Wired headphones are making an unlikely comeback

OPINION: We live in an era of wireless devices. There are probably only a few electronic devices in your home that cannot be connected via a wireless connection.

And we all think that’s great, right? Wireless is more convenient, and wireless is less clutter. Wireless devices simply fit more into our lives than they did twenty years ago.

But are they better? When it comes to headphones, one could easily argue that wired and non-wireless headphones are better in terms of sound. You won’t have any wireless interference or dropped calls, and in today’s age of sustainability, there’s less technology in wired earbuds and no batteries to charge.

Sure, there’s no noise cancellation, which will be a bummer for some. And for those who like to multitask, you can’t connect to two devices at once.

But in recent years I’ve noticed an increase in the number of people wearing wired headphones. After being thrown into the wilderness by wireless headphones, they seem to be making a comeback for reasons I can’t fathom.

Some say it’s a Gen Z fad, but I’ve also seen much older people wearing wired headphones. Perhaps some people want a simpler solution, one where they don’t have to deal with charging the battery, or the noise cancellation isn’t as effective as it could be, or aesthetically, wired headphones stand out more for those of us who are more fashion-conscious.

Perhaps this is because wired headphones are often cheaper than their wired cousins.

But wired headphones have their own problems. Those Apple EarPods from years ago were cheap and not very durable – the kind that came free with iPhones and iPods, and you could throw them away and replace them with better headphones as soon as possible. I remember having problems with the jack (after a while, there was a problem with the contact plate), and then you had to hide the cable so it wouldn’t catch on something and pull the headphones out of your ears.

But this year I don’t think I’ve ever been so inundated with wired headphones to review. Headphones from Meze, Austrian Audio, Final, Grado, FiiO, Focal, Beyerdynamic, Kefine, Sennheiser, Sony, Campfire – even wired office headsets from EPOS, and that’s not counting the number of wireless headphones that offer a wired listening option from DALI, Bowers & Wilkins, Shure and others. Then you have the fact that wired headphones promote the use of digital-to-analog converters and, if you don’t have a 3.5mm jack on your headphones, a USB-C adapter.

It shows that nothing ever really dies, it only adapts to a new context. The rise (and resurgence in popularity) of wired headphones doesn’t mean they’ll return to their former glory, but sometimes comfort isn’t everything.