Tag: jbl quantum 400

The News Nobody Talks About

~ Veselin ~ 11 Comments

Okay, this is my personal news—it’s all incredibly important, so bear with me.

The spring is here

Winter kept coming and coming and here we are.

My beloved headphones Quantum 400 unglued

They can be glued back but the consumerist in me wants a new pair of some other headphones with a cable. Here’s a full update. In case you use some very good wired headphones under $200, please drop a comment.

Walking shoes++

I wrote an enthusiastic post about Nike Wildhorse 8 in September 2024. Since then, I switched to a pair of very comfortable Grisport boots, and now to a pair of simple and cheap Adidas sneakers. The second pair of Wildhorse 8 lasted about 3 months of intense walking before it started disintegrating and causing pain at the same time. That was disappointing and I’m done with Nike Trail.

The pigeon mystery is now solved

Two weeks ago I posted about a pigeon gathering I see almost daily. Here’s a solution to why these pigeons stay where they stay.

The pigeon paradise is because of a food and water source, and they’re also protected from cat attacks because of all the cars around.

I unfollowed the Starship development

I consider myself a rocket and space travel nerd and I watched most of the Starship flights live. I don’t want to see more of this Musk dude, I want less. His flying Pepelats is cool in principle but we kind of need healthy competition and some reality checks.

Headphones for calls – JBL Quantum 200 vs JBL Quantum 400.

~ Veselin ~ 9 Comments

I do many calls and my environment is often noisy – coffee shops, kids around, and ninja turtles on TV. I’ve tried finding headphones that have a good microphone and are comfortable for my ears. I believe the headphones need to be wired so I don’t charge them. I like retractable microphones. Over the last months, I used JBL Quantum 200 with a good success. Unfortunately, they broke so I bought a replacement. The local electronics shop only had Quantum 100 and 400, and here we are.

JBL Quantum 100 doesn’t have a retractable microphone but otherwise looks like my old headphones.

JBL Quantum 200 has a retractable mic with no cover and a roller for volume control. When folded, the mic is muted. That roller was a bit inconvenient until I got used to it because it would roll while the headphones were in my backpack. They broke soon-ish but come with a 2-year warranty.

Quantum 400 has a retractable mic with some cover, volume control, some other roller with unclear purpose, and a mute button. They also mute when the mic is folded.

Here are some mic samples from Starbucks, the speakers are right over my head and quite loud:

Quantum 200

Quantum 400

My backup Devia headphones for reference

Here is how they look.

The patch is not the broken old headphones, it’s the new ones. The reason is that the mute button is loose and makes a clicking noise that annoys me. So here I fixed it. I’ll upgrade myself with a fancier patch at some point.

Out of those three, my old JBL Quantum 200 headphones were the top pick. Sure, the 400s come with buttons, rollers, extra cables, and flashy LED lights packed in a fancy box. But, the loose mute button and the extra roller with no clear purpose actually made them worse. The microphone quality is sufficient in both.

Matt Mullenweg wrote a much more detailed post on the same subject – his recommendation was for a Sennheiser, which I followed 5-6 headphones back. The locally available set didn’t have a retractable microphone and couldn’t use it for calls from coffee shops. I moved on quickly.

UPDATE 2025-03-10

The JBL Quantum 400 also broke down. It’s a very minimal problem but nevertheless I’m going to look for a replacement in the following weeks. Overall, I think the Quantum 400 are significantly better than the 200 because of the better cable that can be replaced.

I think they’re better overall than the other headphones I used over the last 10 years but the build quality is not fantastic.

Disappointed by the second roller on my Quantum 400, I bought a pair of Quantum 100 as well. These are not up to the bar needed for my daily work needs. They’re less comfortable, the mic is located on a piece of wire, which is much less convenient than the Quantum 200/400 mic. I didn’t use them much and actually kept doing calls with the slightly broken Quantum 200s.