Well, the question is in the title. Basically, i’m debating if i should forget about wirelessness and go back to wired even if i really hate wires. (Do not take battery durability into account please)
A bit of background, here’s my personal experience regarding headphones and durability:
Sennheiser HD555 (wired): Still worked flawlessly after 10 years of 4 to 8 hours of daily use. Then they died of assassination after i rage-throw them on the wall playing an online PVP game.
Many “flagship” wireless “gaming” headset from different popular brand: Almost never lasted more than 18 months. (With very careful handling and no rage-throw)
Sennheiser momentum true wireless 2 (Earbuds): Two warranty replacement in 2 years. 2nd replacement died shortly after warranty expiration.
Sennheiser momentum true wireless 2 (Earbuds): Not learned from previous mistake. Warranty replacement after 1 year… which died 3 months later. (Not even bothered claiming warranty this time).
Sennheiser momentum true wireless 3 (Earbuds): Assumed they were build better… Warranty replacement after 6 months… which started showing left/right imbalance 3 months later. (Damn you sennheiser !)
Sennheiser Momentum 4 (Headphones): Looks like i’m pushing brand loyalty a bit too far, but i’m stubborn. Bought them this week, still working great…
I came to the conclusion (possibly wrong) that “gaming headset” are not durable in general, and that wireless earbuds (even sennheiser flagship ones) may lack durability because of how small those things are.
I’d like your opinions. Do you think my Momentum 4 is likely to die as fast as every other wireless devices i had ? Or can i expect great durability because they are sennheiser’s headphones and not earbuds ?
Even the best quality wireless sets will die after the battery inevitably loses ability to hold a reasonable amount of charge.
The problem is that the battery is not user replaceable and when the battery gets weak enough it will not fully power the headset so it won’t function properly or it will have a very short run time before discharging. It is unfortunate that all the wireless headphones are only going to work for a few years of heavy usage before being used up.
Wireless have more points of failure, and they’re probably built worse to decrease the cost as you’re paying for a bunch of circuitry in addition to rnd/drivers/cable that wired headphones consist of
Wired headphones are a magnet, a coil and a membrane, in some simple plastic housing, soldered to a cable. That’s it. There’s not many things to break.
Wireless headphones also have an antenna, a receiver, digital to analogue converter, audio processor, buttons, usually a microphone with analogue to digital converter, LEDs, charging circuitry, further processing and more microphones in case of ANC, and finally a magnet, coil and membrane in more complex plastic housing to house all the components. Yeah, they’re more fragile than simple wired headphones which are made of a handful of parts.
TWS are even more complex, because it’s basically two wireless headphones separately (each has their own charging, battery, receiver, DAC, mic, ADC…) and everything is even smaller.
You seem to have been extra unfortunate with your headphones though, I’ve had my Sony WH and WF XM3 for 4 years now without issues.
I’m addition to all the above, wireless are built to be obsolete, to be replaced.woth next year’s model. Not saying they are built to break, but maybe on a good world set they use a pivot that they expect to last 10 years, but on wireless they use a cheaper one they expect to last 3 years. Some won’t last 3 years even if most will…and that leads to drama on Reddit.
Wireless is also designed to be lighter which may not be as strong.
Just seems like wireless is not designed to last as long.