Wireless Opera earbuds don't get tangled or pulled
Just the other day, I was grousing in the BBG editor's chat channel about my Creative Zen Aurvana's, a pair of ear buds that I had spent a hundred bucks for, liked pretty well and which had spontaneously stopped transmitting sound through the right ear piece. "I'm never going to spend more than twenty bucks on ear plugs again," I vowed. "They're just too fragile: ear buds are basically made in a form factor meant to be wrapped around an MP3 player. They're always just going out on me."
And now comes along a pair of ear plugs to test the resolve. The Opera ear buds are wireless; the sound is relayed via a small transmitter that plugs into the headphone jack of your DAP. It runs on Kleer, a wireless technology that claims better audio quality than Bluetooth.And they're only 98 bucks when they come out in June.
I don't really care for the look of these buds, but 100 bucks to solve the "one ear bud breaking" problem of my last five pairs of headphones (which I've always assumed is because I've accidentally yanked the wire too hard) seems like a good investment. I'll be interested to see how Kleer pans out. Of course, being wireless, that also makes the Opera ear buds even easier to lose... the main reason I never kept my Aurvana's in the attractive little case they came with.
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I have two half broken pairs of shure e2cs.. On the first pair, the plastic casing broke apart, probably from hitting the ground - on the other, the wire got brittle and cracked open where they bent around my ears.
between the two, I have enough parts that I just need to give some soldering a shot.. but it sure would be nice of a $100 pair of headphones would last for more than a year.
Boo @ having to use an adapter; That thing looks bigger than an ipod shuffle. I've been using a bluetooth-compatible mp3 player and headset for the past six months and the joy of not spending five minutes untangling the headphones every time they've been in a pocket far outweighs the occasional hassle of figuring out why the headphones didn't pair correctly. Even though it's somewhat unsafe, I nearly always bike with music, and it's really nice to have phone calls interrupt my music and come in over the headset while I'm riding. Some people complain about the quality, and it's true that bluetooth uses a lossy codec for transmission, but I find that it depends hugely on the models being paired (a2dp uses a low-complexity codec at up to 375kbps but some devices seem to prefer lower bitrates). In this case, I lucked out.
@jitrobug, You should check out Shure's warranty program. All their headphones have a two-year warranty on defects. I'm not sure about the pair that was dropped, but the one with the wire defect should definitely be covered. I sent in a pair I was having problems with and they were replaced pretty quickly.
Just want I need: two more things I need to remember to recharge.
I just went through another set of v-moda headphones for my iPhone. They have a good warranty, but I prefer not to need the warranty at all.
While waiting for my warranty replacement buds I went back to my old Sony ear buds and I realized I've had the same pair for years and I've never had problems with them. I even put them through the wash once and they still sound sound better than the v-moda ones which are far too basey and a little mushy overall. They have some stupid Sony part number, but they're the higher end ones, probably in the $50-60 range. the v-moda phones get credit for being more comfortable and having a cloth wrapped cord that never tangles. And of course a microphone, but I'm surprised how quickly the broke.
(Not a Sony employee, anonymous because I'm too lazy to make an account.)
The wireless tech is worth 5 bucks at most. So the question is: are the earphones themselves worth 93 dollars? If not, wait for some cheaper or better Kleer stuff to come out ... or just use cheap Bluetooth ones. For dinky MP3 player earphones, Bluetooth has enough bandwidth to provide all the audio quality the phones can physically handle. You don't need 48KHz 24bit lossless when your ears can't tell the difference.
I have BestBuy Insignia bluetooth headphones. 50 bucks, can be purchased with adapter for nonBluetooth devices. They pair with my phone and have easily used controls on the earpiece to access the call (which interrupts music so I know I'm receiving one.) The sound is exceptionally clear and the range is good. It's A2DP and they work well with my LG CU500V- can't say how well on others. They're headphones, not earbuds, that fit around the back of the head.
I love them, have had them since Christmas, no problem.
For those of us too poor to get these earbuds here is what I do. The wires inside almost all earbuds are color varnish insulated multi strand wire. When they are bent or crushed too many times they short out. The only way to fix this is to hunt down the short and snip it out. Since this almost always happens right at the entry to the earbud and rarely at the jack (that breaks from yanking it) you just match both wires and resolder to the internal speakers.