All Episodes

August 29, 2018 11 mins
We talk to Lauren Dragan, an editor at the reviews website Wirecutter, about the best wireless headphones in various categories including inexpensive headphones, running headphones, AirPods alternatives, kids headphones and noise cancelling headphones. There's even a pick for best headphones for weightlifters!Watch the TV segment and get links to the recommended headphones:https://ktla.com/2018/08/29/best-wireless-headphone-picks/Follow Rich on Social Media:Facebook: http://facebook.com/RichOnTechTwitter: http://twitter.com/richdemuroInstagram: http://instagram.com/richontech Easy ways to listen on your phone or smart speaker:"Hey Google, Play the Rich on Tech Podcast""Hey Siri, Play the Rich on Tech Podcast""Alexa, Enable the Rich on Tech Flash Briefing"

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Get full access to Rich on Tech at richontech.tv/subscribe

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
The best wireless headphones according to Wirecutter. What's going on?
I'm Rich Damiro. This is Rich on Tech and with
me today is Lauren Dragon. She is an editor at
a senior staff writer senior staff writer at Wirecutter. And
this is a great website Wirecutter. If you're not familiar
with it, it's kind of like the reviews website to end
all reviews websites. They basically test out a lot of

(00:26):
products and come up with not just one perfect product,
but kind of good products for what your needs are. Yes, So, Lauren,
tell me about you test headphones for a living, for
a living full time.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Despite what my mother might tell you, it's a real job.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
So just all day, every day, all day every day.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
So that's all I do is essentially I get in
a whole bunch of headphones, I try them out, I
get a panel to listen to them. We do things
like sweat testing and run testing and durability testing, and
from there we kind of try to find the best
thing that fit people's needs and make their lives easier.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
And what gives you this right to review headphones? You
have a pretty good history with audio.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah, I have a pretty big audio background. I have
a bachelor's degree in music performance and audio production, and
then I went into radio for a few years, and
then I went into voiceover for a while. So I've
been in and out of professional recording booths and studios
and seeing what professionals are using. And then I started
writing Oh Gosh about like ten plus years ago for
Sound and Vision and other audio review sites and web

(01:26):
and magazines. And then from there Wirecutter came out about
five years ago.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Okay, now I give my explanation a Wirecutter, you want
to add yours.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Essentially, we find the stuff that fits best into your
life to help you do things easier and make your
life better. So you know, it may not be a
one size fits all kind of thing. We try to
think about different use cases and different people's needs. So
whereas other things other sites might just say this is
the best thing in a vacuum, Well, it might not
work if you have a small apartment, may not work.
If you were a single mom, it may not work.

(01:55):
So we think about the different ways that you might
use something, and we try to find something to fit
your needs as opposed to just what the best thing is.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Okay, so we're going to do one, two, three, We're
going to do four types of headphones here, okay for
various use case scenarios. So your first pick is least expensive,
this is your workhorse. What's your pick, so the job remove.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
They've been our pick actually for a couple of years now,
and they're super durable. They sound way better than you think.
They're really comfortable, so you can wear them a really
long time and they won't bother your ears. A lot
of times you'll notice with cheap headphones book cut corners
by putting in crappy foam or weird plasticky parts, and
you'll kind of cut into you and so you maybe
wear them for an hour and then you start finding
yourself wanting to take them off and give your.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Ears a break.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
You won't have that problem with these. So that's why
I love them is they're really easy to use buttons.
They're very comfortable, and a lot of stuff out there
isn't and they sound great.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
And they're also flexible. When you first showed them to me,
you kind of flex them around, So I like that aspect.
Before we move on to our kids pick, which I
really think they look very cool. I know you can't
see them on the podcast. But they look really nice.
They look like a premium, like one thousand dollars pair
of headphones. But tell them I have a certain thing
where I have to have headphones that kind of cup
over my ears because I don't like them when they
sit on my ear. Is that like a preference or

(03:06):
is it.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Totally a preference? So we have on ear versus over ear,
and we actually have different picks for people like that.
So and you're not alone. People that wear glasses tend
to like on ear because they don't interfere with the
arms on their glasses. People like you maybe like over
ear because it doesn't feel as like compressed on their
actual outer ear area.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
So we do have pick.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Sort of things the job remove are on ear, and
generally because of the size of the drivers and that's
like the little cone thing inside of a speaker, except
smaller in headphones, those things tend to be more expensive
the bigger you get. So if you have bigger over
your headphones, that tend to cost more money. So you'll
find that like on ears, tend to usually cost a
little less than the over ear counterpart.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Interesting. Okay, so let's get into the kids pick that
you have, and these, like I said, these look like
a very expensive pair of headphones. What's your pick?

Speaker 2 (03:52):
So the PUROBT twenty two hundred and what I love
about these is they may not look like kids headphones.
And we thought when we tested it with a bunch
of kids, so we got some you know, three year olds,
four year olds, ten year olds, and we wanted to
see what they liked. And I thought they'd go for
the fun cartoon colors, and that they really didn't. They
wanted something that looked like grown ups headphones, and a
lot of stuff out there is very breakable, kind of disposable,

(04:16):
and these will last your kids.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
So my two year old.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
Fit in them when I was doing stuff. They'll fit
them all the way up until they basically hit tween age,
and they'll last you well because they have metal parts,
they have nice solid memory foam, they have easy use buttons,
but most importantly, they have volume limiting, so kids may
not be able to pay attention to the fact that
they're turning their music up too loud, and that can
damage their hearing really quickly. In fact, some of the

(04:39):
headphones we test it got to jackhammer levels and.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
That's not Okay, so what is this limit?

Speaker 2 (04:45):
It to eighty five dB. So that's the World Health
Organization's limit. That's what they say is recommended. You know,
it's a part of a noise diet. There's a whole
other thing we could go into about how your ears
deal with loud sounds. Not about one loud impact. It's
about the larger picture.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
That you take in through a day.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
But eighty five dB over eight hours is considered generally
speaking safe. So your kids can put these on, they
can try to crank them up as loud as they want,
but they can't go into what's considered unsafe volumes.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
Okay. And they're Bluetooth. They've got an unoff switch, they've
got a volume switch. They also have a plug if
you want to go wired.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
And they have a micro USB charger on there. But again,
you were stepping on them earlier and they still look great.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
So literally took them and I are combat boots for
the ones that the kids like the best, and I
just stomped around on them, because that's what happens. You
drop them in the car, kids step on them, they do.
So that's what's great about these things is that they
are built to last you. So yes, it may seem
like you're spending a little more money, but you figure
you could get three or four twenty dollars pairs over
the span of a couple of years or by one
and it will last you.

Speaker 1 (05:46):
And these Puros are one hundred dollars. Yeah, round hundred,
So one hundred dollars for these and again kind of
seems expensive. But this is the thing when people don't realize,
Like you said, if you spend twenty dollars on the
Amazon basics or whatever they are, you know, you buy
three pairs of those because they break all the time.
You might as well buy one nice pair, and you're
investing in safety and safety. I like that idea too,
because I think a lot of parents don't think about that.

(06:08):
Yeah that you know, for my kids, I'm always adjusting
like their headphones. I'm like, let me listen to that before,
and of course an hour later I listen again and
it's like cranked up yep. So I do agree, set
it and forget it a little bit. I'll be purchasing
those through your affiliate link, of course. Okay, So, Jabra,
this is your best alternative to the AirPods. Yes, tell

(06:29):
me about these.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
So you've got Actually they have two different versions of these,
so there's the Elite sixty five T and then the
Elite Active sixty five T. The Elite Active, the main
difference is they're a little more sweat resistant, and they
also have a little bit of fitness tracking, which isn't
that important honestly.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
They use an app most of the time.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
Right and honestly most people that are really serious about
that and they use a watch or something else. But
for me, the Elites are also sweat resistant, water resistant,
dust resistant, And what I love about these is well,
the AirPods are great for using on a Mac and
if you have a lot of Apple products and you're
transferring from one to another, they transition beautifully because they
have that W one chip, which is their version of Bluetooth.

(07:07):
Basically it's pretty seamless. But aside from that, they don't
do a whole lot else really well. The Jabra they're Elite,
the sixty five T and the Act of sixty five
T sound better, stay in, better, fit better, have more controls,
and are more durable because they have the water and
sweat resistance. So essentially, unless you're a hardcore Maac fan,
these are really going to do a lot more for you.

(07:28):
And they also have four microphones in them, so they
do really great video chats, voice calls. I people a
lot of times to be like, wait, do you have
something in because they can't even see them, and they
sound fantastic. And they also help to reduce background noise,
so if you're working in an office or if you're
working at the gym, they transition really well between both.
And they have about the same battery life and they

(07:48):
cost about the same which is around one hundred and
fifty okay.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
And it looks like they come in sort of a
charging case similar to what the same.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Thing so you get it's the same thing as AirPods
where it's like you get about four to five hour
use in your ears and then you put them in
and they'll charge fully two more times each, you know
when you put them in.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
So okay, you know, So if you're not, you know,
in love with the Apple stuff or you don't necessarily
need that, go with the job where you get more
features for about the same price. All right, now, finally
on the table here we've got the noise canceling pick.
And it's interesting because I bought my first pair of Bows.
I think it was like when I first started at
KTLA eight years ago. I was going to Japan and
I was like, do I spend three hundred and fifty

(08:24):
dollars on a pair of headphones. I was like, you
know what, I've seen all the advertising, I'm going to
do it, and I've loved them ever since. They've lasted
since then, by the way, so that's been eight years.
But your pick, I am verified here you have a
pair of Bows as your top sort of noise canceling headphones.
So tell me about these. What are these called?

Speaker 2 (08:42):
So the QC thirty five Mark two, which is a
really long name. But what makes them different is that,
first of all, Bos has their noise canceling you just
the best. They've cornered the market on that. They're just
really fantastic at getting down especially the low to mid
range frequencies, which means like airplane noise, of cars, outside
traffic sounds, air conditioner sounds. They'll drop that down really

(09:05):
really well. And then you know, one of the things
that Bose also has is with these they have the
built in if you're someone who use a serie, they
connect to Siri. If you use an Android, they connect
also to Google and they connect to Alexa. So there's
one button that will trigger all of those who whatever
system you use, you can also get those.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
It's certified for all those sort of flexible yeah, and
not just in one kind of silo there. I also
know this, there's NFC on here, which I know Apple
people don't really care about that. But if you have
an Android, it's really nice because you literally just tap
your phone to this to pair it up.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
Super easy pairing. Yeah, and that's I know. That's actually
a really great feature. That is, you know, I think
a lot of people overlook if you aren't naturally an
Android person. So that's why I think I like about
these a lot, is that no matter what type of
system you use, if you switch around between them, maybe
you use more one thing at work and one thing
at home, they'll adapt really well.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
To Okay, but you're paying the price. How much are these?
There are three fifty three fifty Now they used to
do that twelve payment plan. I don't know if I
don't see that advertised anymore anymore. I just bought mine
out right, but I always saw that in the in
the ads. But I don't think they do that, all right,
Lauren Dragon from Wirecutter, thank you so much. How can
people get in touch with you and the website?

Speaker 2 (10:10):
Okay, so wirecutter dot com. We are also we're owned
by the New York Times, so you can also go
through the New York Times. And if you want me specifically,
if you have specific headphones about questions about headphones, you
can always find me. I'm on Twitter, I'm on Facebook,
but just at Lauren Dragon.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
Okay, then an and there's many more picks. We just
did four, but you, like you said, this is a
full time job for you. So if you have questions
about headphones or you want to pick the perfect headphones
for your situation, you even Lauren even has a pick
for weightlifters.

Speaker 2 (10:39):
Yes, specifically for weightlifters.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
That's crazy that ge that gets really really specific here.
So thanks so much for joining me today. I appreciate it.
If you guys liked the podcast, screenshot it and share
it on your Instagram stories and be sure to tag
me and I'll share it to my followers as well.
I'm Rich Damiro For links and pictures and all that
good stuff on these headphones, just go to my website.
It's rich on tech TV. Thanks for listening. I'll talk

(11:01):
to you real soon.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
Mhmm
Advertise With Us

Host

Rich DeMuro

Rich DeMuro

Popular Podcasts

Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.