Headphones advice needed

Rosa_Damascena

Cornucopia said:

Rosa_Damascena said:

Cornucopia said:

Rosa_Damascena said:

Cornucopia said:

donnajunkie said:

What is your opinion on the headphones in the opening post? Sony themselves have been reluctant to commit to saying they would serve my purpose.

Although I understand the technology, I'm not really an audiophile.   I listen to music most often through the car stereo and through my Amazon Echo Dot (which has a great sound, but only mono).  

I do have a set of JBL Bluetooth, noise cancelling headphones in a price bracket some way below the options you have been looking at.   (I paid £60).   Personally, I wouldn't spend mega money on a product that is going to probably have quite a hard life and may well end up getting broken or lost.  

@Cornucopia - which did you buy? I'm after a set Bluetooth headphone set. This is for telephony and is needed for upto 12 hours a day.

My current ones plug into the iPhone and work well, but are not expensive and shed their vinyl / plasticky coating all over my ears which looks horrid. I have a couple USB ones and these too work well, just incompatible with my phone which I intend to upgrade soon.

So really I need something reliable with a long battery life that doesn't shed. In truth I was looking to spend no more than £50 but seeing the prices on this thread is making my eyes water! 

They are "JBL E65BTNC On-Ear Wireless Headphones", but Argos don't have them any more.

They do have other JBL headphones from £40-£70, all of which look similar to mine.

Thank you! And just to confirm - they don't have the "shedding" problem I alluded to earlier? I'm fed up of going round like some kind of elf with pink glittery ears 

No.   Because they are black, not pink. 

Hilarious

Do they shed black matter, or any other colour on the spectrum?

Cornucopia

Rosa_Damascena said:

Cornucopia said:

Rosa_Damascena said:

Cornucopia said:

Rosa_Damascena said:

Cornucopia said:

donnajunkie said:

What is your opinion on the headphones in the opening post? Sony themselves have been reluctant to commit to saying they would serve my purpose.

Although I understand the technology, I'm not really an audiophile.   I listen to music most often through the car stereo and through my Amazon Echo Dot (which has a great sound, but only mono).  

I do have a set of JBL Bluetooth, noise cancelling headphones in a price bracket some way below the options you have been looking at.   (I paid £60).   Personally, I wouldn't spend mega money on a product that is going to probably have quite a hard life and may well end up getting broken or lost.  

@Cornucopia - which did you buy? I'm after a set Bluetooth headphone set. This is for telephony and is needed for upto 12 hours a day.

My current ones plug into the iPhone and work well, but are not expensive and shed their vinyl / plasticky coating all over my ears which looks horrid. I have a couple USB ones and these too work well, just incompatible with my phone which I intend to upgrade soon.

So really I need something reliable with a long battery life that doesn't shed. In truth I was looking to spend no more than £50 but seeing the prices on this thread is making my eyes water! 

They are "JBL E65BTNC On-Ear Wireless Headphones", but Argos don't have them any more.

They do have other JBL headphones from £40-£70, all of which look similar to mine.

Thank you! And just to confirm - they don't have the "shedding" problem I alluded to earlier? I'm fed up of going round like some kind of elf with pink glittery ears 

No.   Because they are black, not pink. 

Hilarious

Do they shed black matter, or any other colour on the spectrum?

No.

The only real issue with them is that when used with the cord, a certain amount of noise is transmitted somehow to the earpieces.   They are fine when used cordless.

tghe-retford

One thing to note for the future when it comes to wireless headphones is that they do have latency. You have to encode and decode the audio at the source and headphone and this takes time. Up to 150ms with SBC and that will be noticeable when watching TV using headphones as you will notice the audio lags behind the video.

I use noise cancelling headphones to cut out the noise from my next door neighbour who really should be using headphones for their TV and music. I got myself an AptX Low Latency transmitter and a pair of AptX Low Latency headphones which lowers the latency to 40ms and the latency becomes imperceptible. There is also its successor, AptX Adaptive but there are very few devices that use it at the moment. I would warn about looking for "low latency" because I have seen listings that state that and it refers to AptX (which has slightly better latency compared to SBC), not its low latency counterpart.

I do have some Sennheiser PXC-550 II and HD-350 BT headphones and it seems Sennheiser ones have a software issue with AptX Low Latency where the audio will keep popping and crackling every second. Even replacement PXC-550 II's did not prove the original ones were physically defective.

As I found with DAB pocket radios and the important concept of sensitivity, it seems the vast majority of people don't care about latency with wireless headphones and it really is a case of buyer beware.

Rosa_Damascena

tghe-retford said:

One thing to note for the future when it comes to wireless headphones is that they do have latency. You have to encode and decode the audio at the source and headphone and this takes time. Up to 150ms with SBC and that will be noticeable when watching TV using headphones as you will notice the audio lags behind the video.

I use noise cancelling headphones to cut out the noise from my next door neighbour who really should be using headphones for their TV and music. I got myself an AptX Low Latency transmitter and a pair of AptX Low Latency headphones which lowers the latency to 40ms and the latency becomes imperceptible. There is also its successor, AptX Adaptive but there are very few devices that use it at the moment. I would warn about looking for "low latency" because I have seen listings that state that and it refers to AptX (which has slightly better latency compared to SBC), not its low latency counterpart.

I do have some Sennheiser PXC-550 II and HD-350 BT headphones and it seems Sennheiser ones have a software issue with AptX Low Latency where the audio will keep popping and crackling every second. Even replacement PXC-550 II's did not prove the original ones were physically defective.

As I found with DAB pocket radios and the important concept of sensitivity, it seems the vast majority of people don't care about latency with wireless headphones and it really is a case of buyer beware.

I care about latency if it means my sound is catching up with my VCs. The delay of 150ms doesn't sound a lot but I do expect stuff to work immediately and not have to catch up with me.

Am going with an inexpensive pair and I shan't be disappointed as long as they do the job.