Wireless headphones are the best they’ve ever been – and yet the wire is more relevant than before

[What Hi-Fi?]

Despite four-figure wireless headphones reaching new sonic levels, the increasing accessibility of high-quality audio is still only truly served by the wire.

Wireless headphones are the best they’ve ever been – and yet the wire is more relevant than before : Read more

 

[Freddy]

Good article.

 

[Big Aura]

It's a good article, but from reading this you'd think the downsides of bluethooth were merely a trade-off between bandwith v full fat hi-res (which you may not notice anyway) and extending range.

It misses out the (for me) single biggest issue in wireless and one that no review really touches upon - bluetooth isn't fit for purpose. It's a data-tranfer process, and not designed for music.

It works on the 2.4GHz band (for industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) - mainly to avoid paying licensing fees). It's a crowded space, and in busy areas it bounces around, reconnecting over and over again. I appreciate that WhatHiFi have amazing dedicated listening facilities in their offices, but these products are designed for moving around.

I cannot make it from one end of Liverpool Street Station (my twice-weekly commute hub) or Victoria Station (once a week) without at least a dozen, and usually waaay more drop outs. I'm on my second set of Shure Aonics - so maybe this is just a Shure issue, but I've really not had the desire to spend another £200+ to find out if other manufacturers have this issue.

I'd love to see testing of wireless products in busy stations and on tubes/buses, as a lot are bought for that purpose.

I've also got a Zorloo Z'tella and a Chord Mojo. The Z'Tella is good, but the bullet-proof build of a 3.5mm jack is far superior to the (frankly) skitish and fragile USB-c connection. The Chord Mojo is fine for aeroplanes, long train journeys and desk-based listening, but entirely rubbish for on the move commuting. It's a real conversation starter as a paperweight tho (which is what it's been for the past 3 years!).

 

[gustafr]

I do think you should add something about BT LE Audio/5.3. It adds bandwidth and better codecs as standard (LC#, but many will support LC3Plus as well). This is already happening. And of course Qualcomm will also come with their proprietary protocols as well, if you have their silicon on both ends. There are also already other proprietary loss-less protocols for LE Audio out there, like Mach from Nexum, who run a successful Kickstarter campaign lately.

 

[manicm]

Good riddance to the headphone jack on phones.

 

[flouncer]

I really miss a headphone jack on my phone.

 

[Richard van Enteren]

A very interesting article. I only use wired headphones and in-ears with a external portable DAC.

Wouldn’t WiFi a better solution than Bluetooth for wireless listening?

 

[podknocker]

I'm really looking forward to lossless bluetooth, in streamers, headphones and in laptops etc. I think it will be a bigger leap in quality than the previous ones. I'm hoping Spotify release a HIFI tier also. I love Tidal, but the catalogue choice and playlist recommendation algorithms, are far better with Spotify, for me anyway. I listen to music through a pair of Sennheiser HD600 cans, I've had for years. They're plugged into my Dell laptop and they sound really good. I hope cable free cans, with the latest BT chips and apps sound as good, when they arrive.