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wired headphones (re: degrowther)

degrowther says:

Compared to their humble wired counterparts, wireless headphones are expensive, easy to lose, unreliable, and environmentally destructive. I understand that I have a biased sample, but the majority of headphone-wearing I see happens while people are working.

I completely agree. Wireless headsets are mostly shit. In fact, I'll go further and say that Bluetooth itself is a mistake. Wireless peripherals in general are too often expensive, too easily lost, often unreliable, and also environmentally destructive.

I prefer wired headphones, wired keyboards, wired mice/trackballs, etc. Also, wired headphones sound better with less latency. Also, if you're worried about exposure to RF emissions, boycotting Bluetooth will decrease your exposure.

Wireless game console controllers are another problem. Then again, the video game industry as a whole could be taken as a microcosm of everything that sucks about capitalism. Consoles are subject to planned obsolescence, perfectly good PCs get junked because the latest and greatest GPUs aren't compatible with old mainboards, and good luck playing old games if your only recourse is to download a bootleg copy and play it in an emulator.

I remember somebody whose capsule isn't around anymore writing that video games are just bullshit jobs on a pay-to-play model, and I can't help but suspect they're right.

degrowther also asks:

Do folks really have that many problems with tangled wires while typing at a desk all day?

I never had a problem with tangled cables. However, if I got up suddenly and forgot that I had my headphones on, it was very easy to violently yank the plug out of the jack. This eventually wears out the wires, and in one case broke the headphone jack itself. Not fun.

I once had a pair of Sennheiser headphones with replaceable wires; it would be nice if more headsets had replaceable wires so that if they did wear out you didn't have to throw out the whole headset.