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A guide to buying headphones for smartphone users

A guide to buying headphones for smartphone users

Everything you ever wanted to know about choosing headphones for your phone.

A guide to buying headphones for smartphone users

Almost everyone uses a smartphone, but not everyone uses the same. There are those who play a lot, there are those who keep in touch with friends through messaging programs, there are also those who take a lot of photos. However, most people use the phone for one thing in addition to making phone calls, playing various multimedia files on it. Be it a movie or music, one thing is almost certain while playing we are not alone. For the most part, we don’t use our cell phones at home, but in places where there are other people around us who are bothered by what we want to listen to. Plus, most of the phone’s speakers are pretty crappy quality. For the latter reasons, almost everyone has an ear or headphone at home or in their pocket.

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However, there are plenty of types of headphones, and it doesn’t matter which one you buy. There are plenty of aspects to consider in order to buy the earring that works best for you, because it will all sound, but it doesn’t matter how your favorite rock classic sounds in your ear.

We are now trying to help you decide what you will need!


 

Bluetooth or wired

Most phones still have a 3,5 jack, but given current trends, it’s likely that won’t be the case for long. Because of this, we then need to use either a Type-C jack converter or a Bluetooth earpiece.

Anyone who is a little at home on the subject knows that Bluetooth is not the best choice if quality is paramount. However, there are aspects that make it worth considering to buy a wireless earpiece.

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The first and most tangible advantage is that there is no cable, it does not wrap around our hands, neck, sleeves. It is much more convenient to use a wireless device than a wired one. The downside, however, is that it needs some kind of power source, a battery that needs to be recharged, meaning it can run low.

With Bluetooth, narrow bandwidth is considered a big problem, which is why the music that gets into our ears loses a lot of the original sound. This is indeed true, at least when compared to analog technology. However, nowadays, when the quality provided by streaming music providers is even worse than Bluetooth, when we store our music in crappy MP3 format, it doesn’t matter whether the audio comes over a Bluetooth connection or a cable.

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Of course, there are phones that use dedicated audio hardware, for which you should consider using a good wired earpiece, but for these you will probably not listen to MP3, but at least FLAC. However, most phones do not have dedicated audio hardware, the music will be delivered by a software solution built into the central unit, which again does not only enhance the quality.

So the point is, if you’re an audiophile and it’s important to listen to your music in the best possible quality, you’ll need to buy a phone that has the right hardware for it. If so, buy a good quality wired headphone, not accidentally a headphone earphone, and listen to your songs in the best quality wherever you go. However, if you only have one “average” phone, don’t be afraid of Bluetooth. On the one hand, the quality of such devices has improved a lot in recent years, on the other hand, what you are listening to is probably of poorer quality than what you can get over a Bluetooth connection.


 

What capability are you looking for first in a Bluetooth headset

As you may have read in most cases, feel free to buy a Bluetooth headset, but before you put one in your cart, read on to read our article so you don’t have to be disappointed.

We first deal with codecs so you can understand what you read on the packaging. A codec (short for coder-decoder) is a set of software and hardware used to encode, compress, and decode audio data. There are many types of codecs, and it doesn’t matter what the earpiece you support supports or doesn’t. Let's see the more important ones

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AAC A: If you have an iPhone and have chosen a headset that supports the AAC codec, you have done your best because you can use it to listen to music in good quality. If you're not using an iPhone, there's no point in supporting the AAc codec, as if it isn't.

aptX : If your phone is equipped with a Qualcomm chip, the phone probably supports the aptX codec. There are three versions of aptX: “normal” aptX, aptX LL (low latency) and aptX HD (higher resolution), and any of these will sound very good if your headphones support them.

Xiaomi Wireless Sport Earbuds 6

LDAC : The LDAC codec is from Sony and is capable of achieving true quality sound, delivering near-wire quality. LDAC support is available from Android Oreo (8.0) on the operating system, so if you’re buying a new Sony Android phone running Android XNUMX, look for a handset that supports the LDAC codec!

So the point is, if you have Qualcomm, you have aptX, if you have Sony and Oreo, you have LDAC, and if you have an iPhone, you need AAC. You’ll have a harder time finding a tab that supports the latter, but if you’re using an iPhone, you might want to search a bit. Codec support is usually included on the headset and earpiece packaging.


 

Impedance

We are already familiar with the most important codecs, so read on for the tab specification. Sure, you’re going to encounter a line that has impedance. Impedance is resistance, although a headphone is not a normal DC or AC resistor. The impedance value for headphones varies depending on the frequency, and the specified value is usually set to 1 kHz.

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If you buy a earpiece for a portable player, by no means buy a device with a high impedance value, because it will not sound good, it will be quiet. Portable players and phones do not have a serious amplifier, so they do not drive high-impedance headphones properly. However, this does not mean that the low value will be better, because below a certain level the earpiece will sound louder, but the distortion will also increase significantly. The point is that if the looking impedance is between 20 and 50 ohms, this will be driven by your phone.


 

Frequency range

This is a value that almost everyone knows. We know that it is good if the lower value is as small as possible and the upper is as large as possible. Ideally, the frequency range would be between 5 and 30 thousand Hz, as this would cover the full range of sounds perceived by our ears. In contrast, the average ear works between 15 and 24 thousand Hz.

It’s worth looking for a tab that covers as large a band as possible, but, as we’ve written above, the quality of the music you’re listening to today is far below what our hardware knows. Of course, there are exceptions, but in a negligible number, that is, again, the situation as when we have to decide whether to buy wired or wireless headphones. The point is the hardware that the music comes from, and of course the compression we use for the music.

earphonepro-04.jpg

Headphones are a very personal thing, and what sounds good to me doesn’t sound good to you. But there is a way to measure how well the very high and very low endpoints of the soundtracks of music or movies can sound - the frequency response.

This is simply the limit of the hardware’s ability to generate the number. You can see that it is listed as a range, and the lower number represents the lowest bass that the headphones can recreate, and the higher number represents the highest pitch.

Ideally, you want to see a frequency response of 5 to 35 Hz (Hertz). This would mean that the headphones are able to reproduce any sound to a person, perfect hearing can be heard. Broadband headphones can be a bit expensive, so a more reasonable limit is 000 to 15 Hz. And you’ll find many headphones with this frequency response range.


 

Type-C headphones

The first and most important question for these earphones is whether our phone emits sound to the earpiece in analog or digital form. There are active solutions, in which the sound is delivered in digital form to the headphones, where there must be an amplifier and a DAC that converts the digital signal to analog. Then there are phones, albeit in much smaller numbers, in substantially insignificant quantities, that are capable of outputting an analog signal, in which case the signal conversion in the earpiece will not be necessary.

The problem is most often caused by manufacturers forgetting to indicate on their USB Type-C earbuds whether or not their product includes a DAC. So, before you issue your hard-earned forints, find out online!


 

What do I use?

Unfortunately, I can’t provide good news, the quality of listening to music on the phone is not a top priority for me. At home, Hifi is another matter, but if possible I don’t even listen to music through headphones. I’m not a piece today, which is why I’m a believer in analog technologies in many ways. I still remember vinyl, and I know that today we can only achieve that quality by investing a lot of money. True, a good Hifi used to be cheap.

So, the point is, if it’s phone music, I pick my earphones from the bottom shelf. I'm not looking for penny packs, but I'm not willing to spend a lot of tens of thousands of forints. I currently have a Xiaomi dual drive earplug that I am happy with. Yeah, before I forget, wired. Maybe a month ago my Xiaomi Bluetooth earpiece, which was also assigned to run, came, which I am not very happy with in terms of sound. Although, I’ll give him another chance because one of our readers thinks the point is that the ear pad fits well, it will sound much better too. So I’m going to try even more sizes of pillows sharp, and then I decide to go or stay.
However, my “unpretentiousness” should not deter you from buying the best possible earphones. I hope we were able to help you a little bit in your choice.

The article is based on a similar topic written by Android Central, also interweaving its own thoughts.

Our article on the Xiaomi wired earpiece I use here: Xiaomi Pro HD Hybrid, in-ear music

Our article about the Xiaomi Bluetooth earpiece I use here: Xiaomi Wireless Sport Earbuds - an almost perfect earphone

Lots of earphones and headphones for cheap here: Hundreds of headphones and earphones

About the Author

s3nki

Owner of the HOC.hu website. He is the author of hundreds of articles and thousands of news. In addition to various online interfaces, he has written for Chip Magazine and also for the PC Guru. For a time, he ran his own PC shop, working for years as a store manager, service manager, system administrator in addition to journalism.

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