kiocosta/headset

My long journey to a suitable headset

My long journey to a suitable headset

Since January 2021 I work for Djangsters a German company developing Django- and Python-based software.

We work remotely, there is no office, which means a lot of video calls.

In the past I used a Plantronics Blackwire USB headset, now I was looking for a new headset.

My requirements:

• over-ear (the Plantronics were on-ear)
• high-quality microphone. If my kids play in the room next to me, I don't want the other video call participants to hear this. Or if I type some notes during the meeting, I don't want someone to hear me typing on the keyboard. The internal microphone did not meet these requirements.
• ANC (Active Noise Canceling). Between the video calls, I listen to relaxing music (for example Santec Orchestra). Together with ANC, this helps me to focus, even if there is noise.
• Optional: without a wire.

First I tried Bose 700 (290 Eur). I have a Lenovo Yoga15 laptop running Ubuntu 20.04 Linux.

Both devices did not play well together. Listening to music was fine, but as soon as I tried to enable the microphone the audio quality reduced to an unusable level. It sounded like a gramophone. ¹

Then I tried the Sony WH-1000XM3. Unfortunately, the Bluetooth connection was the same: Only listening to music was great, but as soon as I enabled the microphone the quality was unusable. I did some research and hear that using a USB dongle instead of the Bluetooth of my laptop could help.

I don't know what the reason was. Either the Bluetooth stack of Ubuntu Linux is only partially implemented, or the Bluetooth hardware of my Yoga15 is too old.

I ordered the 1mii USB Bluetooth adapter since it uses Bluetooth 5.0, not Bluetooth 4 like my Yoga15 laptop. This way I could avoid the Ubuntu Bluetooth Stack and the Bluetooth hardware of my Laptop.

But (short pause to increase tension)... It somehow did not work.

I sent the Dongle back.

I focused on my needs. What did I want? I want high-quality audio and a high-quality microphone.

Bose, Sony, and other ANC headphones are consumer headphones. I want a professional headset.

The Plantronics Blackwire USB was the device of my former employer. It worked fine, except that it was an on-ear headset, and I prefer an over-ear headset.

So I ordered a Jabra Headset Evolve 80. It has a wire, but that's ok if I get high-quality audio. The Evolve80 has a long cable and in the middle of a cable is a useless adapter which gives me features I don't need. It has the usual next/prev or volume up/down buttons. This round adapter was annoying. Having a headset with a cable is ok, but this adapter was too big and too heavy.

I was frustrated. So many hours were lost looking for a suitable headset.

I took the phone and asked the professional headset seller comhead.de.

There I received the advice that the Jabra Evolve2 85 comes with a dongle which should work with Linux.

It has ANC, it is over-ear and has a microphone arm.

The audio quality of the microphone is not great. My voice sounds a bit strange (which is does not with other headsets (with cable)).

Wow, finally I found a suitable headset: The Jabra Evolve2 85 works fine. The USB adapter connects immediately to the headset. The headset has all my requirements (over-ear, ANC, high-quality microphone with a microphone boom arm). I am happy.

WOL

Thomas Working-out-Loud

Footnotes

1. This probably happened because Ubuntu was using the A2DP profile when listening to music, which is omnidirectional and has great sound quality. However, when using the microphone, it was probably switching to HFP with CSVB codec, which is bidirectional but has terrible sound quality. This problem can now be solved by using PipeWire with HSP/HFP and mSBC codec instead of PulseAudio. More information can be found here. ↩