My favourite part about wires is that there's never interference or poor connectivity. Aux headphones, ethernet cables, wired mouse and keyboard - all so much more painless.
I used to be able to tell I was about to get a GSM text message by the way my (wired) computer speakers would make a distinct quiet staccato crackle sound.
I recently started playing GTA 4 and it has this noise when you're driving in a car with radio on and about to get an sms or call in the game. Made me feel nostalgic.
Haha, came here to post that song... Anyways, I still hear this every now and then (the sound, not the song) with my Ford C-max 2006 sound system and iPhone 12 mini, but nowhere near as often as back in the 90's and 00's. Back then I also had a separate vibrating module I'd put in my cell phone pocket (many pockets available at that time, Nokia 3210 did not vibrate), it would always vibrate before any ringtone (self programmed AirWulf) would start (of course).
Why did that stop happening? I remember back in the early 2000s you might even come across a live concert where an incoming text message got caught in the PA and broadcast to the entire audience.
Because we moved from GSM and its original set of frequencies to 3G and (usually) a new set of frequency bands. The noise was caused by a beat frequency between the ring channel and the call/data channel. Changing either the coding scheme (so you don't get anything like a tone as the beat) or the channel separation (so the beat isn't in audio range) causes it to go away.
Nah, the frequencies are stil around there, they're all too high to hear, but GSM used TDM - time division multiplex.
To simplify, up to 7 users (+1 timeslot for signalling) share the same channel/frequency, but each of them is allowed to transmit only 1/8 of the time (even less, due to guard intervals). This basically means, that your phone transmitted for a bit over 0.5 milliseconds (577us), then waited quietly for 7 more intervals like that for other devices to transmit, then your phone transmitted again, and the affected speakers "buzzed" because of these 577ms bursts of power every 4.616 milliseconds (this causes a buzz in the frequency range we can actually hear).
Wow. I've just for the first time ever realised that you might be able to derive the content of the SMS from the specific pattern of interference you would hear on speakers. Like, it seems plausible that is the case. Is that what you mean here by broadcast - or just the fact there was a message was broadcast?
Not really, speakers just reacted to the bursts of power, because the transmission frequency is way too high for us to hear.
GSM uses time division multiplex, which means it shares the 8-timeslot channel with 6 more devices (7 devices + 1 signalling), meaning your phone transmits for 577us, then waits quietly for all the 7 timeslots that other devices use (so, for 4.039 milliseconds - 7x577us), and again transmits for 577us, and again waits. Bursts of power every ~4.6milliseconds make a noise that we can actually hear at a bit over 200Hz.
It still happens if you lay your phone directly on audio cables with cell data on. You can also see interference happening on high datarate cables or if placed over certain components in a laptop.
That's the beat frequency between the ring channel and the call channel. The channel widths and separation were such that the beat frequency was order 1KHz and therefore audible.
I dunno, if you haven't run into audio or video interference on a wired device, you're lucky or have quality cables. I've definitely picked up radio stations on headphones or had nearby electrical currents induce an annoying buzz in a microphone or distort a video signal.
A bad ground in a USB power brick made Spanish talk radio leak into my video mixer's audio interface. Through the chassis, the BlackMagic SDI card, the SDI card, and the BlackMagic HDMI->SDI converter being powered by the cursed USB brick.
> I've definitely picked up radio stations on headphones
Not exactly the same, but makes me reminisce the days of the iPod nano. It offered FM radio using the headphone cables as an antenna. I haven’t seen that supported anywhere since, which is a shame because I’d really like to get local stations on my phone.
FM radio using headphones/headset as antenna is a common feature in phones. I've seen it on feature phones in 200x, and on some Androids as well. Only you can decide if it's important enough to outweigh other must have features though. There are also lots of apps to stream local radio if you have a consistent data connection (doesn't need to be fast, though)
IIRC, USA pushed for some time for inclusion of radio receiver as mandatory, while GP mentions the need to support DAB if selling to France, resulting in weird situation where it might be software "fuse" involved.
Here in the EU, it tends to be disabled in software even if the hardware has it.
I blame the French. They introduced a law that forbids radio receivers that don't support DAB radio, as a way to make the newer DAB format take off. But globally, DAB never did so phone hardware don't have it.
In the EU, distribution chains often cross borders and it would be too bothersome to have models with special firmware just for France — so instead, nobody gets FM-radio.
My Xiamoi Redmi Note 8 Pro that I bought from Orange (french telephone provider) here in France in 2020 definitely is currently receiving FM Radio (uses the headphones for reception) and it is even documented on their site https://assistance.orange.fr/mobile-tablette/tous-les-mobile...
> It offered FM radio using the headphone cables as an antenna.
That was common on phones in general. Headphones acted as antenna.
If you open the FM radio app without connecting wired headphones, it'll ask you to connect it.
This was common in Android phones as well.
My current Android phone does not have headphone jack. And I can't use FM radio (although there are services that play radio over the internet, but that isn't really the same...).
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About phones which have the capability but which are disabled, I wonder if it's because of security implications.
Where I live, the allowed frequencies were from 87 MHz to 108 MHz or something. Consumer FM radios could only be tuned in this range.
That's because on frequencies outside this range, other transmissions — for example, police transmissions — might be taking place.
The aforementioned allowed range is different in different countries.
Also, in my country long long ago (like, ≈50 years ago) you needed to get the permission of the government (via a license or something) to get a radio. You couldn't just go to a store and buy one. That changed later, however.
Now that I think about it, it might have something to do with semi-secret transmissions happening on frequencies outside the allowed range.
A friend told me it's possible to take apart the radio and tune to non-standard frequencies because in most radios the "dial" to select the allowed range really works by physically jamming the dial with another block. If you remove that block, you could keep turning that dial. Haven't tried this myself, so take that with a pinch of salt.
I know you have a bunch of responses already but I got to say this, every single phone (dumb and smart) that I've used or seen used by my immediate family and friends has had this feature, I'm more susprised by the implication that there are phones that don't!
I actually just built a $4 FM receiver kit that uses the headphones for the antenna.
It was very common in previous decades because it was cheaper and allowed more room in the device (the alternative was the metal “pull to extend” antennas).
It’s been almost 15 years but I do remember always knowing when my pre-smartphone cell phone was about to ring. It’d make my stereo system buzz loudly moments beforehand.
Obviously the phone caused it. The signal from the tower wouldn’t be any different from all the other calls going to all the other phones on your block. They didn’t have beamforming that narrow.
There were even led accessories you can attach to your phone that will light up when the phone is transmitting a signal. Basically just some leds attached to some coils to harvest energy transmitted by the phone.
Got any tips for eliminating or mitigating the interference? Recently some retiree in my area got himself a new, illegally-high-powered CB radio so he can talk to truckers from his house. It comes through on the wired headphones I wear while working from home.
Find a HAM in your area and ask them to do a "Fox Hunt". Many enjoy hunting people violating the laws and giving a detailed report the the FCC, which has some rather impressive fines that they DO levy.
First, HAM is not an acronym. It’s ham, a friendly joke referring to amateur radio operator.
Second, hams are not vindictive people, and most interference issues are sorted out locally, possibly with support from the ARRL. Some sources of interference can be very hard to find.
The FCC only levies massive fines when their instructions are being ignored. They don’t play games, that’s true.
The only incidence of wired interference I have personally experienced was a ground loop in a car (car cigarette lighter-usb adaptor-usb cable-phone-aux cable-aux input on car stereo). I seem to recall fixing it with a <$5 component that isolated the signal, this was about 10 years ago and other vehicles I've owned haven't had the same issue.
Living in a country where ground wires are not installed as standard, oh you are so wrong. Anything that has a wall plug carries crazy levels of background hum to any audio equipment I plug into it. I'm sure there is something I could buy to fix that (I can't fix the electrics though as I'm renting).
On the other hand, instead of doing loads of research and buying new equipment, I can just connect my headphones or speakers by Bluetooth and the noise is gone.
Now I have to deal with the annoyances of Bluetooth which are not zero either. But it's a great tradeoff for me.
I have a pair of wireless RF headphones. They’re awesome - the base connects via optical, so no interference of any sort, the signal range is fantastic, the lag is minuscule, the pairing with the base is always automatic and perfect, and they take rechargeable AAA batteries that can recharge within the headphones when they’re on the base, or can be easily replaced.
I'm in Vietnam. Possibly it's something else with the power grid causing interference? Any device with metal sides (like a mac laptop) also constantly gives tiny electric shocks to people.
I have a pair of desktop speakers that have both a USB input (to an onboard DAC) and an analog input; originally, I had the USB input connected to an iMac and used the analog input to plug into my work laptop. Recently, I swapped the iMac for a Mac Studio and a Studio Display, and figured that I could just unplug the Thunderbolt cable to the display from the computer and plug it into the laptop. I kept using the analog cable, though, because I wanted to keep the speakers directly plugged into the computer rather than the hub on the display, probably due to irrational audiophile-esque superstition that this would make the sound laggy or the highs less chocolaty or whatever. (More seriously, I've heard of DACs having stuttering issues when they're run through hubs, and hey, I had the cable, right.)
And the first time I plugged the analog cable into the same laptop that I'd been using, the only difference being that the Thunderbolt cable was also plugged into it, it was terrible.
Despite the audiophile joke above, I don't mean terrible in some kind of "this cable is making the sound subjectively worse" fashion, I mean terrible in a "when no sound is playing, I can hear grinding electrical noise going BZZZZZbzzzzGRRRFTTTTgrrnkFFFFNK constantly" fashion. The problem was clearly the Thunderbolt cable, even though it wasn't involved in the audio circuit at all. It's like it had turned into its own little RF interference generator. While I only had the one Thunderbolt cable so I couldn't swap it, the interference went through two different analog cables.
(This is not as weird as hearing RF interference over one specific pair of headphones from a headphone amp when nothing was playing but only when I was using a specific USB cable running to the same outboard DAC, which also happened to me years ago.)
Sounds to me like a ground loop. so you're right, I have had that issue once in my car (different grounding potential between the cigarette lighter output and the stereo aux input)
I have terrible connectivity and interference with wires!
As soon as I stand up my headphones become violently disconnected from my computer. Cables also interfere with each other and all the other items on my desk.
Did those headphones cost more or less than AirPods? Somehow, musicians and producers have worked for decades with wired headphones just fine. Beyerdynamic headphones can go for less than $200 and have a long straight cord or a coiled cord that stays out of the way.
Musicians work with wired headphones because they largely have to, not because it's intrinsically better. You don't even need to be a musician or producer to experience the drawbacks being attached to a cable can have.
It is intrinsically better though. Wired sound infinitely nicer sounding, and with much lower latency. Will we ever have a day when wireless will be sufficiently low latency?
I'm not sure how you arrive at the conclusion that it is intrinsically better when both of the things you mention are tradeoffs you make, one of which isn't really true and the other which is an engineering issue.
> Wired sound infinitely nicer sounding
There are good sounding wireless headphones and terrible sounding wired headphones. The drawbacks is that with wireless headphones you can't control the sound stack and are dependent on the manufacturer to provide high quality drivers, amplification,
and digital to analog conversion all built into the device.
> much lower latency
...is an engineering problem.
> Will we ever have a day when wireless will be sufficiently low latency?
A company already markets their wireless headphones directly to musicians, which is basically the threshold of low latency you need to meet; realtime monitoring [1]. Does it accomplish what it set out to do? Not sure, but seems like it's good enough for some people.
Ultimately it comes down to exactly what I said, which is that there are tradeoffs to using wired vs. wireless headphones and one is not intrinsically better than the other. You thinking that something sounds "infinitely better" doesn't make the rest of those tradeoffs not meaningful to other people.
There are some headsets (such as Audeze Penrose) that use 2,4GHz wireless instead of Bluetooth. Penrose's latency is reported to be 16ms. At least for games, that's good enough and noticeably better than anything over BT I've tested.
Of course, it has the dongle issue which limits the usage to certain devices (Xbox and Windows in my case, I haven't tested the dongle on my Mac or Linux).
The flow of electrons in a copper wire is much slower than a wireless or fiber optic signal, so over longer distances, theoretically it could be lower latency. I suppose the challenge is in building a fast enough encoder/decoder and dealing with interference
> The flow of electrons in a copper wire is much slower than a wireless or fiber optic signal, so over longer distances, theoretically it could be lower latency
"flow of electrons in a copper wire" has little to do with the speed of a signal transmitted via electrons in a copper wire - what we care about here is propogation delay[1]. Assuming that the speed is about c in air (a bit less but whatever) and at least 0.6c in copper, and assuming a minimum threshold of say 1ms of delay being noticeable to an audiophile, then you would need a headphone cable about 450km in length to noticed the difference.
Not always true. The USB-C port is already loose on my Android phone after only 1 year of use. I cannot use it with a DAC on the go for music, as the slightest wobble will cause a disconnect. I never had this issue with headphone jacks, but even so, wireless has some advantages.
I don't know if that's enough, there wouldn't be much airflow at the bottom of the port. I've used a needle to clear out the compressed lint stuck at the bottom, and that made it hold the plug much better. But I suppose it could be mechanical, though that hasn't been my experience.
I had the same experience. I thought the USB-C plug was terrible and I was cursing it for being so badly designed. I tried different cables but even the better ones (better in terms of not falling out) eventually would fall out. I then used a pin to mechanically remove the lint from the port and I was amazed at how much came out! After that the plugs went in so much further and are completely secure. Nowadays I don't get so much lint build up, probably because I work from home.
Compressed air will never get it out. It gets really compacted in there. Don't be afraid of using a needle, the port is quite rugged. Just avoid the contacts in the middle.
Ah that's fair - I am not a fan of how manufacturers have removed aux ports on phones for exactly this reason. A phone without an aux port is a dealbreaker for me (currently looking for a phone to replace my 4 year old galaxy a8, it's tough to find one as good!)
The reason some ethernet cable and audio cables don't have ferrite beads is because they have internal metal mesh EMI shielding. But not all cables have that.
Both, I believe. Had ground-loop from my setup involving a very cheap passive mixer and a an asortment of other cheap crappy usb dacs, and there was definitely some EMI involvement as you could hear it change as I moved my cables around the tangled mess of other high speed data cabling.
Don't have the equipment to test or diagnose, but empirically, having moved to using balanced cabling from point of analog conversion all the way to amp input, there's no sounds coming out of my headphones that shouldn't be.
> My favourite part about wires is that there's never interference or poor connectivity. [...]
What a happy world. There's enough interference in cabling, but most time it's not enough to cause any issues. Had a case once where an AP with PoE did not work properly (started, then died, repeat) and the issue was that we had to much cable somewhere and rolled it. Interference caused issues, despite using STP and Cat. 6...
