Hi there, Fine and interesting list. To be sure, the idea of noise cancellation, or any variation's is a no, not just because of the sense of position, but because I have something talking in my ears when I use them in this particular setting..no phone ringing, door bells, or the all important music playing in the background. As I have been a radio producer, and professional singer for many many years, over the ear headphones are the most comfortable, speaking personally. I truly dislike earbuds, they tend not to stay in my ears, to put pressure on my ear canal etc...and the buttons are a no, mic interferes with the machine. The most important thing, for this particular set of headphones though is A combination of frequency range, sensitivity, impedance, and driver units...oh and input power. a few settings in the wrong direction, and the headphones will make me dizzy..literary. And those numbers can be device specific, what I will use for my reading edge, differs for what I use for production, or music listening, or whatever. It is part of why once found I may buy more than one pair. Cannot fault you for using the same ones since the 80's. Had a set once I got from radio shack that I used for more than a decade as well. Goodness but I miss radio shack. Kare On Thu, 13 Jan 2022, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
| From: Karen Lewellen via talk <talk@gtalug.org>
| If you desire a visual idea then perhaps google jvc ha-s44x.
Thanks.
From past discussions, I know your shopping technique isn't like mine. But I'll mention my considerations on the off chance you might find them useful.
Most wired headphones are electrically / electronically interchangeable. Of course that's a good thing. It also means that there are a lot to choose from.
There are lots of issues of sound reproduction quality, but to be honest, all should have sound quality that is good enough for a reader (as I understand it).
I would imagine that the main issues are comfort -- a very individual thing. Oh, and durability -- not something in the specs!
Here's what I glean from the specs of your old headphones:
- closed (i.e. they try to block sound from your environment)
- over-ear [I find such headphones uncomfortable fairly quickly]
- 5.57 ounces
- button controls (what do they control?)
- 1.2 m cable [the units are unspecified but 1.2 ft would be very short]
Do you use the buttons? What for?
I think "over-ear" means that these clamp on your ear as opposed to clamping on your head around the ear ("circumaural"). I find over-ear very uncomfortable after a few minutes but I seem to be in a minority.
Do you really want to have sound isolation from the room ("closed")? I imagine "situational awareness" would be useful.
Out of habit, I use ancient Sennheiser HD430 phones. They are circumaural, light, open [i.e. I can hear things going on in the room], good enough sound. They have replaceable cables and ear pads (but now hard to find). Out of production since 1986. I find that even these get uncomfortable after a while.
My current favourite is ear-buds. The ones with a selection of soft tips, not the hard ones. You can get decent inexpensive ones from China. I have, for example: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002184896879.html Currently C$16.84 without microphone. I paid less. There are many other brands that are likely fine. There is an enthusiastic following for "Chi-fi".
TWS (true wireless stereo) headphones are amazingly convenient if you have Bluetooth. But you don't. There are a lot of adapters to convert analog to Bluetooth but I don't have any experience with them.
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