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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.
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Bring Back the Headphone Jack: Why USB-C Audio Still Doesn't Work
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(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.
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(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.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(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.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(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.