Microblog Memes

I didn't believe the hype about wireless headphones until I bought some with noise cancelling and all that for around $130.

Pros:

1 - You don't realize how "tethered" you feel on older headphones until you really try to use wireless headphones. There's a certain freedom you feel when you realize you can place your phone on a hotel table but lie down in bed.

2 - Noise cancelling and noise passthrough is a transformative experience when travelling or find yourself abroad. Airports are much easier to feel relaxed in when 80% of the noise or so can be filtered out as you wait for your flight to board. Additionally, the flight experience is less annoying (no engine drone gets through, even passengers can mostly be ignored) but you still have the option for pass through if someone absolutely needs to talk to you.

3 - Many of these headphones come with some kind of EQ feature, which can occasionally mean that you get speakers with more tunability and thus slightly better bang-for-buck that works globally across apps.

4 - Audio quality. Since these are expensive drivers, you're often going to get better sound quality than those cheap 30 dollar throw aways were ever going to give.

Cons:

1 - Latency. These things could never be used in professional audio situations other than listening to a pre-rendered song for quality judgements. I don't thing gaming would be nice with these either, even if I've tried (and failed) to play counter strike on these on occasion to keep noise levels down.

2 - Mic quality of the built in is lacking on my particular headphones (Sennheiser CX Plus). They're really only intended to capture the outdoor for noise cancellation IMO, not the greatest for calls or recordings. They're servicable, but it's the area I'd like the most upgrade (and it would probably improve noise cancellation features as well.)

3 - Environmental / Sustainability Concerns: Other than people just "losing" these devices with built in batteries that are bad for the environment being a problem in and of itself, there are other long-standing concerns I have about these devices. They often require proprietary non-open software to configure, meaning if the software gets delisted, you will no longer be able to configure them until someone comes up with some kind of alternative using reverse engineering (good luck). Batteries are likely to degrade over time, meaning you'll eventually end up with a worthless ear bud on the left or right and the only solution will be to throw them out. These things are often pretty bad scoring on repairability metrics, and I can't even blame the companies producing them here because they're so small.

4 - Despite passthrough being a feature, it's hard to convey to people that you can actually hear them through the device. There should be some kind of blinking light on the outside that indicates that passthrough is enabled or something.

So I actually do love these devices, but #3 of the cons is really the biggest real issue I have with them. If they're going to cost over 100 dollars, I would like to know that these things won't just become ewaste in the same way that cheap crappy wired headphones end up being as well (which sea life often chokes on or gets tangled up in.) If they costs a premium, I would really like to know that they aren't a figurative dead end when they eventually fail.