Looking for 3.5mm headphone cable with good quality mic
August 25, 2020 10:53 AM Subscribe
I'm looking for a 3.5mm TRRS to 3.5mm TRS headphone cable with a built-in good quality mic. Does anybody have any recommendations?
I'm looking for a 3.5mm headphone cable with plugs on both ends and an inline mic (so the end plugging into the computer should be TRRS and the end plugging into my headphones should be TRS). Whether or not it also includes a remote is optional. Here is an example of something that would work if I knew the audio quality was good.
Does anybody have personal experience with one of these that they could recommend?
The context is that I'm looking for a cable to connect my Jabra Elite 85h headphones to my Macbook Pro, mainly for voice chat when playing games. The headphones have a 3.5mm socket but it is TRS only so the mic built into the headphones does not work.
Using the headphones over bluetooth for voice chat doesn't work both because of the limitations on audio quality when using audio+mic over bluetooth and because for that reason some games don't allow you to use the mic over bluetooth even if you wanted to.
I'm currently using the cable that came with my old V-MODA Crossfade M-80 headphones but my friends say that the audio quality is pretty bad (muffled).
I'd prefer to get a cable with mic vs a dedicated headset for games because I like my existing headphones and one additional cable is a lot easier to manage than an additional pair of headphones.
I'm looking for a 3.5mm headphone cable with plugs on both ends and an inline mic (so the end plugging into the computer should be TRRS and the end plugging into my headphones should be TRS). Whether or not it also includes a remote is optional. Here is an example of something that would work if I knew the audio quality was good.
Does anybody have personal experience with one of these that they could recommend?
The context is that I'm looking for a cable to connect my Jabra Elite 85h headphones to my Macbook Pro, mainly for voice chat when playing games. The headphones have a 3.5mm socket but it is TRS only so the mic built into the headphones does not work.
Using the headphones over bluetooth for voice chat doesn't work both because of the limitations on audio quality when using audio+mic over bluetooth and because for that reason some games don't allow you to use the mic over bluetooth even if you wanted to.
I'm currently using the cable that came with my old V-MODA Crossfade M-80 headphones but my friends say that the audio quality is pretty bad (muffled).
I'd prefer to get a cable with mic vs a dedicated headset for games because I like my existing headphones and one additional cable is a lot easier to manage than an additional pair of headphones.
Response by poster: Thanks for sharing your research advicepig.
I decided to try the V-MODA BoomPro Microphone as I'm okay with a boom microphone for my purposes and it seemed like the most widely reviewed option and reasonably well regarded as far as audio quality goes.
posted by unus sum at 3:42 PM on August 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
I decided to try the V-MODA BoomPro Microphone as I'm okay with a boom microphone for my purposes and it seemed like the most widely reviewed option and reasonably well regarded as far as audio quality goes.
posted by unus sum at 3:42 PM on August 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
That looks cool. Love to hear your impressions when you get it.
posted by advicepig at 5:58 PM on August 25, 2020
posted by advicepig at 5:58 PM on August 25, 2020
Does the macbook pro internal microphone not meeting your needs? I've found on my 2016 that it's quite sensitive unless you're across the room.
There are also numerous USB solutions for this sort of thing if TRS isn't a dealbreaker.
posted by misterdaniel at 10:33 AM on August 26, 2020
There are also numerous USB solutions for this sort of thing if TRS isn't a dealbreaker.
posted by misterdaniel at 10:33 AM on August 26, 2020
Response by poster:
So far the V-MODA BoomPro seems perfectly serviceable. One friend said that compared to the internal mic running in OS X the quality was "not better or worse, just different". Another said that it was fine but sounded like the mic was a bit close to my mouth (even after moving it a bit away). I suspect that with some tweaking of volumes and positioning and such it could be even better, but out of the box it does the job I need it to do.
posted by unus sum at 10:44 AM on September 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
Does the macbook pro internal microphone not meeting your needs? I've found on my 2016 that it's quite sensitive unless you're across the room.I often use the internal mic on the OS X side with good results, but when running Windows (via boot camp) the sound quality of the internal mic was bad enough (staticy, muffled) that I could not be understood over voice chat. From googling around it seems like there are many other people with the same problem.
So far the V-MODA BoomPro seems perfectly serviceable. One friend said that compared to the internal mic running in OS X the quality was "not better or worse, just different". Another said that it was fine but sounded like the mic was a bit close to my mouth (even after moving it a bit away). I suspect that with some tweaking of volumes and positioning and such it could be even better, but out of the box it does the job I need it to do.
posted by unus sum at 10:44 AM on September 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
I did try to find a direct replacement cable from Bose or Beats where I might be able to trust the brand to send me something better than a random cable, but the Bose ones got very poor reviews and I couldn't find any others that seemed like a true OEM part.
posted by advicepig at 1:20 PM on August 25, 2020 [1 favorite]