Don’t get me wrong. Apple removing audio jack was the biggest facepalm in smartphone history. And you can thank it for not being able to make an upgrade without sacrificing audio jack (and SD card too :/). But USB-C is getting standardized everywhere now (laptops, smartphones, etc.). What makes USB-C earphones not worth the switch?
USB-C is getting standardized everywhere now
3.5 mm has been a standard from the motherfisting 1950s
My laptop has exactly one USB-C port. It’s on the back and it’s the one port that directly connects to the GPU so slightly better performance if I use that with my external monitor. The audio jack on the side is much more convenient to use. Strike 1.
It is honestly pretty rare for me to listen to something on my phone. The rare times I do use my headphones with my phone it’s because something took out my internet while I was in a voice chat and I just unplug the headset from my laptop and plug into my phone to take my friends with me on whatever adventure it takes to investigate. Strike 2.
I already have a perfectly good headset with 3.5mm. Getting a whole new headset or even an adapter just feels like extra added cost for no real gain. Strike 3.
Bonus round. I can plug a 3.5mm headset into my Nintendo Switch while it’s docked. Can’t do that with USB-C. It’s an odd thing to mention, but I have made use of that enough times to bring up.
Bonus bonus round. I have tried giving bluetooth a chance, but every time I’m massively let down. Initially things sound fine, then the moment I connect to a voice chat it’s like I’m listening through water or something. Maybe it’s the bluetooth headsets in my price range or maybe it’s just bluetooth not being good in general but I can’t work with that. I have a hard time with my hearing. I need people to be as clear as possible and I know for sure I get that with a wired headset.
Because I can’t charge my phone and use the headphones at the same time. Only 1 USB-C port on my phone.
When companies began to drop the audio jack I was annoyed, but I figured I could just buy a converter. Which would be great if there were a universal standard for connecting audio through a USB C. There isn’t. There aren’t even just two competing approaches. There are all kinds of different setups that sometimes vary even within a single brand.
I found multiple adapter that said it supported my phone brand. It didn’t work. I looked deeper and found some advice on adapters that would work with more recent phone. I bought one based on that and it worked, sort of. The audio quality was not great and it would occasionally just cut out for a second. My third try got me an adapter that work reliably, but the audio quality is still mediocre. My best headphones are all analog, but I have to use Bluetooth with my phone because it provides better audio.
The physical issues, particularly the connectors, guarantees that USB C will never work as well. The lack of standards for implementing it make finding compatible hardware a nightmare. And if you manage to get everything else figured out you end up with the kind of sound you can hear from an audio jack using a $5 set of earbuds. It provides no benefits to the user, only to the manufacturer.
And just when you have everything setup with USB-C, here comes the new connection standard, USB-D. Eliminating the audio jack is about planned obsolesce.
Because it sucks and the 3.5mm jack is better. Manufacturers should be forced to include it or pay a punitive fee calculated to far outweigh the savings of not including the jack, perhaps $5,000 per individual unit manufactured.
It’s about saving space, not money. The jack is relatively large compared to other smartphone components. It’s bigger than a USB-C port, for one, when you consider the volume and not just the width.
I have a hard time accepting that argument with the camera islands on every phone now.
It is never about saving space, it’s about saving costs.
It’s never been about saving, it’s been about selling airpods.
i don’t even use headphones, however I don’t like buying new things that have less features then my old things, so I keep buying phones that have both sd slot and a 3.5mm jack…
however i had to give up 2 sims + sd in my latest phone… Combined slots are such a stupid idea (1 sim + sd/2 sims)I love USB-C for charging and data and display. But it does not replace 3.5mm. Aside from the things mentioned so far in the comments here, a fundamental problem is that now headphones need DACs in them.
The engineering specification states that an analog headset shall not use a USB-C plug instead of a 3.5 mm plug. In other words, headsets with a USB-C plug should always support digital audio (and optionally the accessory mode)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB-C#Audio_Adapter_Accessory_Mode
That increases the cost of headphones and introduces a point of failure and makes things more complicated for the end user. It’s just not worth it.
I haven’t seen a single phone that has more than one USB-C port, and I would like to listen to stuff while these these phones charge their miniscule batteries.
Asus ROG Phone 5 and newer has two usb-c ports.
LMAO. They got rid of headphone jack to “save space” and then replaced it with bigger USB C connector
Because all USB C to 3.5mm Aux adapters are flimsy as mother fuckers that break down after two months use. I would not even care otherwise, I never charge and listen at same time anyway.
If anyone has suggestions for adapter that is not made out of thinnest possible wire and is durable, let me know.
Also, I don’t want to buy USB-C headphones, since I would only use those with my phone, I want to use them also on other devices, and for compatibility it is better to have it analog instead of USB-C. If I were to buy headphones for phone only, I would just get wireless.
I often have use cases at work where I have to plug in my headphones to device I am not familiar with, for audio troubleshooting at our customers device. Most of the times USB is not an option, only standard analog audio.
Modern laptops also come with way too few USB ports, 2.0 and C combined, so I rather not waste one for audio since there is no reason for audio to go through USB. On my main PC I don’t use my internal soundcard but external audio interface for music production, and I want my headphones connected to that, not USB.
So in conclusion, USB-C headphones would be totally worthless to me, no matter the device. Even for phone, I rather go with adapter, or just wireless ones.
Another reason I discovered recently. I work at home on a company laptop. Can’t do shit with it so I listen to music via my phone or personal desktop. I tried using Bluetooth gear but realised quickly that if someone called me on teams/Skype or whatever, switching device with Bluetooth is tedious and slow. Wired stuff goes out and in, boom. Oh and none of my computer’s have a usb c port despite one being fairly new (2021).
It seems like you are assuming that the only device that I want to use headphones with is my phone.
I’m a musician. I’ve got tons of audio equipment I’ve accumulated over decades, most of which use a typical analog headphone jack. So if I fully switched to USB-C or Bluetooth headphones, I would need to get a powered adapter of some kind that would then digitize what likely would have been a purely analog signal up until that point, just so it can be re-converted back to analog.
Or I could have sperate headphones just for my phone. Which seems silly.
So I took the 3rd option: got a phone with a headphone jack. The Xperia still has a micro SD card too.
Also I have dabbled in soldering circuits and doing basic repairs. I can easily replace most analog jacks and repair most cables. USB C… It’s possible, and I will try to learn to work with it eventually, but it’s always going to be more annoying to work with because it has many more, smaller pins.
Because it needs an extra dongle that isn’t free and most headphones use an ordinary audio jack.
Charging while listening.
And above all, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
Exactly, most headphones that I like are wired with an ordinary audio jack. I don’t really feel inclined to get new headphones for a new phone, and a phone without an audio jack just makes things more difficult for me.
The fact that there is more than one “standard” for USB-C audio is enough to hate it.
Analog 3.5mm just works with everything. No dongles, no drivers, no “unsupported device”, no batteries.
It. Just. Works.
There’s no reason to switch.
50 year old headphones are still basically fine except for the port changing.
