i have been a skullcandy stan since like 2010, they have always been a solid budget choice and last a long time. my very favorite pair of theirs has been the Push Active. the fit, quality and price hit for me and i have used them for several years. however, the last couple pairs i had have stopped pairing, only showing up as “Tile” in the BT menu.
i replaced them with some Smokin Buds due to my tightened budget, and they worked alright for a month or so, but now there is no media audio. they still produce audio because when i put one in i get the “connected” message.
i just want a comfortable pair of earbuds for work that are sweat resistant, noise blocking, preferably with the over-ear hooks. i dont need outstanding audio quality, i primarily listen to audiobooks and podcasts while working. my budget is 50 bucks give or take.
i havent had the need to look outside of skullcandy til now, and looking at options online is very overwhelming for me. any reliable brands would even be a great starting point for me.
cheers!
May I recommended you join the wired headphone club? The perks are: infinite battery life (even after years of use) and they’re crazy cheap. I got my jbl 305c for 20€ a year ago (just random ones I picked). They’ve lasted me perfectly every day, no paring or battery issues. The only issue would be that noise canceling doesn’t exist. Just saying, consider the other side. The grass is greener here.
Ya I went back to my earmagic e11 and apple sells a fantastic USB DAC for 10 dollars for some reason
I also used to be a pretty enthusiastic Skullcandy user, but agree that in recent years they’ve pretty much downgraded to the reliability level of the cheapest no-name garbage you’d find at a gas station counter hanging between the cardboard air fresheners and unregulated sex pills.
Anker soundcore. They run in the $30-99 range, have all sorts of types that include buds, over the ear, etc. Some models have decent ANC. They also support being paired to 2 devices at once, which is really nice if you use your earbuds with more than one device. Lots of high end models still weirdly dont support dual connections like these $60 earbuds.
I use the sport x20 model mostly because I hate “stick in” earbuds. The ANC on them is solid for the train or general commuting, but isn’t up there with brands like Bose/Sony. Good enough for an office environment in my experience, but not “full” silence.
Take a look at Scarbir’s website he has a really extensive list of earbuds, often the more lesser known and cheaper bang for the buck brands.
Oh boy I love how Lemmy thinks that we need to have a system for handling users posting relative links for some reason. But specifically for relative links that change based on the viewer’s instance. Because under no circumstances will someone put in a URL without https://
This isn’t a Lemmy thing per se. Lemmy just takes the URL you enter and renders it into HTML; in HTML a
hrefwithout a protocol is treated as a link relative to the current domain (i.e. your instance).
Wow, thanks for that link, it’s a game changer!
Sony’s XM4s were the best
A few days ago i saved a post from someone who recommended In Ear Monitors with a Bluetooth Adaptor as the ideal solution. I can’t find my saved post, but they even recommended specific brands.
The theory is that you get more bang for your buck because in ear monitors are a more competitive market? I wish i knew more
very interesting, i will look that up
My all time favorite was Jabra Elite 7 Active (or something like that), but sadly they went out of production.
These days I use Sennheisser Momentum TW4, and they’re pretty great. I just miss the fact that my Jabra pair was waterproof.
I miss Jabra! Cats kept getting a hold of mine, I have ADHD, kept forgetting to hide them and they ate literally ate the tips of two pairs in a row. I eventually transitioned to cheaper buds (Nothing) and more expensive headphones (Sony WH-1000XM4). Function-wise Nothing and Jabra is superior to Sony"s slop attempt at an app.
I bought Jabra Elite 8 Active earbuds and they’ve been the best ones I’ve had so far.
Sadly Jabra decided to leave the earbud market after 8
😭 Thank god I managed to snag one of their last pairs, then!
thank you but i need ear buds not over ear headphones :)
They come in both formats
If budget is constantly an issue, maybe try some wired iems that will last longer than wireless. I can easily recommend the tangzu wan’er 2 (3.5mm, not 4.4mm) as you get a quality mass produced cable, great eartips that hold up against sweat, and they are tuned better for vocals which translates well in audiobooks and podcasts. I’m not an all out audiophile but I dabble. That would cost about $25usd + shipping and then you can get a jcally type c dac for cheap. If you’re on an iphone, you can just get a lightning to 3.5mm dongle instead of the jcally or other dac. You can obviously still go wireless if you’d like.
I actually keep coming back to Sony earbuds, because they seem to be the only brand that still makes the earbuds controlled by buttons instead of capacitive touch. Had the Sony WF-C500 for a couple years and they still work perfectly fine, but I recently bought a pair of WF-C510 because I wanted multi-connection Bluetooth (so that I can use my PC, tablet and phone audio without fiddling around and re-pairing all the time). They were like 35 bucks.
Cheap shitty ones , you wont care about loosing.
Agreed, at this price point brand shouldn’t matter much. I would even ignore the “nice to haves” and try to save another $10-20.
Thirded. I’m an audio engineer and producer and will spend actual money on decent wired headphones for home or work, but out in the world I’m a strict proponent of using earbuds that don’t cost enough to worry about losing or breaking.
I just repurchased a pair of Altec Lansing Nanobuds 3.0. They’re only $17 a pair rn, so I bought a pair for me and then a pair for my husband.
I had bought my original pair years ago while at an airport after I’d realized I left my normal pair at home. Only reason I’m replacing them, is because my holder fell out of my hoodie pocket while bicycling on Friday. They still worked just fine after 3 years of regular use.
Unfortunately, they do not have the over ear clip that you’d prefer though.
Fairphone have some that are repairable and have replaceable batteries. I haven’t tried them, so can’t couch for sound
I have a pair of Fairbuds, I’ve had them about a little over a year. I’ve been meaning to write a review but I have not come around to It yet. But the short and sweet is, They are neat. I love the repair ability of the hardware but they feel like a “beta” product due to the software/firmware. Within 2 months of getting them I had sent them for warranty service. That after doing all the troubleshooting available without a second pair available.
The reason for the warranty service was that the left earbud just stopped responding, this after; randomly disconnecting, complaining about low battery(even with a brand new battery), randomly lowering volume until completely silent(only the left earbud, device volume did not change).
Came back after they replaced left earbud, now it worked but still have the same issues before, except now it responds. I want to say that they work most of the time. But things bugg out way to often to say that with confidence. I’m pretty sure all the issues are software or firmware relates but since no new firmware has been released since I got them I can’t say for sure. I would not recommend them, based on my experience to someone who isn’t in it for the support of the fairphone project.
Thanks! My current cheap pair of edifiers have been going a few years, but one of the batteries is dying… Might get another year out of it, maybe the Fairphone ones will be more stable by then…
I’ve been buying ones similar to these:
They are all basically the same, and are probably built in the same factory. They keep upgrading them, so my current pair are unavailable, but I’d probably buy these to replace them. The sound quality for music is okay, but I have another pair with much better bass response for music, but these have a much better phone in them. They also have earhooks, which is great when you are physically active.
And they’re cheap, under $30.
If you want good ear buds for MUSIC, these are great. Amazing bass response. No ear hook though.
try soundcore… it’s owned by amazon so you may not want to. i have a pair of the space a40 and they are comfortable and have ANC… they make a number of different styles and then have different price points in each style
Woah back up, no they aren’t. They are sold heavily on Amazon but Amazon doesn’t own any part of them.
my bad…apologies… bad brand association. i still bought them though
It’s all good. I was annoyed that the only way to buy their stuff is through Amazon. Even if you order direct from their website they just ship it from Amazon.
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I’d recommend Anker’s Soundcore series too.
I was also a Skullcandy fan (still have a pair of their Dime 2 earbuds I like to use when I’m going to sleep). The Anker p31i are my daily drivers now, though. For around $30 on sale, they have active noise cancelling and the batteries last all day – I didn’t charge the battery in the carrying case until a month after I bought them.
I have the sport x20 and while they’re above your budget ($80) I just wanted to add my recommendation to soundcore. They’re my favorite over the ear earbuds that I’ve tried so far. They’re super comfortable, they stay in my ear whether I’m running or laying down with my head against a pillow, and the sound is pretty good. The only thing I don’t like is that the charging case is really finicky and if I’m not paying attention sometimes I dock them to charge and go to use them the next day and they’re completely dead. But I like them enough that when I can find a spare $80 I’m hoping to buy a second pair because I’m tired of constantly transferring this case around between my different backpacks for work, school and normal life and then having to go on a treasure hunt to figure out which bag I had them in last when I want to use them at home.
definitely want to avoid amazon if possible, but thanks!
For the record Soundcore is not owned by Amazon. They are sold heavily there but that’s it. And I also recommend their products, they are what I consider the best bang for your buck when it comes to audio equipment. Anker charging products are also the same company and also good cost to quality ratio.
i do like anker, lemme check that out!
Soundcore is owned by Anker, who also own eufy. While I wouldn’t trust Anker any further than I could throw them, I have owned Soundcore products since they were still branded as just Anker.
I keep a pair of Liberty 3(? Maybe) as my “kitchen” ear buds and I took my Q30s around the world with me (and it absolutely shows, they’re thrashed). They’re fine audio products but for the price - Amazing.
Any specifics on why you’re anti-Anker? If the quality sucks, that can be improved. If they’re actively trying to destroy democracy and the middle class, that’s kind of different.
Anker’s eufy brand claimed all local storage for their security systems but they were routing everything through AWS for displaying the feed - hence not trusting them but as far as I know no major, flock-enabling scandals or anything.
Also, they’re a company. Yet another reason not to trust them. By the time I’m finished writing this post they could’ve done a bunch of terrible stuff.
Very true. Any publicly traded corporation is basically by definition operating as a psychopath. Sometimes we get lucky and they’re slightly less terrible than the others and sometimes that changes overnight.
Search for anker recalls. They have had plenty of dangerous recalls for bad batteries. I have multiple of their products and have been pretty happy overall, but there is a risk.
I have heard a bit of that. I’m somewhat wary of the overall commoditization of cheap, dubiously sourced batteries in general. I feel like they’re getting big enough that maybe their brand is becoming valuable enough to raise their standards, but it’s a hard thing to measure. I think outside of the standard AA/AAA form factors, even Energizer is putting out some shaky quality these days.
I came here to mention sound core as well. I got ones that after like a month wouldn’t hold a charge. I was just going to throw them out but I made a Reddit post at the time and everyone told me they have great customer service so I reached out. They just sent me the same set but a new one. That was 3 years ago and I use them a lot Monday-Friday and they’re still phenomenal. They work great.
Seconded for Soundcore. I rock the Space A40 and they’re a great daily. Good price range and a neutral soundstage. Decent separation for the price, for sure. Get the app for a little hearing test and it’ll EQ to suit you… Which you can then adjust to your actual preference.
I had soundcore before and they were great
