What's the deal with extinction of ear bud headphones?

[RejZoR]

I used to have glorious wired AKG ear bud headphones on my laptop, reasonable price, great fit, good sound quality and probably one of the best volume sliders to date, until my mom blended them by accident inside turbo brush of Vorwerk vacuum cleaner... Went to AKG webpage, just to shockingly not be able to find A SINGLE headphones that are ear bud design and not in-ear nonsense. Checking several other companies like Sennheiser, Bose, Sony, JBL etc and same thing. What the hell? Am I really the last living dinosaur that prefers ear bud design where headphones sit in the outer part of the ear instead of stuffing them inside the ear canal? Mix in the fact you want wired ones and if you're lucky, they'll have ONE model available. Out of all, only Sony and JBL had ONE model each.

[Theguywhobea]

The in ears feels so weird and gross to me so I agree with you on this one. I've just been buying the older apple earbuds with a 3.5mm jack. I think they sound pretty decent and you can typically get them for under $20 now.

[Origami Cactus]

In my experience that design leaks sound a lot, and also fall out more easily.

 

[Turtle Rig]

14 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

I used to have glorious wired AKG ear bud headphones on my laptop, reasonable price, great fit, good sound quality and probably one of the best volume sliders to date, until my mom blended them by accident inside turbo brush of Vorwerk vacuum cleaner... Went to AKG webpage, just to shockingly not be able to find A SINGLE headphones that are ear bud design and not in-ear nonsense. Checking several other companies like Sennheiser, Bose, Sony, JBL etc and same thing. What the hell? Am I really the last living dinosaur that prefers ear bud design where headphones sit in the outer part of the ear instead of stuffing them inside the ear canal? Mix in the fact you want wired ones and if you're lucky, they'll have ONE model available. Out of all, only Sony and JBL had ONE model each.

They are still around my friend.  Try a Sennheiser and stay away from SHURE or other junk.

[DrMacintosh]

I can’t wear in-ears. I hate the conduction if sound you get with the cable, I hate the feel, and I hate how gross they get (leading you to have to  clean them often). 

 

“Ear Buds” are sadly only really mass marketed and sold by Apple 

 

[Chris_R.]

I'm not 100% sure exactly the difference between in ear and ear buds...but I have some Sennheiser CX300II earbuds in ears and absolutely love them.

[RejZoR]

22 minutes ago, Chris_R. said:

I'm not 100% sure exactly the difference between in ear and ear buds...but I have some Sennheiser CX300II earbuds and absolutely love them.

In-ear design is with silicone cup that yous tick directly into your ear canal. Ear-bud is design where headphones hang inside outer part of the ear. I also bought bunch of foam pads so whenever they get a bit dirty I just replace them with new. The silicon cups get really nasty really fast no matter how clean ears you have. And the feel is just weird. I had great bass and sound leaking really isn't an issue. Sometimes it's even preferable that I can hear outside world a bit...

[Max_Settings]

They still exist all over the place. FYI the buds you have are not actually AKG.

 

Try Yincrow X6 if you like buds.

[KaminKevCrew]

8 hours ago, Turtle Rig said:

They are still around my friend.  Try a Sennheiser and stay away from SHURE or other junk.

Shure doesn't make junk. Their stuff isn't as price competitive as it used to be, because the world has moved on and they haven't updated their offerings recently, but it's a far cry from junk. They still make some of the most durable in ears out there. However, I'm really not sure why you mentioned them - they don't even make earbuds. 

 

Sennheiser makes two models of earbud - one is a sports one, and the other is pretty cheap, but really a poor suggestion if we're trying to go for value here - the good chi fi earbuds are going to blow the sennies out of the water.

 

@OP your best bet will be with chinese/japanese (I think some of the Japanese brands still make earbuds anyway) companies, as that's a style that's still somewhat current in asia. 

 

That being said, Koss also makes an earbud style of earphone that has an ear hook that goes over your ear to help keep it more secure. I'm not sure how they sound, but they look pretty cool.

[Max_Settings]

2 hours ago, KaminKevCrew said:

Shure doesn't make junk. Their stuff isn't as price competitive as it used to be, because the world has moved on and they haven't updated their offerings recently, but it's a far cry from junk. They still make some of the most durable in ears out there. However, I'm really not sure why you mentioned them - they don't even make earbuds. 

 

Sennheiser makes two models of earbud - one is a sports one, and the other is pretty cheap, but really a poor suggestion if we're trying to go for value here - the good chi fi earbuds are going to blow the sennies out of the water.

 

@OP your best bet will be with chinese/japanese (I think some of the Japanese brands still make earbuds anyway) companies, as that's a style that's still somewhat current in asia. 

 

That being said, Koss also makes an earbud style of earphone that has an ear hook that goes over your ear to help keep it more secure. I'm not sure how they sound, but they look pretty cool.

Shure IEMs and headphones suck though. Only good thing they make is their mics.

[RejZoR]

SHURE doesn't have any at all either.

[RejZoR]

Just tried EarPods that came with my iPhone XR and the sound is pretty damn good, especially the bass was ridiculously impressive. Checked if there are 3.5 jack ones and they do exist (the ones with XR are Lightning connector thingie) and the price is actually pretty normal. Looks like I'll be going with Apple once more then heh. Bizarre that everyone sacked this design of headphones, except Apple. Not quite ready to shell out 150€ for wireless stuff, especially since I don't really need or want wireless headphones. But 15-30€ is a whole another thing and they sound great.

[RejZoR]

Great, received EarPods today and they are not the same as the ones that came with iPhone XR. They have very little bass where the ones that were with iPhone XR almost have spectacular bass. What gives.  Looks like Lightning headphones are far better than 3.5mm jack ones. But I can't use lightning ones anywhere else than on iPhone which is a bit stupid.

[KaminKevCrew]

On 2/19/2019 at 5:52 AM, RejZoR said:

Great, received EarPods today and they are not the same as the ones that came with iPhone XR. They have very little bass where the ones that were with iPhone XR almost have spectacular bass. What gives.  Looks like Lightning headphones are far better than 3.5mm jack ones. But I can't use lightning ones anywhere else than on iPhone which is a bit stupid.

It could be the output impedance of your source.