Sonova Acquires Sennheiser Consumer Business

Not as convenient for sure, but for me a Fiio BTR5 + any good wired in-ear monitor (KZ make excellent ones for cheap) sounds better than any bluetooth-only earbuds.

By far the best I've tried and the ones I've used are these https://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/in-ear-headphones/wi-c200

Which is funny because they are (comparatively) peanuts in price.

Good connectivity, they aren't lying about the 15hr battery life (after two years still over 12hrs), charge quickly, USB-C - big buttons so can be operated easily (useful to me because I connect to my android for GPS under a crash helmet on my bike for voice navigation), loud enough, SBC/AAC support and the lanyard is comfortable and makes it hard to lose the buds.

One of those rare products that just does exactly what you'd expect and is so reliable simple it disappears into the background.

Too much marketing involved in this business. And then too much competition from China? Not sure whether the masses are aware of the good but cheap China items. BLON BL-03 , how can you compete with that?

I think the story starts with Beats. Sennheiser missed a trend or was late to adopt.

I think that it has more to do with Samsung who intended to cross-polinate their medical and consumer audio products. So, Apple might be the cause but one step removed.

You might be on to something there. Small sample here but most of my colleagues over the years had sennheiser headphones of some sort. Occasionally they’d step out to another brand and come back again. I’ve still got some HD25’s knocking around that I don’t use as well.

However we all use AirPods now.

Also sennheiser earphones were all trash.