Comment by scarecrowbob
17 hours ago
I work with a lot of audio in a professional capacity. You're correct if you're saying that neither tech is universally "teh best".
And you're correct that wired phones have a lot of advantages.
Tack on that they don't have latency, though I've never really tried to track vocals on wireless cans. I have a pretty nice collection of what I consider to be quality mid-tier stuff for my studio (hd280, dt770, mdr7506, k240), and I think they mostly sound better and I can use them longer than I can use the various wireless stuff I use.
And the "real" UHF wireless audio I use professionally (well, to collect rather than listen to audio) is very reliable and good sounding but also, like, $1000/ch once it's cased and cabled and properly accessorized.
However, for almost all of my day to day listening I use either airpods or a some bluetooth'd 3M ear muffs. I even went back to airpods after going through both wired and other wireless solutions.
I don't enjoy having my in-ears ripped out along with my pocket. And universally the cord ends and the physical connector on my phone are the weak spots that have had me replace stuff- I haven't bought a phone in the 5 years since I got one that could charge wirelessly and never has phones plugged into it, and I don't intend to get another one any time soon (knock on wood that my case keeps the screen from breaking and needing me to repair it).
I have a bluetooth receiver with an analog out that I keep in my workbox, which I used for program music at a show tonight. It's nice to start my truck and my podcast just starts playing, too, without having to get out my phone and plug it in.
You're right that wired stuff is better for some things. I still find wireless stuff to be superior in a lot of situations.
> Tack on that they don't have latency, though I've never really tried to track vocals on wireless cans
The truth is that the OS usually hides the latency of wireless heapdhones, e.g. airpods, by delaying video to keep it in sync. The real latency is somewhere around 100-400ms if the RF environment is crowded. Even worse is that the latency isn't actually constant, but drifts all the time.
At many IT conferences organized by hackspaces, everything is done by volunteers, including broadcast and video/audio postproduction. And that is actually one of the most common issues: our volunteers use wireless headphones even if we ask them repeatedly not to.
We cut talks in postproduction primarily based on audio, e.g., when does the applause start/end, when does the speaker's introduction start/end, etc. Obviously, that doesn't work reliably if the audio latency is nondeterministic.
Even worse, as different venues have different audio setups, there are sometimes real audio/video sync issues that need to be fixed. But if our volunteers are using wireless headphones, they won't just set the wrong offset, but they end up trying to fix issues that don't even exist.
And then you get complaints from viewers that e.g. the livestream audio/video is out of sync, even though it's not. The issue turns out to be caused by the viewer's laptop and wireless headphones not supporting the latency compensation technique I explained earlier. And there's nothing we can do about that.
Wireless headphones tried to fix something that wasn't broken, and made it worse. In German, we'd call that "verschlimmbessern".
> The truth is that the OS usually hides the latency of wireless heapdhones, e.g. airpods, by delaying video to keep it in sync.
Right, but that only works when you control both. I love my Sony and Shure Bluetooth headphones and have 0 issues watching videos with them; they work great even on Linux.
But when people figure they're gonna use BT headsets for conferencing, it just turns into a shitshow of people waiting for the other to speak, then starting to speak at the same time.
I have an old Jabra headset for my video call needs, and it uses DECT. That thing has so little latency that I can use it to play FPS games without issues (I'm by no means a competitve player, so YMMV). At the same time, its range is huuuge. For the life of me, I cannot understand why nobody makes such headsets anymore: they've all switched to BT for some reason. The only models that seem to still use some form of low-latency transmission are some "gamer" models, but I've never tried one.
ugh the most annoying thing about the conversation clash latency is that the person causing the issue just thinks others are being weirdly rude.
wireless headphones externalize the cost of latency to other conference participants. if you think your airbuds are "perfectly fine" it's because you're not the one paying the cost.
I have some Asus gamer earbuds with a dongle for a proprietary BT alternative: zero perceptible latency.
> Wireless headphones tried to fix something that wasn't broken, and made it worse.
I think you are going to far here.
Do wireless headphones have problems? Sure. Did they fix some problems wired headphones had? Yes. Yes, they did.
Simply the ability of moving around without having to worry about the cable getting tangled or dragging the headphones or the phone is phenomenal. My wireless headphones are a lot more reliable than my previous wired ones. Somehow the cable and the connector was always the source of failures.
Do you not like wireless headphones? Don’t buy them. I will keep buying wireless headphones because they have clear benefits to me in my usage.
I find it insulting that you represent your preference as some universal truth.
Do you have a German word for ignoring the things the person you’re replying to liked about a given thing?
Most of this thread is already exploring the consumer perspective, and as the previous poster said they couldn't talk about the professional perspective, I chose to only focus on the production/broadcast angle in my comment.
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Produktivegesprach
> bluetooth'd 3M ear muffs.
How do you rate those?
I made my own, but they sucked balls. I have some Plantronic cans which have ~10db nrr, but they are falling apart now, and I'm looking for alternatives with decent NRR
Well, I have had them for about 2 years and would buy them again.
To be clear, these are for noise protection and are heavy. They are big enough that I have another pair of muffs for shooting rifles and some ($$) molded westone earplugs for working on loud stages.
I mostly use the 3m when I am running a chainsaw or driving vehicles with the windows down (I find that too damn loud for my tastes). For a while I'd track drums with them over my shure se215, but I've started playing quieter and have found that something like an HD280 cuts stuff down enough to track drums while feeling more comfortable.
On one hand, they are kind of expensive, bulky, and the mic isn't great. Also their "ambient sound" is not anywhere near as loud or controllable as the muffs I use for shooting. On the other hand, they pair well, sound okay, have a lot of noise reduction, and they seem pretty rugged. They run on AAs and Battery life is pretty good, too.
Oooo AA batteries? fuckyeah
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