week.

Anyone else have this problem with theirs, and if so have you been able to figure out how to avoid it other than just scraping the connectors every now and then? I couldn't see any problems but obviously there was something built up in there.

I really wish these things used wireless charging, but for the price I'd have been happy with an actual connector where the contact surface gets swept across on every plug/unplug cycle. Everything I've ever owned that uses a pogo pin system for charging has had some variety of this same problem over the years, though usually not this soon.

Black Griffon posted:

Okay, so FE Buds are great, real good fit and everything, but after a couple of days of use I'm suddenly getting a noise like wind blowing in the right earbud when using ANC or ambient sound. Anyone experienced something similar? It's a real bummer.

I had this happen once with the Space Travels, the right bud just started making noises that had a loose correlation to my head movement in ANC or passthrough modes but not in normal mode, it kept doing this for the rest of the day, and then it hasn't since. My assumption is that something like a stray hair or a particle of dust got in one of the mics used for ANC/passthrough and was physically interfering with its operation, then whatever it was came out or got wedged somewhere harmless between then and next time I used them.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2024 18:20

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Headphone Thread 5: Beats are good now?