[tme110]

Quote:

Interesting post indeed. But it got me wondering how did Sennheiser manage to make the signal so clear? How long is the signal range? Also, does it require an amp? 

 
an amp?  for what?  A wireless headphone bypasses your amp and DAC so if you already have high-end equipment going wireless will make them all irrelivant. I see wireless getting more popular but not much more.  Personally I hate dealing with charging batteries, and dieing batteries, and no matter how good the battery it will start loosing capacity after a 100 cycles or so.  I job with a bluetooth headphone and it sounds ok at best but it is always somehow making my iphone skip around on tracks for some reason. I hear this beep which means the phones have changed my song again (which is great when listening to a 17 hour audio book).

 

[Craneymusic]

I listened to wireless hi definition microphones. I used to see musicians and singers using in-ear-monitors attached to their wireless gadgets. This is all make me believe that in the future we can reproduce high sound quality wireless headphones with from minimum close to zero interference from other sources. 

 

[Techno Kid]

I think in the near future they'll be a little more popular but I don't think they're going to surpass wired anytime soon.
 
Now years from now say like 50 or more I think wireless will be the norm because the technology will be advanced enough by then to have perfect audio quality.

 

[Lorspeaker]

50years and all will be implanted...

 

[Dexter M]

In 50 years from now we will have detachable ears that are actually wireless headphones

 

[BattleBrat]

Sony XBA BT75 Bluetooth earbuds Balanced arm. Nice, they'll take on a sub $150 pair of IEMs efficiently

 

[streetdragon]

Quote:

In 50 years from now we will have detachable ears that are actually wireless headphones

.... so.... my ears sound better than yours....?

 

[ender323]

I think that at the moment, analog wireless is bad. It gets interference, and loses data. It is fine for "normal" headphones, but for anything "audiophile" grade, wires are king right now. There are wireless transfers that don't lose data-but they would need to be super-high-speed, digital transfers, with checksums like a digital cable. This, unfortunately, means you would need a DAC inside your earphones. I suppose that could be encorperated into an amp, and be really nice, but some serious miniaturization will be required.

 

[Mike43110]

It is actually easy to get a full definition signal sent wirelessly
To reduce interference, a better codec that wav should be used preferably, once designed for streaming with a small packet size and large redundancy to eliminate errors.
Standard wifi is perfect for this, but 5.8 GHz would be better suited as it is relatively unused.
 
The issue is and will always be battery life. It isn't difficult to send the signal required at a medium length, but to do that for any reasonable amount of time will require a large unwieldy device.
 
Bluetooth 4.0 has a low power profile that would be perfect, except for the data rate. Bluetooth 3.0 uses wifi anyway and 2.1 has too low a bandwidth for true lossless.
 
Are they the future? Possibly, but only once we get better batteries or wireless power transmission for a perfect transmission with reasonable weight.

 

[ender323]

Quote:

It is actually easy to get a full definition signal sent wirelessly
To reduce interference, a better codec that wav should be used preferably, once designed for streaming with a small packet size and large redundancy to eliminate errors.
Standard wifi is perfect for this, but 5.8 GHz would be better suited as it is relatively unused.
 
The issue is and will always be battery life. It isn't difficult to send the signal required at a medium length, but to do that for any reasonable amount of time will require a large unwieldy device.
 
Bluetooth 4.0 has a low power profile that would be perfect, except for the data rate. Bluetooth 3.0 uses wifi anyway and 2.1 has too low a bandwidth for true lossless.
 
Are they the future? Possibly, but only once we get better batteries or wireless power transmission for a perfect transmission with reasonable weight.

Thats just the thing-there aren't packets in analog radio signals. In order to do a digital signal, like WiFi, you would need the headphones to have an onboard DAC.

 

[bhima]

Quote:

Mark Cuban is WRONG on this issue:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WheCO4RgMGI&t=51m40s
 
Scott Jordan, CEO
www.scottevest.com

I used to work at a catalog company that sold your gear!

 

[D3Seeker]

So who is actually putting serious R&D into this? I feel is the real question to be asked. At the moment, as has been mentioned battery life is garbage for any practical use. With all the things going on with spectrum right now you'd think someone would be looking into this, as far as high end audio goes. Perhaps someone is and just hasn't blown the lid off of their stuff.
 
I sure know a pair of wireless headphones would be SOOOOOO useful!

 

[ender323]

Quote:

So who is actually putting serious R&D into this? I feel is the real question to be asked. At the moment, as has been mentioned battery life is garbage for any practical use. With all the things going on with spectrum right now you'd think someone would be looking into this, as far as high end audio goes. Perhaps someone is and just hasn't blown the lid off of their stuff.
 
I sure know a pair of wireless headphones would be SOOOOOO useful!

Well, I just learned recently that BlueTooth is actually digital, not analog-the issue is the awful DAC in BlueTooth devices. There are some external DACs that connect over BlueTooth to a source, thus giving you excellent quality while liberating you from your phone/computer/whatever. You still have to carry a DAC around, though, and they are quite expensive.

 

[zodiac007]

it is hard to tell now, somehow, aptx codec make the difference quite small w/i or w/o cable (as the ads)
like digital vs analog, which is better, 

 

[Sweden]

I'm guessing that in 15 years 90% of all sold portable on-ears and over-ears will be wireless.
It's patently obvious we are heading toward wireless. The question is at what rate?