The Quest for the Holy Grail, or How Hard Finding the Perfect Headphones Is

I’ve owned many headphones in the past, from the typical, crappy earphones bundled with my defunct iPod Mini to the more sophisticated circumaural, noise-canceling headphones.

I’ve never been content with what I had. I needed a better replacement. This was driven by many reasons I had in mind:

1. the headphones need to be comfortable to wear all day
2. they should be practical enough so that wearing them isn’t a shore
3. they should emphasize the music, not whatever’s going on around me

With this in mind, let’s see what would make my perfect headphones:

1. the design needs to be circumaural, not supra-aural
2. they have controls (Play/Pause and Previous/Next is enough) and the cable isn’t curled
3. they have some sort of noise cancelation mechanism, either active or passive

Let me review three headphones I’ve owned recently: the Beats, the Sennheiser HD 280 Pro and the JayBird Sportsband.

Beats by Dre

The Beats are pretty close to being the best headphones I’ve owned. There are many things they do great and few they do poorly.

While they had a hefty price tag of $349.95, I thought, and still think, that this was a good investment.

With two batteries powering the headphones, the Beats are almost a mini Hi-Fi system. Lossless music truly shines: listening to FLAC-encoded “Viva la Vida” by Coldplay is like putting a foot on heaven. They did leak a great deal of sound though, and many friends found this annoying.

Thanks to its active noise cancelation, the Beats are the best companion of a heavy commuter: I could sit five meters away from an agitated class of third-graders and yet not hear a thing of what they literally were yelling at each other.

One great thing about these too is the cable. It is short — 1.3 meters, about 51 inches — and straight. It has two male connectors, meaning that you have to plug it both into the device and the headphones themselves. While it may sound as a major drawback, it’s actually damn useful: I could keep the headphones around my neck or leg¹ without the cable hanging loose and getting in the way.

One great feature: a pause button. As long as it is pressed, no sound comes out of the Beats. It isn’t a real pause button as the music doesn’t stop playing on the iPhone, but it acted as such in the end.

However, as much as they were great audio- and UX-wise, they hurt my head to the point of not being able to wear them for a while. It was as if I had a dagger through my skull, from top to bottom.

So I decided to sell them and find a replacement.

Sennheiser HD 280 Pro

They are definitely in a lower category as the Beats, costing a mere $99.95.

Although the Beats are newer and more expensive, the HD 280s sound great and it’s very hard to distinguish between the two.

The noise cancelation on the HD 280s is passive: in contrary to the Beats, they don’t use electronic white noise but physical engineering to cancel as much as 30 dB of ambient noise. Impressive.

However, the HD 280s have a curly cable. A lengthy, heavy, curly cable. It expands up to 3 meters — almost ten feet! — and seems to weigh as much as the headphones themselves. It has become a real pain to use while commuting as I have to put a hefty length of cable into my pocket with my iPhone so that it doesn’t hang loose. This makes my pocket big and pressures my leg, and I fucking hate this.

This was the sole reason I moved on to new headphones. That’s how bad this cable is.

JayBird Sportsband

My primary concern was portability. I didn’t want to make the same mistake as with the HD 280s, so I chose these Bluetooth headphones.

The design is questionable, and some UX decisions are truly mind-boggling: why put fake controls on the other side of the headphones? The real ones are great and responsive though — i.e. Play/Pause/Power/Pairing, Next, Previous, Volume Up, Volume Down.

The only advantage is the reason why I purchased them: they are wireless. No need to plug and unplug, or fear of throwing my iPhone through the room.

The battery holds charge for 3 to 4 hours, which is enough in my opinion. It recharges in less time.

Everything else is bad however, starting with the design. The Sportsband are supra-aural. They rest on my ears and pressure them, and fit uncomfortably on the head. Fifteen minutes are enough for my ears to hurt².

The quality is laughable — hey, it’s Bluetooth! — but it isn’t much of an issue lately as I moved entirely to streaming and have been listening to more and more podcasts lately³.

They are also barely usable in a loud environment, and not at all in the subway. There is just too much noise let in.

I will not keep them for very long as it is too much pain and too few advantages for me.

Next?

I’m still on the quest for the Holy Grail: the perfect headphones.

If you have any recommendation, I’d be happy to hear from you: comments@geekeri.es