5 reasons why I can’t switch to wireless headphones

I’ve been listening to music on the go since the 1990s, with many fond memories of long bus and plane rides with my Discman and headphones listening to my favorite tracks. It’s been interesting to see the general move toward wireless headphones, and as someone whose wires often get tangled, I can’t deny the convenience. Despite all this, the various quirks of wireless headphones, from finicky Bluetooth connections to disappointing batteries, keep me from ditching my wired headphones altogether.

The problem with relatively simple technologies is that they tend to be a little easier to manage. Yes, wired headphones can get tangled in your bag, but a stiff, unpowered connection still ensures you’ll have your music when you want it, and that’s more than I can say about some less-than-stellar wireless pairs I’ve put up with over the years. Even if I use a pair of wireless headphones, I at least need an audio jack in case their wireless connection fails me and I find myself in boring silence. Maybe that’s why wired headphones are becoming cool again (although they never stopped being cool for me).

If you have the best audiophile-grade wireless earbuds on the market, with the latest and greatest technology, you’ll likely get pretty consistent performance and sound quality. However, I don’t own the best wireless earbuds on the market and it’s unrealistic to assume that everyone owns one. Instead, whenever I use a pair of wireless earbuds, it’s usually a mid-range model with a few distinctive quirks.

Low- to mid-range wireless earbuds may not have the best internal audio software, which means the audio they play from a source like your smartphone may experience packet loss and latency. In practical terms, your music doesn’t sound as good as it otherwise could, and you might experience skips and fades as it tries to keep up with the flow of data. I tried using cheap wireless headphones instead of my wired pair and noticed a tangible drop in the quality of my music, even though my wired pair doesn’t have the best speakers. Again, you could solve this problem with high-end wireless headphones, but if the solution is to “spend more money on it”, that’s not really a solution.

Bluetooth, for the most part, is a pretty reliable connection format, especially compared to its rise in the early 2000s. If your phone is right next to your headphones, the connection should ideally remain stable. Unfortunately, the “ideal state”, in my experience, is not the usual state of consumer electronics. Forcing yourself to connect your headphones to a source exclusively via wireless only introduces possibilities for frustration and failure.

I’ve had many instances where I connected wireless headphones to my phone and tried to enjoy my music, with my phone no further from my pocket than my hand, only to have my Bluetooth connection suddenly and randomly drop out. Then I would have to take my phone out of my pocket, unlock it, open my settings, go to the Bluetooth menu and reconnect the headphones. Granted, it’s not the end of the world to have to do some tapping, but if I had been using my wired headphones, I wouldn’t have even had to do that much, because wired headphones don’t give out like that at all.

I don’t claim to be the most organized person in the world, but I usually remember pretty well where I put my gadgets. However, for some inexplicable reason, wireless headphones continue to elude me. Even though I swear by putting them with my laptop or travel bag, when I look inside right before a trip, they’re gone without a trace. This is compared to my wired headphones which, although they are essentially the same size and shape, always stay where I leave them, perhaps thanks to their cords, which give them a more distinctive profile. In addition to regular over-ear headphones, organization is an even bigger issue for me with wireless headphones. If I don’t always remember to put them back in their charging case and put that case in an obvious place like my nightstand, they’ll disappear every time.

I think the reason I didn’t lose my headphones as often as a kid was because they were always plugged directly into my Discman. Wherever they went, the headphones went, and as a cohesive unit, they were much harder to lose. The same now applies to my wired headphones, whether I use them with my phone or my PC.

One of the most important differentiating factors between wired and wireless headphones is that while the former receive power directly from their audio source via their cord, the latter have their own batteries. In theory, it’s better for your overall power savings, because your phone or music player doesn’t need to carry the load from your headphones, and a dedicated power source also allows for additional features like noise cancellation. However, this all depends on the capacity of the battery in question, and this is not always the case.

While the precise battery life of your wireless earbuds will vary depending on how much you use them and for how long, in my most common use cases of long-distance traveling and taking phone calls, the battery doesn’t give me much to work with. After just a few hours of relatively normal use, I’m already out of vapor. Even though wired headphones place a slightly greater load on your source device, at least the device in question is likely better equipped to handle that load. There’s also a slight psychological aspect here: I worry that if I use my wireless earbuds too much, I won’t have enough charge when I really need them, so I leave them aside out of worry. This kind of defeats the purpose.

Speaking of battery life, the other end of this equation is the need to recharge your wireless earbuds when returning from a trip. The problem, and this is one of my most consistent pet peeves with wireless earbuds, is that most pairs don’t seem to come with their own dedicated charger. You might get a tiny USB cord to plug into your phone or PC if you’re lucky, but if you just want to plug it into the wall like you would any other portable device, you either have to hope you have a compatible, unused charger in your junk drawer or just constantly siphon power from another device.

Plus, and you could probably attribute this to the fact that I grew up exclusively with wired headphones, I often forget to charge my wireless headphones. I remember to charge my phone when I get home, because its charger has an obvious dedicated slot on my desk, but charging my headphones just doesn’t cross my mind until it’s already a problem. I admit this is more of a problem for me, but in all honesty, if I was using my wired pair it wouldn’t even be an issue.