I love my AirPods. They’re so tiny. The sound quality is great. And they (mostly) seamlessly switch between my Apple gear, piping audio into my lugs from whatever device I happen to be gawking at. What I love less is starting an opinion piece with salient points that seem to undermine my main argument, which I’ve just done. And that’s because I think it’s a really good thing that wired headphones are making a comeback.
Being that I’m ‘remembers when games loaded from tape’ years old, you might think this is nostalgia talking. And, sure, I have happy memories of my hand-me-down Sony Walkman that was roughly the size and weight of a house brick. It saw me through school and university. Other folks had swanky new CD and MiniDisc players. I had a pile of tapes, a gadget that could double as a terrifying melee weapon (it had a shoulder strap, rather than a belt clip, because it was so chunky) and a growing appreciation for keeping gear alive as long as possible. Because, hey, none of this stuff was cheap back then. And with the onset of AI, we’re beginning to notice much the same thing today.
But rose-tinted glasses only get you so far. Everything wasn’t better in the old days. You were just younger and had fewer responsibilities. I’m certainly not about to extol the virtues of cassettes any time soon, say. Apart from how they allowed you to easily make naughty copies of music you really shouldn’t have been making naughty copies of, tapes were dreadful. Their resurgence, unlike that of CDs, baffles me. Wired headphones, though, are different. They still have clear benefits over their wireless descendants that make them worth buying today.
Totally wired
Wired headphones are much simpler than wireless ones. Fewer fancy components means lower prices – and less to go wrong. The tech won’t suddenly become obsolete when Bluetooth 56 billion arrives, compelling everyone to lob their existing headphones into the recycling pile and buy swanky replacements that look suspiciously like their old ones. Nor are wired pervert earbuds likely to become a thing.
You also don’t need to charge wired headphones. That’s good for your green credentials and also for not looking like an idiot when you pop a wireless earbud in and take far too long to realise why nothing’s playing. Wired headphones also do away with lag – not an issue when listening to music and podcasts, but when playing games or making music, I don’t want a delay. There’s a reason I keep wired Sennheisers in reach of my iMac. It’s simultaneously disconcerting and irritating when sounds don’t keep up with your fingers as you prod away at a synth.
That’s not to say wired headphones are perfect. Due to Apple’s ‘courage’ and rivals pointing, laughing and then rushing to their photocopiers, not many devices now have headphone ports. So you’ll need a trip to dongle town or USB-C headphones. There’s also the non-zero chance a cable will throttle you when you least expect or rob five per cent of your working day as you untangle knots hitherto unknown to humanity, created approximately 11 picoseconds after you chucked your wired headphones into your bag.
I still won’t pick a side. Wired and wireless headphones each have their place. But if society one day demands the eradication of wired headphones in the name of courage, I may have to join Team Cables, because there’s nothing courageous about making perfectly good tech obsolete for the sake of it.
Lead image based on stock from IqbalStock (headphones) and Placidplace (silhouettes).
