Ear buds-cords or wireless?

[chip100t]

I suffer badly with ear infections and can’t and dare not put anything larger than my elbow in my ears. So earbuds are a no no, especially if doing exercise that would cause them to trap sweat in my ears.

So I only use over the ear Bluetooth headphones or bone conduction headphones.
I wear my noise cancelling over the ear headphones a lot around the house. And the bone conduction ones when out. The bone conduction phones are very expensive and the bass and volume can not be driven at ear bleeding levels. But I mainly listen to talk radio and do not listen to music at high volume when I do as my hearing is already slightly impaired due to many ear infections and would not want to damage my hearing further with excessive volume.

 

[bykfixer]

Man I hated the fidelity drop for years KD. I even hated CD's at first. Once the digital to analog conversion got sorted out and record companies quit exagerating the sound I did begin to prefer CD over vinyl.

Heck at one point I thought mp3 should have been outlawed, but not because of piracy. Because it sounded like mono to my sensitive ears. Yet as time passed I got used to the reduction in sound quality. Perhaps it's from working around giant Tonka toys for decades has my ears somewhat dulled as well. I wear ear plugs out there often in hopes to still be able to hear a snare drum echo off the back wall of a theatre in a well recorded concert album as I have gotten older. Trouble is well recorded music has seemingly also gone the way of the cassette tape.

Right now my ears are enjoying an all electronic album by Appollo 440 that should sound way better than a 2 track recording by the doors yet it sounds like it's soundstage presence is limited to the size of my skull. Now the 1970's Alan Parsons I Robot album I listened to earlier sounded way wider. The Apollo 440 album is all about thump, treble and echo. Sound stage? What's that for?

Meanwhile the AC/DC song Ride On I heard earlier that has not been remixed sounded way better. For kicks and giggles I played Back in the USSR by the Beatles and sounds way more spacious than many modern recordings. And Brian Wilson (live) by the Bare Naked Ladies sounds GREAT!! I can almost hear the snare drum echoing off the walls of my den. Just gotta be careful not to turn it up too loud and damage the ears I've protected all those years. But these Shure ear buds cause me to want to experience the SPL of being at the show!!

A modern band that in my view gets it right is Kings of Leon. Not bad at all. A band called Camera Obscura sound like they took a cue from the old days where they used studio tricks to enhance the sound stage just like the old days. Anyway, I've gotten used to the lower fidelity of cordless MP3 music and actually appreciate it more as time passes.

My wife used to use a Motorola Play phone that developed a red stripe down the screen. I found it the other day and turned off everything except the music player, bluetooth broadcaster and a keyboard. I loaded a thousand songs on it in a windows playlist thinking I'd build a custom list since they ordinarily would not play my windows list verbatim. Ha, this one did so heck yeah! It's a 2017 phone, so it's like the Sansa fuze in that it plays the windows media player playlist just like my windows OS laptop.
Nice!

 

[Chauncey Gardiner]

Kinda off topic, but advice worth stating - I found a pair of AirPods last Summer. When I paired them with my laptop I saw the owner had a Scandinavian name. I searched for him on Facebook and called the security department of the university across the street from where I found them. No luck.

When you pair your earbuds input some information that will allow a good samaritan to locate you in case of loss. Perhaps your cellphone number.

I've been enjoying them for over a year. Loving the lack of a tether.

 

[kerneldrop]

@bykfixer - it’s funny you say you now appreciate the lower sound quality because so do I. After a while high-fidelity just gets to be too much and it’s exhausting to listen to bc it’s so intense. My kids will watch these goofy YouTube videos and the sounds are so enhanced. It’s just obnoxiously over the top. Those cooking videos from FB are super enhanced and I can’t watch those over.

I’ve come to like my factory muddy sound. I don’t get out my truck wired and amped up from overly enhanced music. Haha

 

[flashfan]

Etymotics for me. Wired earbuds are going the way of the dinosaur? Say it ain't so!

I can't remember when I've had problems with wired earbuds and IEMs, but bluetooth?!? So far, they never last, at least for me. In just the past few years, I've gone through so many pairs... Then again, I don't purchase the really expensive models.

 

[bykfixer]

Aint nothing wrong with wires in my view.
I bought a set of wires for my Shure earbuds but mostly prefer the wireless approach.

 

[idleprocess]

Aint nothing wrong with wires in my view.

Prefer them myself.

But I'll also use BT since I own several combo units and there are times when it's more convenient not to manage the cable. I also only periodically update the USB drive in the daily driver with new music while the phone is kept current so I'll connect to the head unit on occasion as well.

 

[JimIslander]

Sony and Skull Candy wired are my listening devices of choice. About $20, and I have 10+ pairs laying around. On the mower I wear earpro over them.

Never have issues connecting Bluetooth headset for my phone, but I don't want the mass of even compact wireless "buds". True earbuds, as found at the end of the tiny cable on my wired phones, are the ultimate in comfort. And they have infinite battery life.

 

[Jim Bonney]

I'm fully invested in the slave-made products known as 'Apple.' AirPod Pro's for me. Love 'em. I use them a ton and have had them about two years now. I even dropped one in water, submerged about 1ft for one hour, and it works just fine with no detrimental effects. The noise cancelling feature is very effective and I find 'Spacial Audio' mildly amusing.

 

[bykfixer]

I took the afternoon off from a construction project where my role is head juggler dude. Juggle, juggle, juggle is about all I do. Bowling balls, chain saws, rotten tomatoes and the occasional tennis ball. I just needed Calgon to take me away for a few hours. My Calgon was/is a android device playing a long playlist through ear buds.

I started out with the Shure I keep raving about but after around 3 hours decided to switch to the Bose Quiet Comfort ones. The acuracy of the Shure really please my ears but there's just a little something Bose adds to a listening experience that was just what the doctor ordered.

That little extra snap of a snare drum, thud of a bass drum along with a slightly expanded sounding sound stage presence provided the music to sooth the savage beast. Ahhhhhh!

One of my favorite recordings ever Dire Straits Making Movies album just sounded a little better today with the Bose. I heard things in the piano I don't remember hearing before.

 

[raggie33]

sadly i cant find my fav headphones any more they used to be like 11 bucks and got real famoues for the sound quailty. they was made by Panasonic

 

[raggie33]

a course now i find them when im broke but im sure they will be there on pay day there awsume for the money https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003EM8008/?tag=cpf0b6-20