Yet another headphone thread

misplacedbravado wrote:

After almost a decade of faithful service, my Steelseries Siberia V2 headset finally wore out. With a budget of $100, what should I look at to replace it with?

It’ll be used with a PC only. Wireless would be a big plus but is not absolutely necessary. Removable or retractable microphone is a plus — I want to have a mike but don’t use it all the time.

It's usually above that budget, but very occasionally drops on sale to thereabouts (you just missed a killer deal on 'em for $80, for instance), but my Steelseries Arctis 7 tick all those boxes - wirelss, retractable mic, super comfy and sound lovely.

If you can wait around for a deal, you'll likely have another decade of Steelseries headset.

The Razer Blackshark V2 isn't wireless, but it's pretty good.

EvilDead wrote:

OK, I'm going to give the ASUS USB-BT500 a try. I did a little google searching and am getting the feeling that MPOW is using a lesser chipset. My PC has the BT400 which only supports BT 4.0 with a 33m max range.

I will let you know how it goes.

Looks like the Mpow use the RTL8761B chipset vs some Linux reviewers on Amazon.

I do have a couple of Mpow devices and have been pleased so far. I have a set of Mpow M30 Plus earbuds and a wireless car charger. Seem similar in quality to Anker and Aukey to me. Just a cookie cutter Chinese brand trying to have a wide product set.

Yeah I saw that too and have haven't had issues with Mpow in the past. I ultimately went with the Asus because it uses the RTL8761BU which, from my understanding, is newer than the RTL8761B. (Users reporting Linux doesn't have a driver for it yet)

EvilDead wrote:

Yeah I saw that too and have haven't had issues with Mpow in the past. I ultimately went with the Asus because it uses the RTL8761BU which, from my understanding, is newer than the RTL8761B. (Users reporting Linux doesn't have a driver for it yet)

I understood some of those words.

Is AptX LL even a thing you can get on a PC bluetooth dongle these days?

Yes, the Creative BT-W2 I mentioned on the previous page supports it.

EvilDead wrote:

Doing a bit more research I think I might Bose QC for the multi-point connection and decent mics. Don't hate me Thin_J, music is a second priority. Also they are $200 now and I'm sure they will be again on black Friday.

However Anker just released the life q30's @$80 and I'm interested how those review buy non youtubers.

I forgot to follow up with this. I ended up with both of these. Bose as an Xmas gift and scored the Ankers for $70 on BF.

The Bose fit the bill for what I was looking for. The multi-point works mostly seamlessly (only a couple hiccups) and everything else is good enough to very good. My one pet peeve is not being able to disable the NC via hardware button. It requires the app.

Here's the kicker. The Anker Q30's are almost as good. They are light, very comfortable, well built, and sound 90-95% as good as the Bose to my ears. To add to that they allow you to adjust NC with a button and easily enable passthrough mode by hovering a hand around an earcup. The mic, while passable, just isn't as good even after the recent firmware update to address it. Also, the multi-point requires that I always add the second device manually in my bluetooth settings. I can't get it to automatically connect to both when turning on. However, even with these caveats, these might be great lower budget purchases for most people. I don't think I would consider any other BT set in the sub $150 price range and I got these for less than half that.

The Bose Connect phone app will let you reassign the dedicated Assistant button on the QC35II to instead toggle between the 3 NC settings. That's how mine's set up.

Kurrelgyre wrote:

The Bose Connect phone app will let you reassign the dedicated Assistant button on the QC35II to instead toggle between the 3 NC settings. That's how mine's set up.

You better not be lying, I'm going to set that up tomorrow! When I looked this up all threads ended up with "great suggestion, we'll let our engineers know!".

EvilDead wrote:
Kurrelgyre wrote:

The Bose Connect phone app will let you reassign the dedicated Assistant button on the QC35II to instead toggle between the 3 NC settings. That's how mine's set up.

You better not be lying, I'm going to set that up tomorrow! When I looked this up all threads ended up with "great suggestion, we'll let our engineers know!".

Button re-assigned. You are the best!

OK, reporting back. I bought the aforementioned Soundcore Q30 Lives in blue on an Amazon coupon deal for $63 today. Will be a few days before they come in.

And I got the MPOW Bluetooth 5.0 adapter. While I really like my Mpow M30's that I got for the price I paid, this dongle is not giving a good first impression. I have it plugged into a USB 3.0 adapter on the top of my desk, and both sets of earbuds I've connected to the PC drop out nearly every time I turn my head 2 feet away from the adapter. And this is after having to dig out the little CD to install drivers, because the ones on Mpow's website have a broken download link (typical Chinese electronics company IME). Going to give it a bit more of a try plugging it directly into the PC, but that's under the desk, so I suspect it won't get better.

Hmm. It does seem better directly into the front panel extension from my pretty old PC. I'll give it a day or two.

There is a YouTube lipsync delay however. Makes it pretty much unusable if that's what's going to happen. Will try other devices.

Mannish, latest drivers are here: https://www.xmpow.com/pages/download

It won't let me link directly but scroll down to BH456A

The ASUS BT500 one downloaded drivers from Windows and has been working well. Youtube syncs up with my headphones but not all video sites. Certain headsets are better than others so I imagine it has to do with what BT spec the headset supports, hardware, and firmware. I can go down two floors to my basement without disconnections now.

From what I understand in terms of lag: BT 5.0 supports syncing video to headset lag so is good for sites that support it however this won't help for games or apps that have no support. BT 5.2, that keeps on getting delayed, will support low latency connections natively and won't require the additional support of APTX LL hardware for low latency purposes. (I'm sure someone will correct me here)

That is a good deal on the Soundcore Q30. I ordered the pink set for my girlfriend.

EvilDead wrote:

Mannish, latest drivers are here: https://www.xmpow.com/pages/download

It won't let me link directly but scroll down to BH456A

I know that's where they are. The site won't let download. I get a network failure error every time I try. I can't download anything from there.

The ASUS BT500 one downloaded drivers from Windows and has been working well. Youtube syncs up with my headphones but not all video sites. Certain headsets are better than others so I imagine it has to do with what BT spec the headset supports, hardware, and firmware. I can go down two floors to my basement without disconnections now.

Oddly, the Bluetooth 3.0 hub that I had it plugged into that's in open air seems to be the root of my drop outs. Plugging into the front panel adapter that I have on my tower works fine, even though that's below the desk and nearly fully enclosed by desk and couch.

The ear buds I was testing with are both bluetooth 5.0 and don't have lip sync problems on my phone.

I wouldn't have linked it without testing first . Maybe some sort of adblocker or firewall issue? Uploading to my work dropbox so expect PM shortly.

EvilDead wrote:

I wouldn't have linked it without testing first . Maybe some sort of adblocker or firewall issue? Uploading to my work dropbox so expect PM shortly.

Heh. I don't have an ad blocker. Haven't had trouble downloading elsewhere, but I do have a new mesh router set up that I bought a month ago. I'll play around.

EvilDead wrote:

I wouldn't have linked it without testing first . Maybe some sort of adblocker or firewall issue? Uploading to my work dropbox so expect PM shortly.

Oddly, I played around with it again. After getting the error in Chrome, I can keep hitting resume until it finally finishes. Took me four or five attempts.

Unsigned drivers, though. Slightly sketch.

That's odd. You shouldn't be able to even install unsigned drivers without going into a special mode where signature enforcement is disabled. We have to deal with that at work. Are you sure it's "unsigned" and not just "unknown".

EvilDead wrote:

That's odd. You shouldn't be able to even install unsigned drivers without going into a special mode where signature enforcement is disabled. We have to deal with that at work. Are you sure it's "unsigned" and not just "unknown".

You're right, I just restarted this and get this:

Microsoft Defender SmartScreen prevented an unrecognized app from starting. Running this app might put your PC at risk.

Going to try to see if my router is causing download problems. It happens on my old PC (wired), but I can download just fine on my phone. Haven't tried on a wirelessly connected laptop yet. Unfortunately it doesn't really have a lot of accessible firewall settings. I'll have to put my old one back online and test.

That is bizarre. I don't have any experience with mesh routers but good luck!

EvilDead wrote:

That is bizarre. I don't have any experience with mesh routers but good luck!

This is a TP Link Decora Wifi 6 that seemed to have good reviews, but you know how most people understand router functionality.

Looks like the download is hosted on an AWS server, seems weird that a router would block that. Assume it's blocked regardless of the browser you use?

It didn't work here either, FWIW. I tried both with my ad- and script-blocked Firefox, and also with Pale Moon, which is stock. Neither browser would let me download anything, and I did a lot of fiddling turning scripts on and such in FF.

I didn't get an error, it just didn't do anything when I clicked on the download link.

Huh. Works fine for me on T-Mobile internet using the latest beta version of Edge. Would trying a different DNS server help?

OK, now we have a mystery. Chrome worked fine with Ublock origin so I just tried it in firefox with UMatrix mostly open but Ublock origin still blocking. Firefox blocked a popup but there was a tiny notification to allow popups from that domain then it worked.

If you don't even get to the point where it offers the option to choose Windows or Mac downloads I think there is some sort of browser popup blocking going on.

EvilDead wrote:

If you don't even get to the point where it offers the option to choose Windows or Mac downloads I think there is some sort of browser popup blocking going on.

I get that Win vs Mac pop up, mine even tries to download. It fails mid-way through. Edge shows a progress bar that lets me see more of what happens.

Weird.

Unrelated to headphones, but since I've been downloading audiobooks from Overdrive to PC lately due to the Android 11 change to how folders work (see Android thread), I've noticed it fails on some of the file parts and I have to keep repeating the download to get all the files. This has got me wondering if it's my router or if they're hosted similarly to this file. Or just unrelated and trying to drive me crazy.

If you're downloading the audiobooks in a browser you should be able to see the download URL in the downloads tab. If they are also coming from an AWS source then it sounds like less of a coincidence.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

If you're downloading the audiobooks in a browser you should be able to see the download URL in the downloads tab. If they are also coming from an AWS source then it sounds like less of a coincidence.

Not in browser. It's in a stand alone program that looks like it's from 10 years ago. You click the link on the library site and it downloads a stub file that points you to your book (or if using Firefox, it actually launches the Overdrove program automatically).

Think of an old media player app that also functions as a download manager.

Sounds like this needs to go over to the tech thread:

Consistent failing mid download sounds like classic packet loss with downloads that don't have the ability to resume. If it just started happening with the new router that would be the first place to look.

We had this issue at work and I used this program to show Comcast it was on them (It usually is). Basically reports connection over time and you can use it to pinpoint where the connection is failing.

First try something like this short test and keep an eye on the packet loss.

https://freeola.com/line-test/

Got my Soundcore Live Q30's. So far, I like them. They dual sync better than anything I have, as you don't have to manually switch devices on the phone or PC to go back and forth. Just stop audio on one, then play on the other and it goes right to that device.*

Sound is pretty good. Not the most accurate compared to my low to mid range Sennheisers. Kind of base heavy, but that's pretty typical these days. Highs aren't the most crystal clear, but again, pretty OK.

Not having ever tried a high end set of Sony or Bose ANC headphones I can't really compare in that regard, but it seems to cut out a lot of background noise in the house with competing TV's in the room fading into the background.

Are there any aftermarket ear pads that work with these? I think I prefer the fabric like my Sennheisers to the vinyl/fake leather type that make your ears sweat.

*EDIT: Now tonight it's not going back and forth like that. Weird. Now I have to disconnect the PC, then the phone starts working.