What was your least favorite earbud, speaker or audio device?

#1

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With Thanksgiving come up in the next few days, there is a lot to be thankful. I am thankful for my family and friends and community members.

I want to say that I am also thankful that I have received some good audio devices especially some that came from Soundcore (Liberty 2 Pro and Liberty Air 2 Pro to name a few). I also have a Zune that I got in 2006 that is still going strong 15 years later as well as a few other that help the day pass at work.

With that said, we all know that not all audio devices are winners and are just bad either do to design, functionality or other reasons.

What would consider the worse earbud, speaker or other audio device that you got and hated once you bought it? What made it bad for you? Could they have done something to improve it. Or was you given an audio device and said to yourself what the heck is this? :blush:

#2

Easy to answer that questions.
The latest is a always the best.
Its the new Flare mini, which I will swap with an old one.
So both have a perfect battery life in the future.
This “old” one will be donated to a friend’s daughter.
That’s my special “Thanksgiving”
(Not celebrated here in Germany, but I do this way) :laughing:

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#3

My worst audio device(s) were the earbuds which used to be supplied with Apple products. I have never been able to wear any of these earbuds due to the shape of my ears. Without an “ear hook” accessory, they never stayed in longer than a few seconds. The original round earbuds were the worst design ever, but now that I use Soundcore earbuds, that is no longer a worry!

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#4

That is one of the reason I am not so fond of those earbuds.
The other one is, these cause me pain in my ears when plugged in correctly.
I have tried all tips , but this was’nt helping as much.
So : SPEAKERS and very old styled so called small “on ears”
(Meanwhile those are pretty hard to find, but I have some stored for spare :smiley:)

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#5

I was looking for this one speaker that we had but we either threw it away or it is in my son’s room and that would be like hunting for a needle in a hay stack. Anyways, it was more like the portable not rally portable speaker. The speakers was a ball that split open. It then had square section for the battery and the a pocket for your device to be plugged into a cable. It was a hot mess.

For earbuds, I hated this one Beats wired earbuds. I forget the name for them but Beats created wired earbuds but with flat cables. I though it was a good black Friday deal but soon found out the cables shorted out pretty quickly. My wife bought a pair as well and had used hers less than mine and they were going bad on her as well.

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#6

I think the ear shape does affect what ear buds that you will or can wear.

For me, I bought some Beats Solo headset a while back and they hurt my ears and I gave them to my son. He wore them out. (literally-Broken cable and ear cups cracking)

Well 2 to 3 years ago and I bought some Beat Solo 2 (forgetting how the shape hurt my ears). Once I remembered why I did not like it, it was too late to return and my son thus got the benefit of a new pair of Beats 2. I basically just lost that money and my big item Christmas gift to me. :rofl:

I will say I made him pay me 20 on them. 1. If he paid for them, he may be a little nicer on them and 2. So I could buy a few parts to replace and fix them. After I fixed them, I gave them to my father in law who was just getting into the electronics.

#7

I can’t find a picture of it. But late 1970s Radioshack sold a type of in-ear mono bud which had the sound generated distant from the ear and a plastic tube from it to what went in the ear, and a hook over the ear.

Soundcore terrible.

Looked a little like this but not quite.

image

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#8

Yeah that is pretty bad.

I will say that I have seen some bad stuff but sometimes the bad stuff may lead to better products.

What I will say is that although some products like this Radio Shack is bad, I do respect some of their creativity in their products.

My kid got this radio earpiece that had an LED flashlight on it ( I think it was a prize from Boy Scouts).

Similar to this picture but add a tube for a light and make it about 20 percent bigger :rofl: It worked but not very well.

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image.jpg1089Ă—1494 114 KB

It was awful but was a nice concept as well.

Will say that one of my favorite device (and I use to have one when I was way younger) is the hand crank radio/flashlight.