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when this happened earphones with wires went out of style practically overnight

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but Bluetooth headphones aren't perfect there's the connection issues the poor

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repairability The Limited battery life the list goes

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on which is why the wire has been making a big comeback lately but what to buy

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the best selling wired earphones on Amazon are these they're certainly

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affordable but they sound like crap these meanwhile use premium planar

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magnetic drivers for audiophile grade sound but they cost a month's rent

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where's the middle ground right right here now I was skeptical that a 100 pair

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of headphones could possibly offer similar performance to a pair that costs

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over a thousand but then I heard they were tuned by the

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one and only critical and that you can

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turn these Wireless for a total cost that is less than a pair of airpods

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which made me think what's the catch and

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where's the message from our sponsor thorum thorum makes elegant rings out of

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unique materials from meteorite to dinosaur fossils use code LCT to get 20

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off today and stay tuned to learn more this isn't the first time we've covered

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planar magnetic driver technology on this channel but it's likely the

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smallest now hold on Linus you keep saying those words planar magnetic but

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what do they mean let me explain most headphones well

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really most audio products at all use Dynamic drivers a dynamic driver

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consists of a coil of wire that is attached to a flexible diaphragm

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typically a cone like in this woofer or a dome like this Tweeter the coil is

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surrounded by magnets and is suspended in the magnetic field when an electrical

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signal is applied to the coil it moves back and forth translating its

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vibrations to the diaphragm which then moves the air around it creating sound

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planar magnetic drivers on the other hand use a flat diaphragm made of

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lightweight plastic typically with thin conductive wire etched along the surface

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the diaphragm is positioned between two magnets on either side of the driver and

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these magnets move the entire diaphragm at once why is this beneficial well in a

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nutshell it offers more precise control over the diaphragm's movement reducing

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Distortion and contributing to the planar magnetic driver's unique sound

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signature which is often described as clean and Punchy planar magnetic drivers

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also tend to be larger contributing to Superior bass response does this make

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planar magnetic headphones automatically better

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not really Dynamic drivers benefit from a 50-year head start over planar

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magnetics so a lot of engineering and Manufacturing expertise has gone into

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overcoming their weaknesses plus compared to planar magnetics they are

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more Compact and they require less power to operate there's always trade-offs

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right but anyway we're not talking about headphones today we're talking about

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earphones thanks to some recent manufacturing advances great sounding

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planar magnetics can be so small now that they will fit inside your ear

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canals and over the past couple of years an explosion of planar magnetic in-ear

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monitors or iems has flooded the market how does an explosion flood anything how

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great do they sound well twelve hundred dollars great according to Odyssey one

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of the best known innovators in the planer magnetic space but how could

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something so small be so gosh darn expensive when the competing product is

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less than a tenth the price let's take a look the outer box of the Odyssey

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euclids leaves a fair bit to be desired but the inside is simple filament is

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that a gosh darn Pelican case like Pelican brand IP67 water and dust

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resistant case yes and inside that is

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plenty of goodies like eight different pairs of ear tips a cleaning brush a

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little pouch to hold all your accessories oh and a pair of swappable

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mmcx cables that terminate in either a three and a half millimeter headphone

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plug or a 4.4 millimeter balanced connector what's the difference you

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might ask well for you the end user pretty much nothing in terms of audio

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quality other than that one is bigger yeah they also include some pretentious

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nonsense why would you have the user guide on a piece of paper when you could have it on a card that you can use to

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spread thermal compound very handy thank you but

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this is not nonsense look at these these gorgeous specimens consist of a milled

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aluminum housing with the Caps adorned with carbon fiber these are bound to be

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a conversation starter when they're in your ear but they are kind of monstrous

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maybe they won't stand out that much compared to some wireless earphones but

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the thing to remember is Guys these don't have any antennas in them no

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batteries what they do have though is an 18

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millimeter driver that is nearly three quarters of an inch for context the

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Sennheiser ie600s that I liked so much when I covered them on ShortCircuit

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used Dynamic drivers that are less than half the diameter which sounds smaller

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but in terms of actual area is less than

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1 6 the size but wait what's that

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is it the sound of an incredible deal from a Chinese audio manufacturer it is

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let's talk about the 7 Hertz X critical Sal notes

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dyoko an IEM with a long name and a

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short price the much much lower price

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doesn't stop them from including six sets of ear tips and a surprisingly nice

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carrying case I mean it's no Pelican or

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anything but it still feels like the sort of thing that could easily be sold

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for 10 maybe 15 bucks Standalone which

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is an impressive value but are the headphones themselves impressive too

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well from a design perspective they sure are definitely something the outer shell

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is sapphire coated tempered glass making

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them kind of reminiscent of jewelry it looks kind of like you're uh plugging

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your ears with precious amethyst bobbles the body is made of CNC aluminum and

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houses a pair of 14.6 millimeter planar

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magnetic drivers that is significantly smaller than the Odyssey euclids but

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still much larger than the ie600s like the you clips that come with a nice

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braided cable though perhaps not quite as nice due to the lack of rotation at

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the earbud and the less common two pin connector

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what makes these notable though is not just the fact that they offer planar

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magnetic Tech at a price that people can actually afford but the fact that they

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were tuned by audiophile extraordinaire critical he worked with 7 Hertz the

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manufacturer to create a product that both met his quality standards and

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aligned with his sound preferences

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and tuning a headphone is no small task

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it involves many many different variables the dimensions of the driver

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the electrical signal processing the amount of air on either side of the

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driver and so much more and with his reputation as a taste maker I've got to

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say having critical's name attached to a product does give me a lot more confidence that

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these things won't be crap like this isn't some you know athlete celebrity

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endorsement or something but still confidence isn't enough let's

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send them away to be measured

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oh my God he had one job starting at the

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low end we can see that the docos have a prominent bump in the sub bass that will

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provide plenty of Rumble and power

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Odyssey opted to forgo this which is not inherently bad but it does show us right

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out of the gate that these two companies have taken a very different approach to

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their tuning in the base regions both headphones look largely the same meaning

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that you can expect a similar intensity in the bass notes that you hear rather

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than the ones that you feel then making our way into the upper mids our

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specimens start to diverge again the diocos have more presence in the midst

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with some peaks near two and three thousand Hertz which could make them

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sound shouty but could also accentuate upper female vocals then there's these

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Peaks at 8 000 Hertz and 10 000 Hertz that could be cause for concern

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especially if you're sensitive to sibilance it means sounds like s and t

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in speech could be loud and instruments like symbols and crunchy distortion on

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guitars could come across as sharp or fatiguing the euclids meanwhile offer a

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much milder treble experience that to my

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ears sounds great I mean there is no

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question that these are audiophile great I mean they bloody well better be for twelve hundred dollars but really they

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will impress your snobby friend that only listens to Hotel California and

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Steely Dan and will definitely show you the benefit of the higher audio quality

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on our videos over at Floatplane.com the euclids manage excellent detail and

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smooth response in the upper treble that some might call laid back but for my

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ears felt just right I'd call them pleasantly warm I did find the base a

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little lacking making my preferred pop tunes sound a bit dead though ballads

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really shine and the reality of it is that's nothing that can't be fixed with

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a little bit of EQ tuning as for critical's offering well the diocos have

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the sub bass that I was missing with the euclids for sure but I found that the

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upper base was lacking like they Rumble but they could use a bit more punch and

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those high peaks in the treble range made things detailed but I found them to

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be a bit much in some tracks as for the

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dipped low mids they made even fine male vocalists sound a little boring the rest

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of the treble region though was detailed and quite delightful as for the Sound

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Stage it was fine and comparable to my ears to the euclids overall I actually

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ended up liking these a bit more but most of the reason for that came down to

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comfort not audio quality both of them are massive and heavy but the diocos

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ended up fitting my ear shape significantly better although your

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mileage will almost certainly vary because they don't even offer any

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rotation as I mentioned before so they might not work great for you a nice

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thing about both of them though is that they're going to sound fine whether you're listening from your phone or a

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more powerful amp and DAC so if either of them tickles your fancy we're gonna

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have links to them down below but don't go there before you hear our

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complaints compared to Bluetooth headphones of almost any kind both of

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these are feature bear neither has any kind of active noise cancellation a

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button to summon your digital assistant of choice or even an inline microphone

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and this one's a personal gripe but neither of them has the little chin

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cinch cable thingy that makes you look like a big idiot but is great for cable

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managing your body also the Odyssey

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connectors came loose really easily making the product feel unnecessarily

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cheap I also prefer by the way the carrying case of the diocos I mean it's

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no Pelican brand and it isn't IP rated but I mean I'm the sort of person who

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would just wrap up my headphones and throw them in my bag anyway so maybe you

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should just ignore what I have to say about that now at this point you might

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be wondering how Odyssey has the audacity to charge 10 times the amount

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for a product that is better but only

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marginally so well they've certainly earned the brand

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reputation for it but there's also the small matter of manufacturing

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Odyssey builds all of their products in Costa Mesa California which means that

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they're not only paying U.S wages they're paying California wages meaning

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that if a pair of headphones were to take just a couple of hours to build and

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quality control their labor cost on them would already be beyond the entire

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sticker price all in of the diocos I'm

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not saying that all of odyssey's components are made in America they

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almost certainly aren't or that that would even account for such a large

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discrepancy in price if they were but it's at least something for your

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consideration especially compared to the relative opacity of seven hertz's

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company who are these guys what is Lin's

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soul is it a store a manufacturer who

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knows something I know for sure that I haven't addressed is the earlier claim

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that I can turn either of these Solutions Wireless and I haven't

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addressed why I would do that either star Story Time my Workhorse wireless

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earbuds are starting to lose battery life and the idea that I will have to

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just toss them in a year or two is pretty disappointing to me now this

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could be easily remedied by making the batteries replaceable but Apple Who

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currently makes up about 40 percent of the market for wireless earphones likes

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it when you buy a whole new set instead of fixing your old ones and they're just

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not going to do anything to fix the situation unless they are forced by the

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government and as for their competitors well they have little incentive to do

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anything differently from Apple what that means is that we're about to see a

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lot of people throwing away their old airpods only to replace them with

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something that will last them again anywhere from two to five years Max

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before they will be thrown away again that sucks even ignoring the ecological

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impact let's say you don't care about that spending hundreds of dollars over

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and over and over and over again will add up in the long run I mean I've

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already spent as much on airpods as I did on my now 10 year old Sennheiser HD

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600 headphones like my airpods I use my

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hd600s every day but unlike my airpods

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they are still in excellent condition and will likely last for 20 or even 30

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more years I mean it sounds crazy to say that but it's true in an industry that

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is so focused on the next shiny Gadget audio remains one of the few domains

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where you can buy once cry once a good

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pair of headphones or earphones for that matter can and should last you a

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lifetime unless they're tied to batteries though I do of course

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understand the convenience of wireless earphones and I actually wish that both

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of these came with microphones and volume controls on the cables and

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Creature Comforts like that luckily you can just unplug them from

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their cables and swap in any cable you like even one with a

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Bluetooth adapter and a little battery on it like this one from Odyssey that

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costs a hundred and thirty dollars okay that's pretty expensive but you could

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also buy a cheaper one that wasn't made in America and that's how we reached

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that uh hey you can get these and wireless for less than the price of

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airpods claim that I made at the beginning of the video now is this an

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exact analog to Modern true wireless earbuds no there's no active noise

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cancellation there's no handy charging case and there's still a wire hanging

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off you to get caught on things but the diocos plus an inexpensive Bluetooth

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cable are less than a pair of airpods and sound markedly better I'd like to

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see more options for Wireless accessories by the way that have replaceable batteries in them but hey at

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least this way we never have to ditch the earphones themselves like I would

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enjoyed this video why don't you check out our video about an audiophile network switch that ended up being

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complete and total snake oil I guess I

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spoiled a lot of it just there but it's hilarious and it's worth watching