I feel completely put out by the smartphone market when it comes to music listening these days. I care a lot about audio quality, and I run a lot. This means two problems:
1. Bluetooth headphones usually have shit audio quality, and too little battery life for someone who listens as much as I do.
2. I have yet to use a phone in the last 8+ years that I didn't destroy the 3.5mm jack on over the course of <1 year of running. The same thing is clearly applying to the USB-C adapter on my Pixel 2. It frequently needs to be removed and plugged back in mid-run.
It feels like I don't have any options here. Anyone have any good tips? Particularly for a Pixel 2? Is there maybe a better aftermarket adapter?
Do you really care about audio quality that much when you’re out running? You’re not exactly in an ideal listening environment, and whatever bud type headphones you’re wearing won’t be able to accurately reproduce bass anyway.
I will personally throw this in the "it depends" category. I've had a pair of IEMs which reproduced bass as well as my 3' tall speakers (with dedicated bass, mid, and treble cones).
Sure, my ass wasn't being shaken with the IEMs, but the low level details were there.
It's only around 20-25db of isolation, so unless you really have your music cranked, you can still typically hear vehicles (and can definitely hear horns).
I know a few people who love IEMs for exercising (including running), since they pretty much never fall out unintentionally. You can't even really pull them out by the cord.
This is a fair point but all the buds I've tried absolutely suck. I use Shure SE215 buds which I love, and I've yet to try anything wireless that feels as good. To be fair, I haven't tried many pairs, though. The main problem I've found is it seems almost all of them use rubber rather than foam tips, which conducts a huge amount of noise from the cord bumping around.
I think it's more that if I spend $200 on headphones that proclaim to be good for fitness, I expect them to sound great as well and in general be worth the $200.
If you have the budget, I think it's better to have different sets since the activities are so different you'll probably want drastically different things out of them. I use a pair of bluetooth earbuds when I work out because they're convenient and built to take sweat and inclement weather, but at home I use a pair of over-ear wired headphones with cloth earcups.
I do similar, use amped headphones at my desk but cheap Bluetooth headphones for working out. I actually enjoy it because I don't have to worry about being careful with the headphones and I get to listen to a more "fun" sound signature for a short while. Chinese audio has really progressed well and it's really impressive what you can get for $30
This is why I wish that smartphones hadn't completely killed the market for standalone music-playing devices. Smartphones are fragile and finicky and expensive, none of which is really what you want in a device you'll be using while running. What you want in that scenario is a device that can shrug off the occasional bump or drop, that you can operate without having to look at a screen, and that you can replace when it breaks (because it will break) without having to take out a second mortgage.
But instead of giving us devices that speak directly to those needs, the market requires us to spend even more on add-on products (rubberized cases, wireless earbuds, etc.) to try and take absurdly over-spec'ed smartphones wrapped in glass and entirely designed around a touch-based UI and make them slighly less inappropriate for what we want to do.
I used to use a Sansa Clip+ with Rockbox installed as my main music device. I would highly suggest one of those if they weren't discontinued and now kinda pricey for what they are.
I would say if you really need FLAC support, go for one and put Rockbox on there. Otherwise, I'd be interested to know how good the new Sansa Clip models are.
It's not possible to install Rockbox on newer Sansa Clip models.
They're a nice MP3 player. The Clip Jam is very cheap. It feels a bit cheap. They dropped the colour screen and the case feels a bit plasticy. There's some weirdness if you use a microSD card (playlists go weird, for example).
For what little it's worth, my iPhone SE has held up remarkably well, and the audio output is, while not perfect, typically good enough for headphones (even more expensive IEM headphones).
The Samsung Galaxy S8+ still has a headphone jack. I'm with you it's ridiculous to remove them. I'm not sure who is making these decisions but I really feel like someone needs to wake them up.
While I agree with your opinion about removing headphone jacks, I think OP means that even phones with a headphone jack tend to have it break due to OP's heavy use of it.
> I have yet to use a phone in the last 8+ years that I didn't destroy the 3.5mm jack on over the course of <1 year of running
Interesting. I have a similar issue, but rather than destroying the headphone jack on the phone (iPhone 5s and SE), I've been destroying the 3.5mm connector on the headphone. Since the headphones I used ranged from $80 to $150, I got real sick of broken headphones. My solution was purchase these https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ZK43S4Q/ in bulk. I get about 3-4 months out of each adapter, when it flakes out, I toss it and install the next one. So far, so good, I've gotten a 15 months out of my latest set of headphones so far.
there really isn't a perfect solution for running/jogging/etc... so far as players go...at least for me. I don't want to carry a phone to go running.
My "good enough" solution was to buy a sansa clip, install rockbox, and just use that. It's only possible because I don't care about having a huge variety of music to listen to while running, so I can just outright purchase the tracks/albums I want, load them up, and enjoy running with music and basically no extra weight.
This is a space the watches are trying to fill. The Apple Watch has (from memory) 8GB of memory, can pair directly with a set of earphones, and plays music without the phone. Combined with the GPS and heart sensor, it's a pretty complete story.
I doubt the price of entry is really worth it, but yeah, I hated running with my phone last year and this seems better.
Main problems with this for me is I do like the variety, and I don't like the overhead of having to pre-load the music. Spotify is fantastic and I want to use it while running.
And it gets worse: Apple discontinued all of their iPods except the one that looks like an iPhone because they want everyone to buy their expensive watch instead. And phones still seem to get bigger every year. We're approaching a point where options here don't even exist. (There are other options, not as pretty and small but fairly good. But Apple tends to set the trend so we're basically doomed :b). I'm hoping we'll see more products like the Mighty, or maybe some Android Wear devices that aren't wristwatches (I already have a wristwatch, thank you). But seems like a faint hope.
I lost my iPod Shuffle through a boardwalk last month, decided I didn't feel like crawling through a puddle full of discarded needles in 5°C to get it back, and almost regretted the decision when I discovered they are selling used on Amazon for about $170.
I think it’s more likely that the iPod Touch remains because it’s a great device to let kids abuse in place of your expensive phone. The market for dedicated audio players can’t be what it once was and audiophiles have other options.
The Sansa line at one point had (or still has) the same audio chip as the iPod (Classic), is cheaper, and is super well reviewed. I think people interested in dedicated players have moved onto that.
As for your theory, the iPod Touch doesn’t work with the Apple Watch. No GPS/Cellular/etc makes it mostly useless as a parent device for the non-LTE watches and the LTE watch has better connectivity. https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/177304/can-you-use...
> The Sansa line at one point had (or still has) the same audio chip as the iPod (Classic), is cheaper, and is super well reviewed. I think people interested in dedicated players have moved onto that.
This looks promising on the face of it but is missing a key killer-feature IMO. The reason I still use an iPod for my MP3s is for a specific feature in iTunes that I've not yet found elsewhere, I forget the name they use but I call them dynamic playlists.
Most of my playlists generate themselves based on DateAdded, LastPlayed, LastSkipped, Rating, Tags and other attributes. When I add a song I give it some tags and sync my iPod, and then it will over time and after a few syncs, end up in other playlists based on how often I play it and what rating I give it. It's a feature that I very much enjoy, and feels like a significant step up from manually managing playlists. I wish I had the same for my Movie library.
I've seriously been considering building my own gizmo with a Raspberry pi, an LCD screen and some scripts but that's rather unappealing aesthetically.
Has anyone got an equivalent to dynamic libraries + mp3 players working without iTunes? The crux seems to be that the mp3 player needs to keep a log of what's played and when and needs to support ratings, even if the player itself doesn't update the playlists until it's synced. I'm not even huge on sound quality or big on Apple products, it's just the features I like I can't find elsewhere.
MediaMonkey has a similar function for audio playlists. I have no idea how well this translates to mobile (or even if you CAN transfer it to mobile) -- but I know it works on PC for my MP3 library (which is stupidly huge)
I've never used one myself but you could try a battery-powered Bluetooth receiver coupled with the headphones of your choice. Most claim a fairly long battery life per charge and are reasonably inexpensive. Some examples:
Hmm. The Sony one seems worth a shot. I bought a cheap shit version of one of these a while back and (surprise) it absolutely sucks. I'll research the Sony one, the other two are way too big.
> 2. I have yet to use a phone in the last 8+ years that I didn't destroy the 3.5mm jack on over the course of <1 year of running.
Plugging the headphones straight in will transfer huge amounts of vibration directly to the solder joints on the jack insider the phone while running. Maybe consider an adaptor that brings a right-angled plug out to a socket for your headphones, much like [0]?
Bluetooth Audio. Manufacturers have failed to pursue an "opt-in" deployment path.
If/when they wanted to make the transition, they should have made (the next revision of) Bluetooth good enough that users want to use it.
Instead, after being present for years and years on phones, they finally decided to force adoption by dropping the headphone jack.
Why? Well, there are the "thin" and "no room" arguments (oh, and, "waterproofing" -- really more splash-resisting), but those don't seem convincing of themselves.
There's the chance to sell expensive headphones at substantial markup.
And, there's however much behind-the-scenes pressure to transition the delivery channel to entirely digital, where DRM can ensure that content is not copied and, as part of a larger push, that all revenues for listening become recurring revenues in perpetuity. (The thing Microsoft's been trying to accomplish with Windows and Office licensing, for years now.)
Admittedly, I've really liked the Pixel Buds, but for some of the same reasons people dislike it:
* I absolutely love that I can still hear my surroundings. I've been able to bike with them in, but still feel like I can hear my surroundings. I'm not sure if I'd feel safe enough to listen to music my whole commute, but for podcasts, it just feels like I hear everything around and someone is talking next to me. Previously I'd use a speaker mounted to my bike, which I still didn't like to use too much, because I didn't want to annoy people too much.
* They are so comfortable. The first ear buds I can actually wear. I just can't stand the in-ear buds of any sort.
* For what they are and the places I'd use them, they sound rather good. I admittedly just ordered the wireless sennheiser hd-1 (which is on sale right now), so the pixel buds are not really for my high-quality listening needs either way.
* I think they look cool (I have the blue ones) and the strap is a plus for me. I also don't understand all the complaints about the case, the strap, or putting it in the case. It's super easy...
Basically, if you want in-ear buds, then avoid these. But, if you want comfortable buds that are not in-ear that you could safely wear while biking...these are pretty great.
I have them, and they're OK, but Bluetooth buds are a dime a dozen so it's really hard to see why they are worth $159. They're slightly smaller than my Anker buds, and they have a charging case, but in day to day use there's realistically no difference for me. My Anker's were $27 on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071GNH9MT).
Those Anker ones are still in-ear, which I don't think is a fair comparison with the Pixel Buds. I think I'm a bit more sensitive to having things physically stuck in my ear canal though. Though, I'm curious, do you really think those compete in sound quality?
There arn't too many choices for buds that are not in-ear and have good sound quality that I'm aware of. But, it's also not what as many people want.
Oh, I never even thought to look at that option. Any idea how sound quality compares to headphones like that vs. something like the pixel buds? Though, I'd feel more comfortable listening to music with bone-conductive headphones than the pixel buds.
The sound is quite different. I would never use them for music, but for the spoken word they seem fine.
One problem they have is that low, intense frequencies (most modern pop and electronic music) can actually cause them to bounce on your skull, which is quite uncomfortable.
Personally I wouldn't recommend any type of headphones for biking unless you are on a super safe bike trail. I have been saved multiple times by hearing noises.
With the bone-conductive headphones (And the Pixel buds to a large extent), you do hear everything around you.
From what I started reading on the bone-conductive headphones, it'd be no different than having a speaker mounted on your bike in terms of being able to hear around you.
I would argue it's more important while biking. If someone cuts you off while you are in a car you can risk a collision but with the bike it doesn't help not being at fault while you are dead. So hearing cars is very helpful.
I try to bike with the assumption that nobody sees me and I have to be ready for anything. Same with a motorcycle. Always assume to not be seen and always be aware of your surroundings.
I had the "nobody sees me" philosophy for a while and ended up with a few accidents with drivers not using turn signals, not giving right of way at an intersection, or just running red lights. The worst was crashing into the side of a bus that ran through an intersection and then getting into an argument with the bus driver while I'm bleeding and concussed.
I now bike as if every driver has a mild incentive to hit me if they can so I don't trust turn signals, I run through red lights if it's clear for me, go down one way streets the wrong way to avoid traffic, flip off drivers who tailgate me when they can pass, etc. I'm "that cyclist" but it's what you have to do to survive. Zero accidents or even close calls so far this year.
At this point I'm just happy when drivers use turn signals. I have a 6 mile one-way bike commute through the city. It's rare I have a whole drive with everyone signaling properly. Thankfully, bike infrastructure here in SF has dramatically improved over the years.
I wonder how the neckband speakers that Bose has would work for biking? These wrap around and put speakers down by your shoulders, so they aren't for private listening, but they also aren't in your ear, so I would think that they'd be good for still hearing your surroundings too.
57 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 88.3 ms ] thread1. Bluetooth headphones usually have shit audio quality, and too little battery life for someone who listens as much as I do.
2. I have yet to use a phone in the last 8+ years that I didn't destroy the 3.5mm jack on over the course of <1 year of running. The same thing is clearly applying to the USB-C adapter on my Pixel 2. It frequently needs to be removed and plugged back in mid-run.
It feels like I don't have any options here. Anyone have any good tips? Particularly for a Pixel 2? Is there maybe a better aftermarket adapter?
I will personally throw this in the "it depends" category. I've had a pair of IEMs which reproduced bass as well as my 3' tall speakers (with dedicated bass, mid, and treble cones).
Sure, my ass wasn't being shaken with the IEMs, but the low level details were there.
It's only around 20-25db of isolation, so unless you really have your music cranked, you can still typically hear vehicles (and can definitely hear horns).
I know a few people who love IEMs for exercising (including running), since they pretty much never fall out unintentionally. You can't even really pull them out by the cord.
If you've got recommendations I'm all ears!
But instead of giving us devices that speak directly to those needs, the market requires us to spend even more on add-on products (rubberized cases, wireless earbuds, etc.) to try and take absurdly over-spec'ed smartphones wrapped in glass and entirely designed around a touch-based UI and make them slighly less inappropriate for what we want to do.
Sigh.
$50, buttons, etc.
I would say if you really need FLAC support, go for one and put Rockbox on there. Otherwise, I'd be interested to know how good the new Sansa Clip models are.
They're a nice MP3 player. The Clip Jam is very cheap. It feels a bit cheap. They dropped the colour screen and the case feels a bit plasticy. There's some weirdness if you use a microSD card (playlists go weird, for example).
I have a slightly broken iPod but the phone+sdcard was cheaper than getting it repaired.
And the audio output is a standard 3.5mm jack.
Interesting. I have a similar issue, but rather than destroying the headphone jack on the phone (iPhone 5s and SE), I've been destroying the 3.5mm connector on the headphone. Since the headphones I used ranged from $80 to $150, I got real sick of broken headphones. My solution was purchase these https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ZK43S4Q/ in bulk. I get about 3-4 months out of each adapter, when it flakes out, I toss it and install the next one. So far, so good, I've gotten a 15 months out of my latest set of headphones so far.
My "good enough" solution was to buy a sansa clip, install rockbox, and just use that. It's only possible because I don't care about having a huge variety of music to listen to while running, so I can just outright purchase the tracks/albums I want, load them up, and enjoy running with music and basically no extra weight.
I doubt the price of entry is really worth it, but yeah, I hated running with my phone last year and this seems better.
I lost my iPod Shuffle through a boardwalk last month, decided I didn't feel like crawling through a puddle full of discarded needles in 5°C to get it back, and almost regretted the decision when I discovered they are selling used on Amazon for about $170.
The Sansa line at one point had (or still has) the same audio chip as the iPod (Classic), is cheaper, and is super well reviewed. I think people interested in dedicated players have moved onto that.
As for your theory, the iPod Touch doesn’t work with the Apple Watch. No GPS/Cellular/etc makes it mostly useless as a parent device for the non-LTE watches and the LTE watch has better connectivity. https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/177304/can-you-use...
This looks promising on the face of it but is missing a key killer-feature IMO. The reason I still use an iPod for my MP3s is for a specific feature in iTunes that I've not yet found elsewhere, I forget the name they use but I call them dynamic playlists.
Most of my playlists generate themselves based on DateAdded, LastPlayed, LastSkipped, Rating, Tags and other attributes. When I add a song I give it some tags and sync my iPod, and then it will over time and after a few syncs, end up in other playlists based on how often I play it and what rating I give it. It's a feature that I very much enjoy, and feels like a significant step up from manually managing playlists. I wish I had the same for my Movie library.
I've seriously been considering building my own gizmo with a Raspberry pi, an LCD screen and some scripts but that's rather unappealing aesthetically.
Has anyone got an equivalent to dynamic libraries + mp3 players working without iTunes? The crux seems to be that the mp3 player needs to keep a log of what's played and when and needs to support ratings, even if the player itself doesn't update the playlists until it's synced. I'm not even huge on sound quality or big on Apple products, it's just the features I like I can't find elsewhere.
Or perhaps because no one was buying the iPods?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KXYXXK2/
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KO1JNCA/
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0154G9CYY/
Plugging the headphones straight in will transfer huge amounts of vibration directly to the solder joints on the jack insider the phone while running. Maybe consider an adaptor that brings a right-angled plug out to a socket for your headphones, much like [0]?
[0]: https://www.jaycar.com.au/adaptor-3-5mm-stereo-socket-3-5mm-...
Westone makes a decent Bluetooth cable with MMCX connectors so you can plug it directly into buds themselves, without a separate 3.5mm cable.
If/when they wanted to make the transition, they should have made (the next revision of) Bluetooth good enough that users want to use it.
Instead, after being present for years and years on phones, they finally decided to force adoption by dropping the headphone jack.
Why? Well, there are the "thin" and "no room" arguments (oh, and, "waterproofing" -- really more splash-resisting), but those don't seem convincing of themselves.
There's the chance to sell expensive headphones at substantial markup.
And, there's however much behind-the-scenes pressure to transition the delivery channel to entirely digital, where DRM can ensure that content is not copied and, as part of a larger push, that all revenues for listening become recurring revenues in perpetuity. (The thing Microsoft's been trying to accomplish with Windows and Office licensing, for years now.)
* I absolutely love that I can still hear my surroundings. I've been able to bike with them in, but still feel like I can hear my surroundings. I'm not sure if I'd feel safe enough to listen to music my whole commute, but for podcasts, it just feels like I hear everything around and someone is talking next to me. Previously I'd use a speaker mounted to my bike, which I still didn't like to use too much, because I didn't want to annoy people too much.
* They are so comfortable. The first ear buds I can actually wear. I just can't stand the in-ear buds of any sort.
* For what they are and the places I'd use them, they sound rather good. I admittedly just ordered the wireless sennheiser hd-1 (which is on sale right now), so the pixel buds are not really for my high-quality listening needs either way.
* I think they look cool (I have the blue ones) and the strap is a plus for me. I also don't understand all the complaints about the case, the strap, or putting it in the case. It's super easy...
Basically, if you want in-ear buds, then avoid these. But, if you want comfortable buds that are not in-ear that you could safely wear while biking...these are pretty great.
There arn't too many choices for buds that are not in-ear and have good sound quality that I'm aware of. But, it's also not what as many people want.
One problem they have is that low, intense frequencies (most modern pop and electronic music) can actually cause them to bounce on your skull, which is quite uncomfortable.
From what I started reading on the bone-conductive headphones, it'd be no different than having a speaker mounted on your bike in terms of being able to hear around you.
I try to bike with the assumption that nobody sees me and I have to be ready for anything. Same with a motorcycle. Always assume to not be seen and always be aware of your surroundings.
I now bike as if every driver has a mild incentive to hit me if they can so I don't trust turn signals, I run through red lights if it's clear for me, go down one way streets the wrong way to avoid traffic, flip off drivers who tailgate me when they can pass, etc. I'm "that cyclist" but it's what you have to do to survive. Zero accidents or even close calls so far this year.
With wired things this never worked for me since you could not just tuck them in pocket. They had to be stored somewhere.