I’m writing this while wearing a pair of Apple’s EarPods. They arrived yesterday and cost me £19. They’ve got a cable and not a whiff of ANC - you know, like, from the 90s.

In my bag… hang on, I’ll just put them on… I’ve got the brand-new £99 Bose earbuds that also have a cable attached to them, like some kind of device I’ve found during a dinosaur fossil excavation. Although these buds have noise-cancelling (and boy, can you tell the difference between them and Apple’s earbuds, immediately).

What’s going on?

Well, firstly, the Bose pair were handed to me in a hotel suite in London yesterday. Not quite as cloak-and-dagger as it sounds; Bose were simply on a press run for their latest product and were happily taking questions from people like myself about these be-cabled listening devices. It was a really exciting conversation. So exciting, in fact, that I forgot to ask some key questions about how the ANC works (don’t worry - I’ll get that information before my full review in a couple of weeks’ time).

"I dropped my daughter off at university, we're roaming around, and all I see is wired headphones everywhere,” Raza Haider, President of Bose Premium Consumer Audio, told me yesterday. “I’m like, what on earth is going on?"

Raza headed back to the office and explained to his colleagues that they needed to make a pair of wired, noise-cancelling Bose earbuds. Quickly. And they did - in less than a year. That’s a seriously impressive response to what is clearly a growing cultural re-phenomenon. Like Raza, I see wired earbuds everywhere these days.

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As noted, I picked up the Bose pair yesterday, and my EarPods arrived the same day, so I’ve had limited time to test either of them, but what I will say is that, immediately, it doesn’t feel retro. It doesn’t feel like stepping back in time. It just feels rather handy, less complicated, and almost infinite, given that I’m relying on one less battery that needs charging. Both pairs sound great, too (that definitely wasn’t the case in the 90s).

Every time I visit my local record shop, it’s busier. There’s apparently a resurgence taking place in the CD market (both in terms of CDs being bought and CD players being made). If you buy vinyl, you’re really cool. I think we can lump the re-appearance of wired headphones in amongst this clamour for physical, owned music stuff. They are from a bygone era, but they are perhaps more relevant, and more required, than ever these days.

I bet you want a pair, too.

Stay tuned for my full review of Bose’s latest wired earbuds (never thought I’d say that).

~ Mark

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