How to buy wireless headphones online

How to buy wireless headphones online: Although there will always be strong defenders of wired headphones, the reality is that the presence of wireless headphones continues to grow in the market as sales do . While comfort is an undeniable argument to opt for them, it has been the progressive disappearance of the jack jack of mobile phones that has given the definitive support to these gadgets.

And by the end of 2018, the sound quality of some of these models is beyond doubt . However, here we present outstanding models for all budgets and needs.

Initial considerations

Design, ergonomics and use

Although there are models of wireless headphones with constructions and elements of the most varied, all of them are summarized in four types: in-ear, earphone or button, supraaural and circumaural .

The choice between one or the other will take into account not only how comfortable we are and how well they look in our ears, but also of the use and expectations we have placed on them . Thus three uses are distinguished:

• If we are looking for wireless headphones for sports , it is essential that they withstand rain and sweat, that they hold well to the ear and finally that they are compact and lightweight. The button and in-ear type are the most suitable for these uses.
• If you are looking for headphones to be in closed rooms , for example moving around the house or office, playing, listening to Spotify or watching YouTube videos in bed, the supraaurals offer a compromise between comfort, relative lightness and sound quality.
• Finally, we reserve the circumaurals for those more sybarite ears that look for a reproduction rich in frequency range, high powers, sound without distortion and a source that is at the height. These HiFi headphones are complemented by a height DAC and aptX Bluetooth profiles, as we will see later.

Sound quality

The sound quality provided by wireless headphones is mainly defined by the quality of the transducers, the internal amplifier, the DAC and its connectivity. Likewise, technologies such as noise cancellation also act to improve our acoustic experience.

Although manufacturers do not usually reveal information about the internal amplifier, we can get an idea of ​​how the sound quality is through the other specifications:

• Simplified, the drivers or transducers are the speakers of each headset. The sound quality of a driver will depend on the design and construction of it . Since circumaural headphones have plenty of space to integrate a larger transducer, they usually enable a richer and more nuanced sound. In general, headphones with transducers that exceed 40 mm provide high quality.
• Although we find radio frequency and NFC in wireless connectivity, the most common question is how the range and the number of compatible devices is Bluetooth. However, among the selected models we have included some headphones of all kinds so that there is diversity. Typically, you will find wireless headphones with Bluetooth version 4.0 or higher (something that influences your range, information transmission speed and energy efficiency), but the sound quality will be determined by the codecs and the Bluetooth profile . Any current headset is compatible with the advanced A2DP audio profile and from there it will be a matter of codecs. If you are looking for sound quality, the aptX codec provides DVD sound quality(96KHz and 24 bits). Otherwise, we will have to settle for only the SBC codec, which provides audio with bitrate 320 kbps in stereo, enough for streaming music.

• The wireless headphones have their own digital to analog converter or DAC, a set of hardware that transforms the audio signal of the ones and zeros that receive a continuous wave, a process whose efficiency has a great impact on the sound quality . To assess the conversion performance we will use the total harmonic distortion, which should be as low as possible, and the signal-to-noise ratio (in the most premium models it exceeds 130 dB in stereo). Manufacturers do not usually provide this information and if they do, it is precisely because it is a good sign.
• Another important characteristic to evaluate how good a headset is is frequency, a parameter that gives us the range that it is capable of reproducing. The human ear captures from the low at 20 Hz to the high, approximately 20,000 Hz. Therefore, it is desirable that a headset reaches this entire range of audible frequencies , however we find models that exceed it. Why provide a wider range than we can perceive? Simply because the bass and treble will feel better.
• Finally, we don’t want to forget about noise cancellation , an additional technology that attenuates outside noise by creating a signal that cancels what it hears. This technology works better at low frequencies than at high frequencies. Although we can do without this extra if we are not going to take the headphones outside, to walk along the street is a feature that we will greatly appreciate.

Autonomy

A wireless headset integrates a battery inside to supply power that will be compromised by their weight and size. That is, the larger the headset, the easier it will be to integrate a large battery with greater capacity.

In general, most of these headphones provide autonomy between 5 and 10 hours , although we can also find pleasant surprises in the larger models. However, the reality regarding what the manufacturer provided could vary depending on the use and volume.

The desirable is not only a great autonomy, but when the battery is running out it does not worsen the sound quality. Similarly, we will pay attention to the time required to fully charge .