PC World has an article on why USB-C has not been a viable alternative for the 3.5mm audio jack. Problems with USB-C include variable handling of digital to audio conversion, incompatible SOCs inside the cable, and non-standard analog-passthrough. In short, the cables which contain computers themselves are not standardized in behavior and the author's conclusion is that mobile devices must have 3.5mm jacks until the USB-C cable technology gets sorted out enough that they become usable.
Related Stories
Apple's 'courage' to remove the headphone jack has created a brave new world
It was barely two years ago when we lamented the loss of the headphone jack on the iPhone. The iPhone 7 had just arrived with a gorgeous jet black color, a solid-state home button, and a dongle in place of the 3.5mm headphone jack. At the iPhone 7 introduction, Apple VP Phil Schiller talked about having the "courage" to make the change, to leave the headphone jack behind.
At the time it was kind of cringe-worthy. Rather than try to convince the audience of the benefits of wireless charging or the annoyances of wired earphones, Schiller basically told the audience that they might not understand now, but one day they will. You could hear the snickers in the auidence when he said that removing the headphone jack required the "courage to move on and do something new that betters all of us." It sounded ridiculous. All we could see was the inconvenience ahead.
But you know what? He was right.
It might have sounded like the reality distortion field on steroids, but Apple's decision to remove the headphone jack from its most popular product wasn't a flippant design whim. It was the start of a new strategy that would bring convenience, simplicity, and downright delight.
The move led to courageous sales of AirPods.
See also: Poll: Looking back now, did Apple exhibit 'courage' in removing the headphone jack from iPhones?
Related: New Moto Z Omits Analog Headphone Jack; Adds Moto Mods
Bring Back the Headphone Jack: Why USB-C Audio Still Doesn't Work
Apple on the Decline
(Score: 3, Insightful) by coolgopher on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:54AM (1 child)
Good luck convincing Apple they need to bring back useful features like that. Or magsafe.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:39PM
I don't care if Apple brings back a headphone jack. As long as everyone else brings it back.
What doesn't kill me makes me weaker for next time.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Fluffeh on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:56AM (17 children)
I use a pair of sennheiser headphones at work. They are largish, noise cancelling and comfortable to wear. The most important thing however is they are bluetooth - so I haven't used a corded set for years! I wouldn't ever go back to corded headphones.
I don't do enough talking on a phone to make it worthwhile for a headset, the car I have has a handsfree bluetooth thingy my phone connects to, and at work it's office-noise-cancellation-bliss. Does anyone actually use a headphone jack in their phone at all?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:29AM
"Does anyone actually use a headphone jack in their phone at all?"
-
Yes.
Note : if you ever become an adult, you will learn that the needs of others may be different from your needs, but no less valid than your needs.
If you don't want a headphone jack, then you have little to contribute to this discussion, so be a smart boy and shut up.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:30AM (1 child)
Yup, with big honkin proper over the ear headphones. Why? Because cheap wired headphones sound worlds better than mid-range wireless headphones. Earbuds need not even apply; they're shit.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:34PM
good ear buds have excellent sounds but they kills audition.... Areon mastermind and guitarist is now unable to perform live because of earbuds : http://bravewords.com/news/arjen-lucassen-be-careful-with-in-ear-earphones [bravewords.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Aiwendil on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:59AM (1 child)
I use corded headphones with my cellphone, in fact I specifically picked a corded model*
Main reason why I picked corded is no need to charge it, can hook it up to pretty much any equipment made from the 1970s up until 2017, I still need the microphone placed somewhere so cabling will be needed (yes, I got a separate 3.5mm cable with a "remote control" on it - since the cable is what dies first I specifically selected for detacable cable) and since I also tend to enjoy windy places I must be able to place the mic beneath clothing.
However, even when those headphones are used in a stationary setup I favour cables: being able to vary DAC in use is nice, not having to recharge every 6th hour is great, no issues with accidently pairing with the wrong device (either direction - common when powering up the audio-receiver), no issues when moving between devices, no need to fiddle in menus or remembering what the program was called on the machine in use when hooking up the headphones, and if I want wireless I have two portable bluetooth-audio-receivers with 3.5mm output where I always keep one charged and simply swap receiver when it runs out of batteries. (Then we also have bandwidth issues when wanting to hook up secondary or tertiary speaker).
At home I actually use bluetooth speakers for music where sound quality doesn't matter as much, and it is great for when needing waterproofed speakers you're interacting with. But in in the former case I still keep it permamently cabled (to the charger) and in the latter I need two devices (one always in charger).
Since the advent of the portable bluetooth-receivers-with-corded-output I actually find I can get the best of both worlds (with my requirements on audio quality and sound insulation weight is not an issue, and in situations where I favour weight or small size cabled earphones are a darned good option).
Another pet peeve with bluetooth audio-headphones for me tends to be that far from all have user-servicable batteries and thereby drastically reducing their lifespan to a couple of years
Oh, cabling also tends to save my portable devices, I have dropped most of my portable devices only to have them saved by be able to grab hold of the headphone cables. :)
(* Kingston HyperX Cloud II (iirc). Deteachable cable (3.5mm), detachable mic, even handles Taiko drums, Opera, piano and violins without issues, over ear, keeps noise out and in just fine (ie - can listen on a lower volume, or not disturbing other people when enjoying EBM). Quite frankly the best non-yamaha headphones I've ever had (and the lowest weight ones that I've had that I don't get annoyed at the poor sound of)).
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Thursday September 13 2018, @09:14AM
Remembered wrong on one part, it was a Kingston HyperX Cloud Alpha Pro that I have.
(Score: 5, Informative) by ledow on Wednesday September 12 2018, @10:57AM (6 children)
A headphone jack doesn't need to be charged. Bluetooth devices do. I find it a pain in the backside to keep so many different things charged all the time. Note that my car audio doesn't have that problem - if I'm driving the car, it's powered up.
Though Bluetooth is very handy, I have to admit I do use it a lot, but I still want a jack. I'll pay extra for a phone with a jack. But people aren't making them with jacks. Whether or not it conforms to your ideal, you're an idiot to ignore paying customers.
However... my "favourite" set of headphones is thus:
- Over the ear
- Noise-cancelling
- Bluetooth
- Foldable
- With a jack on them that:
* you can use to plug into a headphone output and listen
* works even when the battery on the headphones is dead.
* you can use to join ANOTHER set of headphones to so both of you can listen to whatever you were listening to.
* works on all my old stuff that isn't Bluetooth and I'll be buggered if I'm paying £10 each to put audio-bluetooth adaptors on.
- Has a microUSB port that not only charges them but that you can play music over
- Have a built-in microSD slot for playing audio direct with no other device at all
- Have a built-in FM radio.
- Cost me £25.
For some reason, a cheap pair of headphones from China does more, respects my choices more, lets me plug in "antiquated" hardware like headphone cables and microSD cards, and is more useful to me, than £800 of smartphone that claims to be the must-have item of the moment. My current smartphone has headphone jack and Bluetooth. Because I want the option. I won't buy a new phone where I lose options unless I'm convinced I'll never use that option again (e.g. I wouldn't worry about a computer without a VGA port on it nowadays, but for YEARS I wanted both HDMI / DVI and VGA if I was purchasing, and I always found it).
Hilariously, the day I bought them someone in work come in having just come back from Singapore and was raving about their £250 set of headphones they'd bought over there that didn't do any of that, and which they said sounded better. And then I told them that they only cost me £25 and I got them off Amazon.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Wednesday September 12 2018, @01:26PM (2 children)
My Galaxy S9+, which is a fairly recent phone, has a proper phone jack.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:29PM (1 child)
Your S9+ costs more than every single phone I've ever owned in my life, collectively.
It also costs more than my laptop.
And more than each car I've ever owned (except one which I bought brand-new).
For a headphone jack? Sorry, but no. My S4 Mini and S5 Mini were fine, and have IR blasters. I put the S4 onto LineageOS and use it as a literal remote control (that can also push movies from the Netflix app onto my Chromecast etc.). To upgrade from my S5 Mini, I would need something in the price-range I paid for it (£200 for a brand-new one), that'll last as long as the S4 Mini (5 years minimum) and that I don't lose functionality on.
It also requires a change of charger or adaptors for everything which would cost more than the headphone jack ever could.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:48PM
Must be pretty young then, or the owner of some seriously minimalist devices. I've been buying phones since the early 1970's, and the total spent was probably more than the cost of the S9+ even before cellphones hit the market. I don't doubt you, I just find your statement surprising.
Oh, I completely agree. However, for all the other benefits plus the headphone jack? The time saved by all that compute power... The display size and quality... The quality of the cameras... The considerable sensor suite... The wireless charging... IP68 water resistance... Always-on-display... 6GB of RAM... 64 GB of base storage... the broad array of connectivity...
Abso-bloody-lutely.
No, it's not perfect — I'd prefer a replaceable battery, a display that didn't go to the edges, and an externally accessible slot for additional storage — but those features weren't things I could find that went with other features I wanted.
That's a tree you're looking at. The forest awaits your gaze. :)
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:18PM (1 child)
Do you want to name the device? I also have foldable Bluetooth headphones with a jack, but they don't have several of the features you listed like FM radio, microSD, or noise cancellation. Plus it has microUSB for charging but can't play music over the microUSB or play over Bluetooth while charging.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by ledow on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:35PM
No idea... It probably has a brand on it, but I can't remember it. I'll have a look
A friend has a very similar one that I do know the name of and can still find on Amazon (though his doesn't say Turbine on it, it's definitely a Bluedio):
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bluedio-T2VBCA01-Bluetooth-Wireless-Headphones-black/dp/B00Q30A1RI/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1536766239&sr=8-5&keywords=headphone+fm+radio [amazon.co.uk]
I know that his one can do the FM, microSD, all the headphone jack stuff, and play while charging. Not sure about the noise cancelling or USB on that one though.
From the look of it, that one also has a mic for when Bluetooth calling, which mine doesn't.
(Score: 2) by Taibhsear on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:09PM
Like takyon, I am also interested in the model name/number of said device. Last cheap pair I bought was $35 and didn't do 75% of what you listed and died after three months. That thing sounds magical.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday September 12 2018, @01:56PM
Bluetooth audio is like USB-C audio -- some devices work fine, others are absolutely ATROCIOUS. The only difference is they've had goddamn DECADES to figure that shit out with Bluetooth yet it's still fucking awful...which doesn't give me high hopes for USB-C...
I do use Bluetooth at home, to pipe my phone through the house speakers, only because the company running my old credit card shut down and the bluetooth receiver was the most useful thing I could get with my remaining points (it was under $20.) That thing works great, as long as you keep the phone within three feet of the receiver. But I only use that rarely anyway -- I've got a whole PC hooked up to that system with my full music library loaded on that (my phone has only a large subset of that library)
But I still use the headphone jack every single day in my car. Doesn't have bluetooth for music. However when my car was in the shop a while back they gave me a loaner which did have bluetooth audio, and I was cursing that thing out wishing for an aux in jack every single time I got in that car. Took a good five minutes or more to get the bluetooth connected -- first you go navigate through the car's menu to switch on the bluetooth, then you've gotta enable it on the phone, then you've gotta deny access to your filesystem and your contact list and calling and texting and everything else because if you ask it to play music it's going to demand full permission to every single goddamn piece of data or hardware on that phone. And then it sits there for a good sixty seconds "connecting". Gimme a cable and I can have my music playing in ten seconds flat. Faster, easier, more secure...why would you want to give all of that up just so you don't have to spend two seconds plugging something in?
Plus there's just the convenience factor. I can take the output of my phone and connect it to headphones...or my PC...or my guitar amp, oscilloscope, home stereo, some random circuit I just hacked together, absolutely anything. Worst case you need a $2 adapter, and even then I've managed to use a glass of tap water as an audio cable adapter with shockingly good results so you don't REALLY need the adapter even. Plus it's a hell of a lot cheaper -- I can buy three or four pairs of headphones for the cost of one bluetooth receiver that still requires a pair of headphones to connect to it!
And what do you do if you want to use those big fancy bluetooth headphones with a device that doesn't have bluetooth? Buy another pair of headphones?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:48PM
First: I do NOT want the headphone jack to go away. I've used it for years. It is great for phone conversations.
Bluetooth headphones add latency. You can never get back latency. It is already bad enough on modern cell phones without bluetooth.
For years, I have had (self powered) speakers plugged into the headphone jack at night to listen while I sleep. (side note: it is amazing how durable smartphone headphone jacks are! but treat them carefully)
Recently I decided to get a decent bluetooth cordless speaker, about $40 ish. That works great and saves wear on the headphone jack. Thus I can expect a long life from the headphone jack for phone conversations with a wired headset. Any latency added by a bluetooth speaker is not a problem.
What doesn't kill me makes me weaker for next time.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:54PM
Second: I did buy a decent pair of buetooth noise cancelling headphones. Very comfortable. I like them. I'll definitely like them better than noise cancelling earbuds on my next plane flight.
I still do not like the latency when using them for a phone conversation. But I'm giving in to the inevitability that my next phone will probably not have a headphone jack.
I cannot decide which I hate more: lack of headphone jack, or a notch.
In some sense I can agree with you that good bluetooth headphones can be a replacement. But there is always the latency thing. Even if the 30 hour battery life were to be real, they still need recharging. And did I mention the latency?
On my current phone, which still has a headphone jack, and no notch, I can use an audio cable with these new headphones, although the active electronics must be used, and so I might as well also turn on the nose counseling feature.
What doesn't kill me makes me weaker for next time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @04:05PM
no cord = battery = trouble
no cord = wireless = protocols and interference = trouble
3,5 jack cord = it works and if it doesn't I can fix it.
I should better say it USED TO work, because in the 80s and 90s jacks and RCA were not as problematic as what they sell today. Mystery of progress.
Also I see no reason why a thirty yearish sony v300 (bought before the boycott caused by the cd rootkits still enforced in this household to this day) should be replaced.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday September 13 2018, @08:54PM
Yes. Cords don't burn my batteries running a useless radio when wired works, among other reasons.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:41AM (3 children)
...bringing back the headphone jack until they come up with a good reason to take it away?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MostCynical on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:51AM (1 child)
Sales.
Bluetooth everything.
Want your old wired headphones still? Buy a bluetooth adapter!
Compressed, lousy, lossy, streamed and youtube music never sounded so good!
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:27PM
I suspect the headphone jack is more of a cost/size issue. With the entire phone nearing 5mm thickness the 3.5mm headphone jack is quite large. Additionally accommodating it in the board layout, and rating the port for dust/water tolerance are calories that could be saved. I do not plan on purchasing a phone without a 3.5mm jack but I can understand why the industry would like to migrate away from a connector designed for transistor radios of the 1950s.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:57PM
They already have a good reason to take away the headphone jack.
They can sell you multiple expensive other products to replace it.
Expensive bluetooth speakers instead of simple self powered speakers that plug into the headphone jack.
Expensive bluetooth headsets that add more latency to phone conversations.
Expensive dongles and cable adapters which provide a headphone jack. (And possibly latency as well)
And these headsets, speakers and adapters are expensive to replace if lost or stolen. Being expensive is helpful to increase the likelihood of them being stolen.
What doesn't kill me makes me weaker for next time.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Shimitar on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:04AM (11 children)
Getting rid of the 3.5mm jack?
It's standard. It's well proven. It has NO disadvantages of any kind. It's the best quality solution by far. It can be IP67 compliant, as a few vendors have them.
... it's legacy for old grumpers?
For me a few requirements are mandatory in a phone:
. Audio Jack since i still use it DAILY. I had been an happy Bluetooth headphones user for a while, then after two years the battery basically gave out. While i was pondering which model to buy i used wired hearBUDS and i was shocked at the quality and ease of use. I did not bought a new BT headset, i sticked with the stock-hearbuds provided with my phone and i am happier ever since (i don't cycle anymore, so maybe that was a good reason for BT stuff)
. MicroUSB, no usb-C. I don't get it, really. Why, why? What does usb-c gives me more? Why should i purchase new cables for my office, for my car and for so many plug-places i have around the house? Mind you, provide NEW plug places, since all our phones and tablets are MicroUSB so i cannot just replace them cables.
.External uSD. I recently broke my phone (by banging on the head of my dog, but she is fine, she did not even noticed) and i was oh SO glad everything was on my uSD. Specially the few unreplaceable videos i just took (and could not be backed up on the cloud since i had no signal at the place). No thanks, it was just the uSD which saved me, never a phone without one. Or provide me a way to access data from the internal memory even if i broke or drown my phone.
. Available LineageOS port (or hopes for one), so for example open or unlockable boot loader. Added points if that does not invalidate warranty.
. replaceable battery. My old phone i had three and an offline charger... Loved to be able to never ever run out of juice even if i tried very hard. (And five years of life, since battery is the only part that wears out)
Yes i found a valid replacement, i had to relax just one requirement, but i will not post it's name unless somebody wants it.
Coding is an art. No, java is not coding. Yes, i am biased, i know, sorry if this bothers you.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:12AM
Because Courage®, of course!
(Score: 4, Informative) by maxwell demon on Wednesday September 12 2018, @07:49AM (2 children)
To the music industry, it has: You simply cannot apply DRM to it. If they ever manage to get USB headphones to be the new standard, one day they might label converters to audio jack as circumvention device.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:48PM (1 child)
As someone who is actually part of the music industry I can state that virtually fucking nobody* thinks this shit. It's all made up, a strawman, imported from clueless slashdot pimply dorks.
*Nobody in this case means I have never met anyone with any *credibility* that thinks up this shit.
No, not even at the evil sony, muahahaa
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday September 13 2018, @10:51AM
Bean counters and lawyers do and they're the ones making most of the decisions lately else we'd have a lot less music that sounds exactly the fucking same.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by coolgopher on Wednesday September 12 2018, @09:09AM (2 children)
Actually, it isn't easy/cheap to waterproof, and the jack can collect dust of various levels of problemacy. Having a bung in it is just painful, and the bung is likely to get pulled off accidentally.
Less time turning the cable over again and again to work out the correct orientation, and an overall easier time plugging the cable in.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @10:10AM (1 child)
USB-C has less cable turning need than a 3.5mm jack? Are you serious? Have you ever seen a 3.5mm audio jack? Hint: It even works if you turn it by 15.76593 degrees. Try that with USB-C.
(Score: 2) by bryan on Wednesday September 12 2018, @07:03PM
That quoted line was talking about MicroUSB, not the round audio jack. Some people (Europe) tried very hard to make MicroUSB the one-and-only connector allowed - I'm glad they failed (the USB3 variants [wikipedia.org] of MicroUSB were especially atrocious.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @01:22PM (1 child)
Yes! I would like to know...
(Score: 2) by Shimitar on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:08PM
You asked for that.
Xiaomi Redmi Note 5.
It has no removable battery, but has all the other points, including the unlockable bootloader which does NOT void warranty.
PLUS it has NO notch. And, yes, it's even clear of UsbC.
And the price point is sweet low, so i am not worried if the locked battery is a pain to change in three years time.
Coding is an art. No, java is not coding. Yes, i am biased, i know, sorry if this bothers you.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:15PM
I've got the exact same list of requirements....I'm looking at an LG G5 for my next phone because nobody has manufactured one that's actually USABLE in the last two years.
I've currently got a Galaxy S5 though, so the G5 isn't much of an upgrade...but at least it's fairly cheap these days :)
Although I have no problem with USB-C as long as it's also got a headphone jack...I know they've been using the USB-C port for both host and device, but you CAN buy a USB-A to USB-C cable to connect to any chargers/devices that don't have USB-C ports. It's backwards compatible just like any other USB port type. And if you bought the chargers with non-removable cables you can also get a micro-USB to USB-C adapter for a couple bucks. Haven't used it yet so I'm not sure if the new standard is worth that small annoyance, but it seems like it might be from what I've read.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:08PM
While I want to keep the headphone jack, I have become a fan of USB-C. More data pins.
I can grab either end of the cable and plug it into the charger, and the other end into the phone -- or -- laptop! No more making sure I've got the right end of the cable.
When you plug a USB-C cable into a device, you can plug it in either way. In practice this means you only have to flip the cable one time!
1. Attempt to plug cable into device -- oops
2. flip cable, and it inserts
But with USB micro-B, the cable can only be plugged into the device one way, so effectively this means . . .
1. Attempt to plug cable into device -- oops
2. flip cable, and . . . oops
3. flip cable again, and it inserts.
You have to admit the USB-C way is better, 2 steps instead of 3.
But wait . . . there's more! (Now how much would you pay?)
I can use a Laptop USB-C charger (45W) with the phone. I can use a Phone USB-C charger (15W) with the laptop. They negotiate. None of the mishmash of "fast charging" standards from multiple vendors.
When I use the phone charger on the laptop, there is an on screen message that says it is charging more slowly than normal. This means I could use a USB C phone charger on the laptop in a pinch.
What doesn't kill me makes me weaker for next time.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:47AM (9 children)
Audio interfaces were basically figured out in the 1970s.
Analog for the win here. The headphone jack is the most straightforward solution to the problem of sending an audio signal a few feet. It's elegant. It can't fail. Obviously, we CAN'T LET THIS STAND. How much of tech industry consists of selling solutions to problems it created in the first place? It all feels like some carnival game to rip off the rubes at this point.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Subsentient on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:58AM (2 children)
Agreed, analog audio works just fine. In the end, all speakers are analog at the end where you solder the two wires to the speaker connectors, so why bother with a digital interface? You're just degrading the audio quality by digitizing it into a compressed format and then converting it back to analog...
Oh, I know the answer why they're doing this. Money.
That's literally it. It has no advantages, and they know it.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Thursday September 13 2018, @05:16AM (1 child)
To be fair, you'll always be dealing with a digital signal coming out of your phone. Whether you convert to analog before the 3.5mm jack or within your headphones is a bit moot.
That said, I much prefer having a headphone jack, as there are far fewer things that can go wrong with the headphones themselves.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday September 13 2018, @10:55AM
Plus, universality of the connector means you could totally connect your phone's audio output up to anything that takes sound input made in the past fifty years and it will bloody well work.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by KilroySmith on Wednesday September 12 2018, @07:15AM (5 children)
In a world where the signal in the phone is digital, there's no downside (and a lot of advantages) to transferring the signal to the headphones digitally.
Now, the problem is that everyone chooses a digital transmission protocol (Bluetooth) that doesn't have sufficient bandwidth to transfer the digital music losslessly. And, in many cases, doesn't fully support MP3 transmission over A2DP so your nicely compressed music on the phone gets decompressed, and recompressed with a horrible codec in order to transfer to your Bluetooth headset.
If the world would pull their collective heads out of their collective keisters and choose or create a better solution capable of 1.5 Mbps error-corrected audio streaming, wireless would be great. Oh, and make it connect easily, and every time, and require compatibility testing before it can be sold.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @10:32AM
so make the phone send either analog audio, or digital audio via the standard audio cable. and then you can decode the high bitrate signal in your headphones, if that's what you want.
I don't see why that should be a problem (coaxial cables are still being used for network connections, right?), and modern headphones will just do different things to the signal that is given to them.
my argument for analog headphones is that the headphones should last 20 years at a minimum if they're good quality. I already have good headphones.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @12:51PM
Parent said:
"In a world where the signal in the phone is digital, there's no downside (and a lot of advantages) to transferring the signal to the headphones digitally."
The rest of your post contradicted your first paragraph in a detailed manner!
Also, Bluetooth is a WIRELESS protocol. For a WIRED protocol extending a few feet, nothing is better than analog.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:05PM (2 children)
Sure there's a downside, based in the fact that the signal to your ears MUST be analog, ears don't speak digital.
So, at some point you need to turn that digital signal to analog, and a high quality DAC is moderately bulky and expensive - it requires non-miniaturizable analog components and has all sorts of electrical sensitivities that simply aren't relevant to pure-digital electronics. So where do you put that piece of moderately expensive electronics? Your choices are:
1) In your generally expensive music device, where a high-end DAC will increase the overall cost by a percent or two, or
2) In your generally cheap headphones, where even a mediocre DAC (plus supporting electronics) can easily double the price, while introducing tons of analog noise due to its comparatively low quality?
I'll pick (1) every time for corded applications, especially since minimal cheap cable shielding can almost completely prevent the accumulation of radio noise over the short distances involved.
(Score: 2) by KilroySmith on Thursday September 13 2018, @12:36AM (1 child)
In a world that drives the cost of cell phone components to zero, you will never get analog audio out of the phone that meets the quality standards of the golden-eared audiophile. Analog audio from the phone will be subject to the lowest-bid pressures of building 50,000,000 phones a year. As long as the phone can transfer your FLAC files digitally to your headset unmodified, it allows the golder-eared to pay for the headsets that meet their needs, while those with tin ears can get by with $20 headsets.
But, today, Bluetooth doesn't have the bandwidth to send FLAC to a headset.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @05:42PM
Your lowest cost audio amp argument doesn't apply to nice (expensive) phones like the iPhone.
They sell on a perception of quality.
And you hold hope that by buying expensive headphones you can have a quality signal... why not just buy a quality phone.
You have to pay for quality one way or another...
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Wednesday September 12 2018, @10:33AM (9 children)
USB-C is a bad choice (except M2M), at best it comes out as just a change of ports.
But since I'm having a cold and slow day..
The replacement I'd want to see is a short-range (a couple of millimeters) inductive (active host, passive guest) device that simply pushes the analouge signal.
The advantages I would see with this would be that it would allow you to have a dustproof and waterproof unit, the "jack" would simply be a "apply reader here" (be it a slotted device, slight indentation, a suction cup, a magnetic connector, welcro, duct tape...) and it would be a simple analouge device that basically converts magnetic induction to electricity.
For orientation I'd say that the best thing would be to make the "guest" connector, and split it into six cells, of which one is a very weak magnet (at specified strength), and the rest of the cells are numbered in a simple [linear or clockwise] fashion (e.g: magnet, left, right, mic, control, reserved)
This would allow for both a round connector (divide it into twelve sections, adjust what does what depending on the magnet), a straight connector, and a rectangle, whiel allowing you to introduce different power by having different sizes (diameters, width [data is length]).
I'd implement "control" by reading the resistance/power drop over the coil for "control" (it will vary if the control open/closes to a drain/sink, and I'd probably also have this set at four levels (open+3)).
The drawback I would see is cost (cents), requirement of the manufacturer to keep their EM in check, and that you'd lose the 3.5mm jack.
Soo. what "shoot from the hip"-ideas do you people have?
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:11PM (6 children)
The problem I see with magnetic induction is cross-talk - how do you prevent the stereo-left transmitted signal from bleeding in to the stereo-right received signal, when both transceiver pairs are operating in extreme close proximity? Maybe you could pull it off with an inch or two of separation - but then you're talking about a credit-card sized "plug" on your headphones, which I doubt would go over well.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:48PM (5 children)
I'm basically picturing that the sender-blocks being half the size of receiver-blocks as well (hence 12:6), as long as the receiver block is larger than the distance sender-receiver it should also be reduced somewhat by only sending from whatever sender-block covers dead center of receiver blocks. Also a bit of shielding between the blocks (ie, between sender-blocks, as well as between receiver blocks) could probably reduce it a bit. To reduce even further add more sender blocks and try to cause more directionality. The goal being to aim for as short range as possbile (basically putting enough current through 3-4mm at most)
This is really not my field (as stated - I'm having a cold and shooting from the hip), and have no idea how to do the math for range (it is about 1v@20mA per channel iirc for normal earbuds. So let's say about 2v@40mA as a design target).
Pointing out crosstalk made me realise my order was weird, a better order would be magnet, left, reserved, mic, control, right. (to alternate the paths with more expected signal).
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday September 12 2018, @07:35PM (4 children)
Certainly you can do various things to reduce cross-talk, but if you're delivering enough power to drive a headphone speaker, you're going to be delivering a notable amount of power to any other receiver in close proximity as well, including the other channels.
A much easier (and cheaper) route would be to just use a magnetic connector to deliver direct physical contact, and make sure your contact pads are well bonded to the insulating substrate so that water can't get in. After all, you don't really care if the contacts get wet, you just need to make sure the water doesn't penetrate your device.
Or, if you *really* want to go contactless, use a single induction pad to deliver power, modulated to deliver a digital signal as well, and then decode the signal into multi-channel audio fed through a DAC to get your analog speaker-driving signal.
Basically, once you go analog crosstalk becomes an issue - and it's made far worse through wireless broadcasting. You can still achieve any desired level of isolation, but the cost of doing so increases rapidly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @02:19AM (3 children)
I got a degree in electrical engineering.
You don't know what you are talking about.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Immerman on Thursday September 13 2018, @02:57AM (2 children)
So do I. Care to elaborate?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @05:46PM (1 child)
This forum is not the place for a very technical back and forth.
I will just say that I suspect you do not work in the audio industry as a design engineer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 13 2018, @05:52PM
Hey Immerman,
I got your response mixed up with the guy you were responding to because your posts were long and you paraphrased the guy you were responding to a lot in your reply.
I apologize.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:25PM
I like that idea with one change -- don't make it connect with a "slight" indentation; make it a LARGE indentation. Large enough to fit a 3.5mm jack. Large enough to conceal or at least hang on to the adapter that most people are going to be using anyway. Then just include that adapter with the phone itself as a removable module.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:11PM
Until we get that inductive port as an industry standard, I think USB-C is pretty good.
Both ends of the cable are identical. So just grab and end and plug it into charger or device.
And you can plug cable into device in either orientation.
That's a nice improvement.
What doesn't kill me makes me weaker for next time.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday September 12 2018, @11:47AM (4 children)
Thought I was going to see again one of the complaints of the 3.5mm jack, which is that it takes up a lot of space inside the device. That no one made that complaint suggests that USB-C isn't smaller.
There is a 2.5mm analog audio plug and jack standard. Same exact thing as 3.5mm, just smaller diameter. Wonder why we don't see more of that? Do they break off too easily?
(Score: 2) by drussell on Wednesday September 12 2018, @01:49PM (1 child)
Doesn't match standard things you want to plug into it and lack of robustness.
My Nokia 5300 phones have that stupid 2.5" plug so I have to use a silly adapter. It is hard to find the pigtail-style ones and the standard right-angle hard ones break relatively easily.
Stupid, stupid design. Just find the space for a proper 3.5" jack and be done with it. It isn't THAT big.
(Score: 2) by Shimitar on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:12PM
Hey, idea, make a notch to hide it!
Coding is an art. No, java is not coding. Yes, i am biased, i know, sorry if this bothers you.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:41PM (1 child)
The 2.5mm are weaker, and more importantly they sacrifice what's arguably the single largest advantage of the 3.5mm jack - compatibility. Adapters are cheap, but annoying.
I think you're not seeing comments about the size mostly because nobody here cares. And actually, probably very few people anywhere do, really. Users mostly care about functionality. Nevertheless marketing departments keep pushing thinner and thinner phones, despite all the downsides and minimal upsides they offer.
A 3.5mm jack probably can't be made any thinner than 4mm, and is probably closer to 5-6mm for something that won't break right away. Add 1-2mm for the screen it must fit behind, and maybe 0.5-1mm for the back case (we'll assume the jack is designed to fit within a cutout in the circuit board to avoid added thickness). So you just can't get a decent 3.5 jack into a phone thinner than 6-8mm, and achieving that is going to take some clever engineering. Plus you have the little fact that the plug represents a fairly solid lever jammed into the heart of your phone and protruding at least what, an inch or so? That's a lot of force that can be transferred right past the protective case into the fragile innards of your phone.
Still, for all that I'm still a fan. I've got no need for a razor-thin phone, I'd much rather have a slightly thicker phone with a standard audio jack and a bunch of extra battery capacity, not to mention the potentially much greater durability - bending strength increases with the square of thickness, so just going from 7mm to 10mm more than doubles the strength.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:49PM
Regarding phone thinness: you've got to ask yourself, how thin can a phone be before the strength of materials dictates that it will bend or crack with minimal force, and therefore high probability?
I'd say we've already reached that point. Otherwise, how do you explain the phone case industry?
Stop the insanity!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:19PM (3 children)
i prefer cabled 3.5 mm ear buds.
however, sometimes i want to watcha movie on the big TV and not be bothgered by surroundings -or- bother the surrounding.
for this i cannot use a 3.5mm because the distance (>2m) is just too long.
nowadays, everything comes with a Bluetooth emitter. my intel (kodi) NUC has it and it works fine.
however, my "smart" phone also has bluetooth AND a 3.5mm jack.
so, why can the NUC not send the audio signal to the mobile phone which then sits beside me and transfers the audio to the 3.5mm jack and thru my 1.5m long cabled headphones?
thus for "short distance sources" i use 3.5mm and for anything further ... *sigh* / alas ... bluetooth-battery powered headphones.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday September 12 2018, @07:57PM
>the distance (>2m) is just too long
What do you mean? That's why they make extension cables - you can even get nice heavy-gauge well-shielded ones relatively cheaply. You may lose a tiny amount of power and introduce a tiny amount of noise, but not much. And you can virtually eliminate that if your headphones have a built-in volume control - just send the signal at high volume, and then crank it down at the headphones - line noise is unaffected by signal amplitude, so you can just drown it out with a louder signal.
The only reason to go cordless is if you're in a situation where cords are likely to get tangled or cut. Or, you know, "style".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @11:39PM (1 child)
It can, in principle. I have tried such a thing with Bluez on a laptop sitting next to me (rather than the phone), and latency is a bitch. I'm afraid the same situation is likely to apply to a phone. Could be okay for movies, just dial in the audio delay to make it work, but it's terrible for games, which is what I had in mind.
Whether the bluetooth stack on your phone bothers to support it is another question. Android up through and including 4.1 used Bluez, which supports it, but you had to do your own plumbing to get it from the bluetooth stack to the headphone jack. Later versions use a different bluetooth stack, which (through Kit-Kat) doesn't implement it at all. I understand as of Lollipop the bluetooth stack finally does support it, but it's apparently meant for some sort of automotive in-dash system, and not compiled into normal phone roms -- not sure if there's a low-hacking way to make it work on normal phones.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday September 13 2018, @03:11AM
How about skipping Bluetooth and its patchy support entirely? Just connect your phone to wifi and use a proper full-fledged network streaming protocol. Not always applicable, but if we're taking about a nearby NUC...