Oh, that's a tricky one.
You—how much time do you have? (laughs)
I know that audiophiles are gonna just shake their head and
dismiss me the minute I said that.
Uh, buds.
If I’m picking only one, I’m going with cups.
It would have to be earbuds.
Cups. Definitely cups.
I get the cups if I’m—you’re doing like old timey-wimey radio
or if you're maybe on a long flight, or you're listening to
vinyl at home and you want the real, real classic audio experience,
but I just think you can’t—you can’t beat the convenience of the buds.
Danger in the sense that I didn't hear my wife calling me,
and I ended up getting smacked in the head.
So. (laughs)
I think it can be dangerous when you’re walking in the street
and you don't hear someone honking at you.
Literally last night, I was shooting some camera samples out at night
just trying to get some low light samples, and I had my
1MORE neckband, walking around, and almost got run over
by a driver that was not paying attention to me on the crosswalk.
AirPods are definitely super easy to lose. I’ve definitely lost at least one pair.
I lost my very first set of noise-canceling headphones,
the most expensive headphones I’d ever bought, in a hotel room,
and then I called the hotel, and they were like
“no, we’ve seen no sign of those.”
And so I called up my boss at the time just as we were starting MrMobile,
it was one of my first review devices, I was like “hey, I lost these.”
And he was like “you know, uh…”
"Those are travel—noise-canceling headphones are basically a business expense.
You should just buy them again and then review them.”
So I did.
And then that was the review headline: So Nice, I Bought It Twice. (chuckles)
It was on a different set of Sennheiser headphones that I had,
where the cables are detachable, but I forgot that I was attached to them
and I had just kind of jumped away from my desk because somebody was
at the door or something,
and it totally ripped the wire out of one side, but like all the way up into the driver,
like the whole socket and everything came loose, and it was just…
R.I.P., because I didn’t want to repair it.
So I ended up getting these, but it’s just one of those, like…
(sighs) It hurt. It hurt badly.
So I did at one point swear that I lost my Pixel Buds
for, like, weeks, and then ended up taking my backpack out,
and unzipping it, and it just kind of tipped over, and they just
both of them came tumbling out, and I realized that I am just dumb,
and left them in my bag, and forgot to put them back in the case,
which is what you should always do with headphones like that.
The worst one was doing a desert shoot, where I had some in-ear monitors,
and I was holding a boom mic, and I had this bandolier of wireless microphones,
and I’m jumping out of a van to try and get this shot,
and as they’re slamming the van door shut, it shut on my right in-ear monitor,
and I just go splaying out. Like, it yanked me so hard that
I dropped probably close to $3000 worth of studio recording gear
all over the street for what was supposed to be kind of a run and gun production.
For more consumer-y stuff, I’ve actually been okay. If you drop
a true wireless earbud, you kind of just get on with your life and it’s probably fine.
Honestly? No, not really. Not at all.
Uh, no. You know, I’ve been at home more, which then
enters the question of home audio, and I'm a Sonos—
Sonos user through and through.
I’ve been using Sonos for like a decade, and my house is just
wired up with speakers everywhere, so I have ambient house music.
And then on computer calls, works calls, phone calls,
I use AirPods.
It has and it hasn't because I used to use it primarily for meetings,
and then I stopped having meetings.
But then all the stuff that I used to do in person; I would travel to an event,
or travel to a briefing, and I would wear AirPods or earphones while traveling.
But then all the meetings and things like that were in person, so
I didn't have much opportunity to use them.
But now it’s the inverse. Everything is done over Zoom or Webex or Meet,
and so I’m constantly wearing them for the meetings part,
which I never did before, and I’m never traveling,
so I don’t wear them for any sort of enjoyment or distraction factor.
I think I've really never been one to use headphones much at home
unless I’m making music, which I suppose I do a lot, but…
Outside of that, I mean, listening within my home,
I'm always doing on speakers.
Uh, never.
Nah, I'm—I'm not the guy.
Never, ever, ever buy because of how they look.
To be honest—and it happens a lot,
where I’ll have people tell me like “oh, those earbuds are ugly.”
And I'm like “I don’t care because when I’m wearing them, I can’t see them.”
Yes! (laughs) I have done that.
I had to get the black Surface Headphones 2 because they looked so good.
I—I guess…
I have chosen not to use certain headphones because of how they look.
All the time, yeah.
That's why I’ve never bought a pair of AirPods.
You know, hate's a strong word, but I'm still very concerned about
how we're positioning different types of open-ear solutions to consumers in general.
We're facing skyrocketing rates of hearing loss,
especially in young people.
We still see a lot of companies offering up these
open solutions that are convenient. Like they’re really easy to put in your ear.
But they don’t offer any seal; you can’t block out noise, and that
encourages people to listen at significantly higher levels than they should.
The one thing about headphones that I actually really hate right now
is you still have to choose between quality and convenience.
And I know wireless keeps getting better and better,
and I know that the wired headphones keep getting more and more compact,
maybe even aerodynamic.
But I still feel like it's a tradeoff.
Like you're just never getting the best quality
if you want the highest level of convenience,
and I'm hoping that at some point,
someone can just fix the horrible mess that is Bluetooth enough
that it sounds good enough for even an audiophile to be really happy
with a tiny bud in their ear.
Oh, I have a pair of their headphones.
Master & Dynamic, who makes buds,
but then they make the ones for Louis Vuitton that are branded.
So then I'd go something like that because they’re more unique.
I'm gonna have to go...
Pixel Buds.
I feel like the Pixel Buds look pretty,
like, clean when they're not in your ear.
To me, I think the Surface Buds look pretty good.
Oh, I forgot about the Galaxy Beans (Galaxy Buds Live)!
The Beans, a hundred percent.
You know, the problem is it’s not whether they look good or bad,
it's just Apple has already made a name for himself…
For themselves, they’ve already placed this design so ingrained in society
that every other earbud wants to look like AirPods, which I feel is a mistake.
Alright, Galaxy Buds look the worst.
I feel like the Surface Buds kinda look the worst. They’re just, like,
so big in so many ways.
I don't know what Microsoft was thinking with that particular design,
but brah! (laughs)
The AirPods. (laughs)
I mean, a hundred percent.
(snickers) Out of those three would be the AirPods Pro.
(laughs)
I need them. I need them all.
I probably have about
four or five earbuds and headphones that are around me
at any given point.
I use three different pairs.
I have two pairs of earbuds,
and one pair of cans that I use.
So I’m using in-ear monitors with custom molds,
custom-molded tips just to do this interview right here,
I’ve got Beyerdynamic DT 770s for closed backs,
I’ve got (Sennheiser) HD 25s for location work…
And then I also keep just a spare pair of bullets—
earbuds just if I’m outside; if I’m shooting outside.
I'm more about the convenience than I am about
anything else, and so my Pixel Buds go with me a lot,
There are—except for specific occasions like, say, an airplane.
That is when I would want
like my noise-canceling, like my Sony…
Something like that.
If I want to be, like, uh…
ten-drinks-in Kevin reliving his childhood youth
at a high school dance, I'll be like
Bar—uh, Aqua's "Barbie Girl.”
Don't judge me. You already judged me, too late.
My favorite test song would be Hans Zimmer
"Why So Serious?" from the Dark Knight soundtrack.
This is a pretty long track, but it has
so many different levels within the composition.
You get a lot of the low end, you get a lot of the high end.
And it’s crystal clear if you have the extra quality headphones on.
It's always usually Carlos Santana as the artist
or the band Santana.
And...
Yeah, I mean it’s vocals, it’s instrumentation…
There is a wide sound—a lot of it is live recording.
So you'll get this, like, if—
if it's good headphones, you'll get a lot of sound separation,
you'll be able to hear all the different instruments, so
that's usually where I'll start.
I will test audio with, like, bossa nova
if I want to listen to, like, how mids are handled, and how
crisp the instruments are played.
I will use reggaetón for beats and stuff like that, and then
I will use piano music just to hear detail.
So one of the first tracks I always sample
is “Killing in the Name,” Rage Against the Machine,
as it's just a wonderful example of mixing guitars.
There's this almost perfect sine wave distortion as
the lead guitar and the bass guitar are just shredding through that track.
And it sounds so perfect.
And if you have a pair of headphones and that track doesn’t sound great…
You've got a miserable pair of headphones.
This dude's name is Marc Rebillet.
I don't know where he lives or what he's doing,
I wish him nothing but the worst.
But you know, for some reason,
generally when I'm sitting down with a pair of headphones,
I frequently test the audio quality by
playing back something that he's just made,
and I find—I find it to be a really good measure or whether or not
what that music sounds like is any good.
It would be probably about $150 for buds,
and… (sighs) Yeah, up to $350 for
a pair of really good ANCs if I’m traveling a lot,
and I can justify that cost.
Well, the most I have paid so far, $400 for these Bose NC 700s.
I'm not the type to sit in front of
thousands of dollars of tube amplifiers
in acoustically treated rooms in a home theater setup.
That's just not my gig.
So if it were just for fun...
I feel like a $100 to $200 ballpark.
You know, these compared to, like, $50 headphones, it's a huge gap.
But these compared to a $2000 one,
even driven with the right equipment, it's still not
enough for me to justify that level of expenditure. But…
Everybody’s income levels are different, so
you know, it's based on people’s own usage, but for me personally…
Yeah, $550, $600 probably max for me.
Maybe $75 USD. Maybe.
If you're on iOS, I feel like, just get the AirPods.
They're so good. Like, I know that they are expensive,
but I feel like they give you that value back on a daily basis.
They're so convenient and so well done.
If you're on Android, you do have a little bit more of an option,
but again, I would still say Pixel Buds or Galaxy Buds Live if you can afford it,
because the quality that you get,
and the feature set you get is just so much better than, like,
a $20 pair of headphones.
I would say, okay,
I wouldn’t spend more than $200, but
AirPods Pro are $250,
like I have no problem, like anybody,
I'd be like "listen, I’ll give you the extra $50 if you want,” just...
Go buy them, you won’t regret them.
Why? Because I feel that they do the better versatility part.
So I guess that really depends on how much they’re into music;
how important and how valuable it is to them.
If it's just for, like, someone who
enjoys listening to podcasts or audiobooks while they’re out and about, or
streaming music, that sort of thing…
I think anywhere between $100 and $200 is probably plenty.
I think as you get into people who are more fussy
about the music they listen to, and they really…
they derive a lot, like, an intense amount of…
of satisfaction from the music,
then you can ramp that up to $300, even $400 if it delivers on that for them.
So sound quality is gonna be the top, top thing for me.
After that, it's comfort.
Durability.
They have to last. If I’m going to give you
$100 or more of my hard-earned cash,
I need these things to last longer than a year.
If they’re way more convenient but they sound
so bad I don’t want to listen to them, it’s not worth it.
And if they sound so good but they’re incredibly inconvenient,
it’s not good, so it’s just finding that
perfect balance between convenience and performance.
Acoustic noise canceling.
There's no way around it.
I know that's probably gonna be everyone's answer,
but that is what changed it for me. That’s what made me
realize that $350 wasn’t unreasonable
when you are traveling all the time and really need to isolate yourself
to do work, or just to relax, or to enjoy yourself, or whatever.
That technology is … unparalleled in audio.
(stammers) There’s nothing more important than that to me.
Truly wireless is huge. I also think
active noise cancellation in earbuds is a new thing,
and that also is really impressive.
So for me, sure, miniaturization. I would give you that.
Like how Apple has been able to package
an entire system into this design is one thing.
Jabra's another company that's done it really well.
Really good noise canceling, huge,
combined with wireless and good battery life.
Comfort.
Headphones used to be so bad to wear that
they would hurt after wearing them for about half an hour.
And if you're creating content and editing content,
it takes you a lot longer than half an hour to go through
that content and make sure it looks good and sounds good.
Anything that helps us
improve the quality of the content that we’re experiencing,
at the same time, allowing us to turn the volume down because we’re not
competing with noise in our environment,
I think is a substantial improvement to audio tech in general.
They are the Sony XM1000
Mark IV, the M4s.
The best pair of headphones out right now
are the Sony WH-1000XM4s.
Last week, I would've said AirPods,
but the Galaxy Buds Live honestly, like, have really changed that, so
I think that,
and I’m still—like, I’m not fully tested with it, so
my opinions could change as I use them more,
but right now, I would say they’re kind of tied.
So for open, it's gonna be the ones I'm wearing right now,
which are the Drop x Sennheiser HD 6XX.
I absolutely love these.
They are—the midrange is just
so—it's intimate, it sounds so, so good…
That's a Sophie's Choice right there.
I know over the course of my life, I’ve had my ears
in HD 25s from Sennheiser more than anything else,
but I’d probably side with the Beyerdynamic DT 770s.
Okay, if I had to stop working today
in what I do and I had to pick one of each,
I'd keep the Bose 700s and I'd keep the AirPods Pro.
(sarcastically) Yeah, unless I'm tethered to my mobile device
with, like, a half-inch copper cable,
I really don’t feel like I’m getting the most—
Yes, wireless is fine!
For what I need, it’s more about the convenience,
and a decent sound quality.
It doesn't need to be crazy-amazing and, like,
you know, all the nuances,
I love that, but what I need
is gonna just be a decent pair with good connectivity
that sound decent and have good battery life, et cetera.
It definitely helps to have a really good pair of wired headphones,
but the convenience with wireless is just, like, huge.
If I’m gonna use wireless, it’s typically just for
entertainment purposes, but if I’m doing work,
I need that wire, because I need that latency to be
minimal to nothing,
and I need that audio quality to be rock-solid.
The last two years, especially with true wireless,
and all the innovation that’s happened,
Um... It's been excellent. So I think for most people, including myself,
wireless is definitely, definitely getting there.
I need a wire for audio syncing,
but because I play music out of my phone...
It doesn't really matter. (laughs)
I still feel like there's a…
There’s a solution in place where cables
won’t ever go away,
just like Ethernet cables weren’t completely eradicated by Wi-Fi.
You know, it’s um…
It's a practicality; it’s a specific use,
and they’ll become more niche,
but Bluetooth still can’t cover all the bases
for everything that we might want to do.
So I would divide it into just
personal and professional use. For anything personal,
I don’t ever want to see a wire again.
Just get them away from me. I’m done with them.
But for professional use, for anything mission-critical,
I still...
I still default back to having wires; having less dependencies.
It's just one less thing to go wrong.
Always a good question. Um...
I don't know.
What—I don't know. It’s…
It's a stupid question. I'm not gonna answer it.
(off camera) Fair.
(laughs)