Wireless headphones are great. In fact, they’re better than they have ever been – just look at the legion of premium and high-end candidates vying for the attention of would-be buyers who want to combine their love of wire-free convenience with a desire to see just how far Bluetooth tech has come.
Whether it’s the pack-leading Sony WH-1000XM6 (£400 / $450 / AU$699) or the big-money Focal Bathys MG (£999 / $1299 / AU$2300), you really don’t need to look far for great wireless sound.
It can be easy, then, to become convinced that wireless is the only way to go. I think, though, that it’s time for a gentle reminder that wires remain king – and that, despite frequent attempts for their relevance to be consigned to history as some sort of strange anachronism, there’s a reason the humble cable still reigns supreme.
Wireless headphones are better than ever, but they’ve got a long way to go before they catch up with their wired counterparts.
I was reminded of this fact after spending a great deal of time with the rather lovely Beyerdynamic DT 990 Pro X over-ears. At £219, they are cheaper than the aforementioned XM6 – and a lot cheaper than the Focals. But switch from the class-leading Sonys to the DT 990 Pro X and the differences in pure performance are laid out starkly before you.
A different sonic class
Bear with me with on this. Sonically, the WH-1000XM6 are like Celtic: they’re great in their given division, but put them up against any respectable Champions League outfit and the score-line ends up rather one-sided. In this tortured analogy, of course, the Sonys are Celtic, and we’re talking purely about sound.
The way wired headphones handle detail is what you’ll notice first. It's something that I’m always reminded of when I return to tethered shores. “Oh, wow”, I tend to think. “This is what it's supposed to sound like”.
Even the best wireless cans can feel as though they are giving only something of a musical outline, a sort of approximation of the information that, like graphics from a decent PlayStation 2 game, gets the right colours, shades and textures in the correct order to give the right impression.
Decent wired headphones, by contrast, are the full-fat, widescreen, 1080p PS5 experience via HDMI. Everything is filled in, and those admirable approximations become nuanced, texturally rich layers of sonic loveliness. That’s how it feels switching to the DT 990 Pro X from almost any premium Bluetooth pair – it's just a different level.
As we write in our review, “Their stellar detail levels are a real trump card. Whether it’s the sorrowful piano on Nick Cave’s Bright Horses or the delicate, bluesy guitar on Jeff Buckley’s So Real, there’s so much texture that we feel as though we can reach out and touch the instruments being played.”
The wonder of wires
Wires simply communicate and carry more sonic information, and that means a far more impressive feeling of musicality. Subtle dynamic shifts that are often subdued on wireless cans (the Sony do a comparatively decent job of teasing them out, in fairness) are brought to the fore with the DT 990 Pro X, while the attack and decay of instruments are far easier to track.
That’s something you will also find with the Grado SR325x (£249 / $295 / AU$419). And while they’re more expensive than the Beyerdynamic cans, they are still far cheaper than the WH-1000XM6.
Whether it’s the walloping punch as full-scale dynamics land, or the way that they dig out rhythmic patterns, the sound the Grados produce is so much more three-dimensional than pretty much anything you’ll find via Bluetooth.
Check out our ‘wired vs wireless’ explainer page and you’ll discover the same conclusion. While wireless performance has improved massively due to increasingly efficient Bluetooth codecs, it's still unable to offer the purity of the good old fashioned wire.
As we say, “Analogue transmission through a cable can carry a song's full audio data, whereas audio transmitted wirelessly is compressed and crucial information is lost”. Even the best codec can't prevent those losses from occurring.
A timely reminder
The problem with wired headphones is that they make going back to premium wireless so difficult. The latter have their advantages, of course. They are often more portable, have noise cancelling and spatial audio, and there’s no trailing cable to tuck under your shirt; but, sonically, it's hard to hear a pair that can match a capable wired set.
The Focal Bathys Mg or T+A Solitaire T (£1200 / $1600 / AU$2160) have done well to close the gap, but again, look at those price tags. They’re enormous!
Please do forgive me if you’ve heard this all before, but it bears repeating once in a while. I undoubtedly needed the reminder of just how good wired headphones can be, especially when their wireless counterparts are so commonplace and spend so much time vying for our attention.
How many wired cans were released this year compared to the swathes of wire-free alternatives? Sony released the WH-1000XM6, while Bose recently unveiled its similarly priced QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen).
Beyerdynamic announced the Aventho 200 and a host of wireless earbuds, while Cambridge Audio gave us the Melomania P100 SE. Nothing got in on the action with the Headphone (1), while JBL released the Tour One M3. Bringing the fight to its big-name rivals, Bowers & Wilkins' Px7 S3 made their bow to considerable acclaim. The list goes on… and on… and on.
I'm aware that there will be many readers (perhaps not regular What Hi-Fi? devotees, admittedly), who are unaware of the gulf between wired and wireless transmission.
When you have been brought up or conditioned to think that Bluetooth cans are the only option, it often doesn't even occur that this isn't the most efficient means of data transmission. Wires seem like an anachronism from the past, and while wire-free has its benefits, the old ways remain the best when it comes to sound.
Let this act, then, both as a reminder to those in the know and a plea to the uninitiated. Wireless cans are better than ever, but, pound for pound, they're not the best way of getting your music to shine. If you care about sound over style, the cable is still the way to go.
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Also read our Beyerdynamic DT 700 Pro X review
Spotify Lossless still trails behind its hi-res streaming rivals – but that won’t matter for most people
Best over-ear headphones: wired and wireless pairs tested by our in-house experts
