I don’t think the writer has them on hand - this is a news article not a review.
Comment on Fairbuds are Fairphone’s proof that we really could make better tiny gadgets
trebuchet@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
This article seems to omit the most important fact about headphones - how do they sound?
I love repairability and all, but it hardly matters if I don’t want to use them in the first place because they traded off too much quality for repairability.
whereisk@lemmy.world 2 months ago
OrkneyKomodo@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
Codec support is a bit of a bummer. Otherwise I would have bought them.
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Isn’t the codec for headphones just meant to handle the communication between the headphones and device while the device can handle transcoding from the input codec to the output codec?
Or do you mean the quality of the codecs supported puts an upper limit on sound quality?
iturnedintoanewt@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Some more recent bluetooth codecs (such as LDAC or aptX) are better ahead in audio compression, which given bluetooth’s limited bandwidth (and given than higher bandwidth usage means also more battery consumption), is something to keep in mind at all stages. In general, bluetooth audio quality is quite a mess of codec negotiations that happen mostly transparently to the user when an earphone connects. When a call is placed and the headset needs to also send audio besides receiving it, further codec changes are negotiated on the spot, prioritizing latency vs quality. Here’s a quick (kinda) guide to the most common bluetooth codecs any given audio device might use: whathifi.com/…/what-are-the-best-bluetooth-codecs…
stoly@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I’m also confused here. I’d have thought that any format decoding would happen on the phone.
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Bluetooth does use compression to get higher quality sound out of the relatively low bandwidth (vs what a wire carrying an analog signal can handle, which is continuous in both time and amplitude domains, so effectively infinite sample rate and bit depth, though it’s limited by what the DAC can put out as well as what the recording ADC (and/or mixing software) picked up in the first place.
There’s a set of codecs in the Bluetooth standard and devices don’t have to support every codec in that list (iirc some are proprietary and need to be licensed, plus more support requires more circuitry or firmware if it’s decoded by a programmable decoder). I’m guessing that’s what they are talking about but asked in case they did mean they thought not seeing mp3 and flac on the list meant they can’t listen to songs encoded in those format.
Jax@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Biggest complaints I’ve seen aren’t with sound quality, it’s with the noise cancelling being bad and the shape of the ear cups (the latter could have just been the shape of that user’s ears were the problem).
Mind you, these were reviews from Fairbud XLs released about a year ago. Things could have improved or gotten worse in that time, in any way. I can’t tell you for sure.
That said, I don’t think it makes sense to correlate focusing on repairability and quality of the product going down. I actually went out and found the reviews I’m referencing simply because the concept is absurd and I needed to know for sure.
Always keep in mind what you say online, Poe’s law is forever in effect.
trebuchet@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
Nah I wasn’t being sarcastic.
As I understand it, in engineering these types of mobile space constrained devices you essentially have a “budget” of space. Every hardware feature you include generally eats into this budget and if you want things to be user accessible or repairable it eats into this budget majorly.
That budget has to come from somewhere, so you can pay it with things like reducing the size of your battery or reducing the size of your drivers which in turn represents a reduction in sound quality.
maynarkh@feddit.nl 2 months ago
I am not a huge sound nerd, but I own a pair of these buds and had to take them out at a busy railway station because it was weirdly quiet and couldn’t hear the trains. I think the noise-cancelling is great.
I also own an XL pair, and I have two complaints:
I have a big head, and it puts some pressure on the thing as clamps on my head, I’ve broken two of the little plastic parts between the pads and the top arch so far. It was from material exhaustion, they snapped. Silver lining was it was super easy to swap out, literally 20 seconds with only a screwdriver and a single screw, and I got their customer support to send me a replacement part in a week both times.
I hear odd noises when I try to use it when plugged in and charging. I suspect it might have to do with Windows, but still. It’s barely usable, but the charge lasts long enough to make me not care.
Guajojo@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Lol sound is not the selling point for any of those pods. Portability is the name of the game
OneWomanCreamTeam@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
They’re not gonna sound as good as real, over ear headphones. But there’s still a pretty wide sound quality spectrum for ear buds.
Xanis@lemmy.world 2 months ago
They’re almost all small. You’re a bit off center too.
Sylvartas@lemmy.world 2 months ago
They’re headphones. They sound ok at best.
shea@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
What a lame answer. Are you this lame in real life? There’s OBVIOUSLY a HUGE spectrum of quality for iems, WHAT are you talking about? It’s a valid question on the ops part. You wanted to be snobby but it’s just a bad take that reveals how judgdy and smug and completely out of touch you are. Nobody thinks of you as cool, you don’t have friends IRL, I hope your dog dies. I hate the internet fuck you you’re the straw that broke the camels back. Would be a pretty cool place if people like you weren’t in it.
PoolloverNathan@programming.dev 2 months ago
Is— is this a Lemmy copypasta?
TJDetweiler@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
LOL
Sylvartas@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Personally I don’t really give a fuck about headphones quality unless it’s particularly shitty, because if I want quality I’m using one of my headsets (preferably one that doesn’t use Bluetooth), but ok.
Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It is probably the completely unnecessary condescending tone of your comment.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
headphones… headset
Perhaps we have different definitions of those words. Imo, a headset is over-hear (or on-ear) headphones + mic, like you’d see in a call center. Sometimes they only have a speaker on one side, and they’re tuned for speech, not music or general listening.
Headphones, on the other hand, are any kind of speakers you wear on your head. They’re usually on ear or over ear since in-ear is typically further distinguished by the term earbuds.
Headphones are usually the better sounding of the three. My Bluetooth headphones (Sony over-ear cans) sound way better than any earbuds I’ve used, and my wired headphones (AKG cans) are a bit better than that.
twig@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
I get what you’re saying, kind of…
But also, most modern earbuds usually sound quite good. Quality in general has become such a bizarre moving target, but here’s my take: We’ve become so used to constant improvement at the expense of satisfaction. I can barely notice the difference between 1080p and 4k. In my mind they’re both “good quality” and therefore I’m satisfied. Same goes for audio quality. I’ve used a few pairs of earbuds and they have sounded “good.”
As a culture, we need to stop with throwing away of perfectly good devices, because it’s extremely harmful to the planet’s occupants.
TJDetweiler@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
1080p and 4k isn’t really a fair comparison for great earbuds and shit earbuds in my opinion. The comparison there is like 4k and 480p. There is a massive difference between the 2. I have had $30 earbuds that you couldn’t listen to a podcast on, and I currently have $250+ Bose earbuds that are fucking amazing for just about everything.
Unless of course you’re saying that these earbuds are in fact “1080p” quality. In which case, fair point. I have yet to see someone who’s actually used these and commented on the sound quality though. What I’ve seen from fairphone products is they are consumer friendly at the expense of quality.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 2 months ago
My wife had some Logitech headphones that for some godforsaken reason were operating in some voice only ultra low bitrate by default. I mean, they weren’t fantastic even after I fixed that, but the quality was unbelievably low, like somebody making a phone call from the moon, and how she’d put up with it for nearly a year I’d no idea. I only found out after I noticed her swapping between a wired set for general use and wireless for Discord.
AnyOldName3@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Some Bluetooth controllers can’t handle the bandwidth required for sound input and output at the same time unless it’s at very low quality, and if Windows suspects such a device is in use, it defaults to the low quality mode as users are more likely to be able to tolerate it than tolerate their headphones not working at all. It’s overly cautious, though, and uses the low quality mode far more than it has to.
Mango@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I’ve got the Soundcore Liberty Pro 2 and the Soundpeats H1. Neither of them come close to my HD598. What are the modem earbuds that sound good?
Chadus_Maximus@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Moondrop DUSK
Mango@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Yo that has a cable.