On a recent post, there were a lot of comments, which said that they were missing the headphones on newer mobile devices.
How many actually use the headphone jack?
I ask, because I have one on my phone, since I really wanted one, but I rarely use it. Like Tops 1/Month.
People like having choice, it was never about saving space in phones. I like my wired bose headphones that I’ve had for 15 years and will likely last at least 15 more. Those wireless ones are the definition of planned obsolescence.
Exactly this. It is about choice. I have a wireless phone and use a wireless headphones because my big wired headphones were too bulky for commute anyways. I still like to use my nice headphones at the computer. The experience is nicer. But despite having the top of the line wireless headphones for the phone, I can see how they are not gonna last the whole phone’s life. The phone isn’t any slimmer anyway, but it’s allegedly water proof.
Also bluetooth fucking sucks for lack of a better phrase.
9/10 times it connects fine, but then every now and then it just refuses. “What? No I don’t exist” and then you have to either restart bluetooth and/or the device, and then it magically works again.
Also, I quite often get stuttering with it. Not sure if it is my phone or headphones or both at fault, but I would like having an audio jack when I am sitting at the desk
People like having choices. Bring hdmi ports to phones.
C to HDMI doesn’t sound that bad, so just have 3-5 USB-C ports on the phone.
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People like having choice, it was never about saving space in phones.
If you look at which company (apple) and the time of removal of headphone jack (around the time their wireless buds were announced), you’ll notice they removed choice so the consumer can only buy more expensive wireless buds, or many many dongles.
The “save space” is an absolute lie. The international (EU, Asia, etc) version of the iPhone has a dedicated SIM card tray. The US model? No tray, just a freakin placeholder where the international version has the SIM tray. Yes, there is a volume of space that can fit 2 headphone jacks on the US iPhone that is just empty.
Look at this iFixit video where they call apple out on it. The placeholder is huge. at ~1:17+
You do realise that making a post like this makes wired users more likely to reply? I use wired daily, wireless too big and stuffy.
Good argument. But isn’t that always the case when asking if ppl are / aren’t into a topic? A person, who is invested in the topic is way more likely to reply. I agree with you, but I don’t know how I could’ve avoided said issue.
You can’t really avoid it in any easy way. If you could, the field of statistics would get a decent amount simpler. The only way to deal with the bias is with a survey pulled from random people, which you can’t really do easily here.
But this one will have a lot of bias, all the same.
Reducing bias is tricky.
You want engagement from a. Mobile users who b. Use headphones c. With their phone, and the type of headphone connection is the end goal.
“How often do you use headphones with your phone, and are they wired/wireless” is clonky, but gets everything out there without too much leading. People more awake than me can help more.
*I use wired $9 shitty earbuds, daily. The Bluetooth ones are nice, but I lose them and the battery life sucks, and it’s a hassle.
You know I think the way you eliminate that is less by relying on the frequency of use, and more by relying on the merits of the argument being had itself. A good part of this is gonna be calculated on whether or not the tradeoff of having an aux jack is worth it. For the consumer, this is needlessly stupid and there are like no phones now that have one, you have a limited selection and that sucks, but in terms of the actual core technology I really can’t see why you wouldn’t have one. The idea that it wastes the 2cm3 of space is kind of a poor argument, imo, when we’ve been switching from palm sized phones with bezels and home buttons, to phones that now stick out of my sweatpants pockets and have hole punch cameras and like four cameras on the back and somehow have less features. None of the market makes a lick of sense, right now, it all seems like manufactured demand and monopoly to me.
Airpods are too big and stuffy?
I think people who dislike the headphone jack must be young and not have (good) wired headphones.
Older people (older than teenagers and young adults I mean) often have a few pairs of good headphones they got over the years, and it’s a massive waste to just throw them away and buy wireless because that’s what the trends demand. And in most cases wireless won’t sound as good, because the budget needs to go to bluetooth chips, and dacs, and batteries and all that crap, instead of just focusing on audio.According to Wikipedia, ‘The original 1⁄4 inch (6.35 mm) version descends from as early as 1877’, and it’s been an industry standard since then.
You can use it not just for headphones but as a line out, to connect all kinds of audio devices between them. You can hook up your phone to a car audio system, an old radio (if it has input, I think most do), a guitar pedal or an amplifier, a reverb or an effects unit, etc., just with the “magic” of wires.Removed by mod
I have gone too far in the headphone hobby and have exited the nice middle zone where the headphone jack has value. It can’t power my headphones and my phone has no systemwide EQ so there would be no point anyway.
Some people in the headphones sub talked about using qudelix 5k to power it if you wanted mobile but at that point the jack becomes useful only for charging while listening (admittedly useful!). I don’t really think compromise free mobile listening works though, if you have good wired headphones they are fairly likely to be open back already. For those people, a midrange priced Bluetooth Focal Bathys is probably as good as investment as any other closed back for mobile.
Hence why I believe the headphone jack is for those in the middle of the pack: they have closed back wired headphones that are good enough to not want to use Bluetooth, but not headphones too difficult to power or a strong preference for EQ. Which is a ton of people to be fair. I only commented here cause you said “people who dislike the headphone jack must not have good wired headphones,” but I have several and don’t need a headphone jack in my phone. I’m aware that those in my position are a very small portion of the population and agree with most of what you said, just wanted to provide a different perspective.
Oh also, if you’re using an adapter for 1/4” to 1/8”, may as well just use a USB-C or lightning adapter. 1/4 or 2.5mm balanced and a shitload of power would actually make a phone jack useful for my case though!
I have very decent wired headphones, but it helped that when I bought my S21 Samsung gave me some Buds+ for free, and then I was able to get a pair of Buds Pro for $20 (likely a price error on their site) and I also have some Bose QC35 that I got with airline miles
Also when I exercise I cannot use wired at all. I upgraded to Bluetooth as soon as they were affordable
Now my wired headphones live in my Nintendo switch case
I do. Everyday.
Same. Everyday.
Same, though not quite every day, but every time I get in my car.
I use the headphone jack every single day, both with my headphones and with an audio-in cable for my car.
I’d be lost without it.
Also, I’ve tried Bluetooth headsets and they’ve all died on me for various reasons. I want relatively high quality headphones, and whether they’re wired or wireless, good sound tends to cost more. But I don’t want to spend more on something that will die quickly, so it’s wired headphones for me.
a cheap external DAC typically sounds better and has more power than the ones built into phones with a headphone jack. If you actually care about the audio quality from your phone then a DAC is more practical.
Oh cool! Another Thing. I love how many of my minor problems are solved just by buying another Thing. My home is now a perfect curation of all Things I own to fix my minor problems. Do you need a little more power from your headphone jack? Get this Thing! Keep it with you; it’s not much help after you lose it. What’s that? You don’t even listen at full volume using the jack? Don’t you understand. It sounds slightly better. You idiots won’t know headroom if came up and bit you on the face.
In short, I kinda like my built-in headphone jack.
Since you mentioned the “power” of an external DAC I’ll add that my experience has been that android will still limit the output unless you use an app that works directly with the DAC. Last time I checked the only option was paid.
Well the problem is that a DAC doesn’t have any power to it at all. What you are thinking of is an amplifier, which a lot of portable DAC units have in them, but not all of them do. For example, the DAC/AMP I have is the iFi iDSD Black Label, which has its own Amp that is controlled through an analog dial.
If your unit doesn’t have its own volume controls then it is likely just a DAC with no Amp, meaning you are limited to the power output of your source.
No - I know the difference between a DAC and an amp. The Android (or, maybe it’s just Google Pixel devices, I can’t recall) audio subsystem limits audio output. My phone max. output is about 800mV. I believe they assume all output is going to earphones and they’re trying to protect your hearing. This happens even if you’re using a USB DAC. But, there is an app called USB Audio Player PRO (the may be others) that can bypass the Android audio subsystem and send output directly to the DAC and thereby get the full DAC output - typically around 2V.
You may know the difference between a DAC and Amp, but you clearly don’t understand what I’m trying to say. I’m saying that a DAC doesn’t have its own power output. It literally takes a digital signal, and converts it to analog. In order for it to add any power to the signal, it needs to include an amplifier. Otherwise, the signal will always be a little bit weaker due to the power loss from traveling through the DAC. Most DAC units have at least a weak amplifier for this reason, but there are some units that are just a DAC. And the Amp part isn’t going to be controlling the digital volume, i.e. changing the system volume on your device. It will operate on its own volume control, so regardless of how limited the output is from your phone, it will still be made louder as it amplifies the volume independently of the phone. A unit that is just a DAC doesn’t have any way to amplify the signal it receives, so it will never be able to make it louder.
You said explicitly that the android system will limit the output of any DAC, but that is wrong on multiple counts. The android system will not limit the output of a DAC because a DAC itself just 1:1 outputs an analog signal converted from a digital source so there is nothing to limit. The android system will also not limit the output from an Amplifier because it literally is not capable of that. That’s like saying your water faucet can limit how hot your water can get when you boil it on the stove. An Amp increases the power of the signal after it has already left the phone.
I suggest you learn about the difference between line level and speaker level. This article seems to do a decent job:
https://www.electronicshub.org/speaker-level-vs-line-level/
Your boiling water analogy does not fit - water boils at 100°C (depending on air pressure). It’s like the digital signal - boiled/not-boiled, on/off, 1/0, etc.
The output of a DAC (Digital to Analogue Converter) is a line level analogue signal and this signal has an amplitude (voltage) that can be controlled. I’m not a software or audio engineer so I don’t understand how, but my reading and own testing supports this.
My own simple test: I have a Google Pixel 4a and an Apple USB-C DAC (dongle). If I use headphones connected to either the phone audio jack or the DAC and any “normal” music player I can listen at full volume - it’s loud, but far from uncomfortable. If I use USB Audio Player PRO and configure direct hardware access to the DAC I cannot listen at full volume - it’s too loud.
I would use it, IF I HAD ONE
Almost every day. For a while I had a pair of decent wireless headphones, but they broke and I haven’t had money to spare for new ones.
I also use it daily. I bought a cheap aux to bt adapter for my car so I could wirelessly play music but it’s not as good as just plugging it in directly. And it’s an extra dongle thing to worry about.
I really just wanted to do Bluetooth because it’s slightly more convenient, and when I’m charging my phone while it’s plugged into aux there’s a bit of a whine over my music. But having the option to do aux when I want is important to me personally
Everyday. No jack, no buy.
What headphones jack! There’s no headphone jacks anymore! They got rid of it because apple wanted to sell air pods!
God damnit!
No replaceable batteries, he SD card slots no headphone jack! Nothing!
(I am aware that there are still phones out there with headphones jacks but they’re either really low end or from a smaller manufacturer like Asus that don’t really sell at T-Mobile which is my service provider)
I still prefer and regularly use wired headphones. More specifically, 100% of the time on my phone, and about 25% of the time on my tablet. I probably listen to audio on my phone a couple of hours a week. So not a ton, but equally also a fair amount.
Use to, until my new phone no longer had one. I miss my corded headphones.
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I use wired headphones every day. I always used my headphone jack.
My latest phone doesn’t have one, so I have to use a dongle to convert USB C to jack. I’ve looked at USB wired headphones but they just integrate the dongle and the choices are limited.
I much prefer wired in-ear headphones when I’m out of the house, versus larger over ear Bluetooth headphones at home.
Wired headphones are super convenient as they don’t need charging, are cheap and easily replaced, give good quality audio because the technology is simple and analogue (converting now loses that benefit), and are convenient as I can pop them in and out, hang them round my ears and don’t worry too much about losing them as they’re on wires.
It pisses me off 3.5mm audio jacks are disappearing - just to save phone manufacturers money or to make devices pointlessly thinner. Phones need a minimum heft and thickness to be comfortable to hold; I feel like they’re chasing pointless design goals now at the cost of what the customer actually wants/needs.
And wireless audio can be annoying when you have interference with Bluetooth, or the device runs out of battery, or are just more expensive so you worry about losing or breaking them.
It’s enshitification in the phone space.
increase the depth of the back of the phone so there is no camera bump. then use the additional volume for more battery and a headphone jack. geez
