We used to have earbuds that don't need to be charged because they had a headphone jack, didn't get lost so easily because they had a cord attached to a headphone jack, never lost the bluetooth connection because they had a headphone jack, and they cost less because they had a headphone jack. https://bsky.app/profile/daisyfm.bsky.social/post/3l3mfjc6sn62k
I didn't believe the hype about wireless headphones until I bought some with noise cancelling and all that for around $130.
Pros:
1 - You don't realize how "tethered" you feel on older headphones until you really try to use wireless headphones. There's a certain freedom you feel when you realize you can place your phone on a hotel table but lie down in bed.
2 - Noise cancelling and noise passthrough is a transformative experience when travelling or find yourself abroad. Airports are much easier to feel relaxed in when 80% of the noise or so can be filtered out as you wait for your flight to board. Additionally, the flight experience is less annoying (no engine drone gets through, even passengers can mostly be ignored) but you still have the option for pass through if someone absolutely needs to talk to you.
3 - Many of these headphones come with some kind of EQ feature, which can occasionally mean that you get speakers with more tunability and thus slightly better bang-for-buck that works globally across apps.
4 - Audio quality. Since these are expensive drivers, you're often going to get better sound quality than those cheap 30 dollar throw aways were ever going to give.
Cons:
1 - Latency. These things could never be used in professional audio situations other than listening to a pre-rendered song for quality judgements. I don't thing gaming would be nice with these either, even if I've tried (and failed) to play counter strike on these on occasion to keep noise levels down.
2 - Mic quality of the built in is lacking on my particular headphones (Sennheiser CX Plus). They're really only intended to capture the outdoor for noise cancellation IMO, not the greatest for calls or recordings. They're servicable, but it's the area I'd like the most upgrade (and it would probably improve noise cancellation features as well.)
3 - Environmental / Sustainability Concerns: Other than people just "losing" these devices with built in batteries that are bad for the environment being a problem in and of itself, there are other long-standing concerns I have about these devices. They often require proprietary non-open software to configure, meaning if the software gets delisted, you will no longer be able to configure them until someone comes up with some kind of alternative using reverse engineering (good luck). Batteries are likely to degrade over time, meaning you'll eventually end up with a worthless ear bud on the left or right and the only solution will be to throw them out. These things are often pretty bad scoring on repairability metrics, and I can't even blame the companies producing them here because they're so small.
4 - Despite passthrough being a feature, it's hard to convey to people that you can actually hear them through the device. There should be some kind of blinking light on the outside that indicates that passthrough is enabled or something.
So I actually do love these devices, but #3 of the cons is really the biggest real issue I have with them. If they're going to cost over 100 dollars, I would like to know that these things won't just become ewaste in the same way that cheap crappy wired headphones end up being as well (which sea life often chokes on or gets tangled up in.) If they costs a premium, I would really like to know that they aren't a figurative dead end when they eventually fail.
4 - Audio quality. Since these are expensive drivers, you’re often going to get better sound quality
Heheheheheheh
No.
Bluetooth bitrate is like 328kbps, which is absolute and total garbage mp3 quality. If you're on Bluetooth, you aren't even getting CD quality. We're going backwards so far.
It’s a bit more complicated than that. There are multiple codecs available (some with much higher bitrates), but even in AAC (which I assume you are referring to) there are different implementations. Also note that 328kbps is not “garbage mp3”, 128kbps CBR was the common (and shit) variant that you probably meant. But more modern codecs achieve much better fidelity at lower bitrates even.
328kbps is absolutely horrid and nowhere close to CD quality (1411 kbps). Good quality audio is over 6000 kbps.
328kbps in a lossy format is plenty. You might be one of those people who claim to hear the difference, but to date we are yet to see a double blind trial where a substantial percentage of individuals reliably could demonstrate such ability.
328 kbps is nowhere near enough. 1411 kbps .wav is the minimum I'll listen to, even on my phone.
24 bit 96kHz is optimal, but I can't hear any difference going higher than that.
As someone who uses FLAC for all of my audio needs, yeah I agree that Bluetooth bitrate is pretty bad (and often uses the lower quality.)
But this image is basically claiming that "cheap passive" plug-ins are superior to the more expensive bluetooth ones. That's simply not true. My experience with those have basically always been bad, so I'm not a big fan of ear buds to begin with over headphones. I don't take the person in the image that OP posted is all that worried about lossless (or even high quality lossy) and is more concerned with money to value. So while the analogue audio out can be high quality, you're simply not benefitting from it if you buy any sub $100 earbuds where the EQ profiles are all trash. And if you're going to spend over $100, at that point you may as well go for the bluetooth connected for all of the other pros mentioned.
I am a firm believer that super-high-quality seekers already know what they want: Over the ear cans that deliver awesome sound and have noise cancelling by their sealed design. They were never the people buying throw away headphones anyway. That's basically why I said that they're great but certainly not for anyone who wants to do professional audio (unless for sound testing what normal humans are likely to hear, ofc.)
edit: Oh and, just to be clear, I think every phone should have a headphone jack as well because the option for analogue is important! I wouldn't say I'm 100% thrilled with less options, mind you.