Podcast: Play in new window | Embed
Michael asked: “I was very happy with a set of Logitech Bluetooth headphones that connected with a USB dongle. It’s difficult to know what I should go get to replace them. I lost the dongle, and when I replaced the dongle, I lost the headset. One of the things I liked is that the audio was very decent. Most that I have listened to, you get great music from, but when you use them for a phone call or link them to your computer, you get 8k audio which sounds worse than a regular phone call. Besides, none of my laptops have Bluetooth. I’m looking for something decent to replace it. I’m looking for something comfortable and has decent audio quality. Everything I’ve seen is either really expensive, or surprisingly cheap, but poor quality.”
Michael, if your focus is on phone calls, Logitech makes some reasonably priced headsets for phone calls, for example you can get the H800 for about $65.
Those typically have pretty bad sound quality when it comes to music though, so your best bet may be to look for a type of headset that’s designed for good sound quality and that also comes with a good microphone. The type we’re thinking about is a gaming headset.
If you want to skip the Bluetooth dongle, since your laptops don’t have built-in bluetooth, you can do that, most gaming headsets have a wired option.
You can find gaming headsets from as little at $15 to as much as many hundreds of dollars.
You can find gaming headsets from as little at $15 to as much as many hundreds of dollars. If you look for something reasonably priced and not too close to either extreme you’ll probably end up with headphones that are comfortable to wear, gamers wear them for hours on end, that have decent sound, since immersive music and effects are a big part of modern games, and that have a microphone that you can position in front of your face rather than something that sits by your ear, or hangs from a cable.
You can obviously, look at regular headphones with a microphone, most bluetooth sets have microphones these days, or at headsets that are designed to be used for phone calls, but usually the first kind has a cheap microphone and the second kind is terrible for music.