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
Sony’s XM4s were the best
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.
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
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’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.
If you don’t care about taking calls, Tozo have decent sound for cheap.
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.
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.
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
BT shocks openrun they’re conduction so you’d need ear plugs but tbf outside noise doesn’t really affect them. You could pop ear plugs in.
Linsoul zero 2’s are the best budget earphone I’ve brought not Bluetooth though.
I disagree with this suggestion. They said they have a tight budget and want noise blocking headphones. Shokz are great (especially for audiobooks and podcasts) but they are expensive and specifically designed to not block sound. They sound muffled and weird if you use ear plugs.
Yeah fair take, I got mine really cheap and they’re not looking for audio quality. For me they seem like the best value product for workouts, audiobooks etc they’re over ear hook. They shouldn’t die for a few years and costco have them on sale all the time so you have that as an option for added support. I don’t equate cheap with budget theres no point spending 4x20 over 2 years when 2x20 will serve you for 3.
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.
Wow, thanks for that link, it’s a game changer!
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).
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.
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
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.
