Miss the headphone jack on your iPhone? These wired headphones are the next-best thing
Miss the headphone jack on your iPhone? These wired headphones are the next-best thing
Publish Date: 2026-04-05 08:00:00
Source Domain: www.techradar.com
Apple didn’t get to where it is now without making many great decisions over its 50-year history, but one of its most unpopular moves was to nix the headphone jack in favor of a clean-looking but ultimately frustrating proprietary single-port system. Much like the simmering resentment that still exists surrounding that decision, wired headphones have stuck around, too. In fact, they’re having such a moment that Apple has added a 3.5mm jack front-and-center on its new, student-friendly MacBook Neo.
I asked our esteemed Audio Editor Becky Scarrott if wired headphones are still worth considering, or if it’s time that people moved on, and it was immediately clear she falls into the first camp. “Even the best, most cutting-edge Bluetooth codecs of the moment still incur a degree of resolution loss, owing to various factors such as your immediate environment, credentials of your source device, and which particular codecs are supported by the wireless product you’re putting in, on, or over your ears,” she tells me.
Our top-rated wired headphones
Our favorite wired headphones overall are the open-backed Sennheiser HD-660S2. In our review, our tester praised the “gently expansive soundstage that doesn’t block out the outside world” and the “consistent, neutral sound”.
If you’re looking for something more…
