How are you managing your headphones/headsets?

Jeff Porten (apparently) - 03:25pm Feb 15, 2005 PST
via email

Been dealing with a truly annoying problem recently, and the discussion
on microphones made me think it might be worth opening it up here.

I have two devices that I routinely use with a headset -- my PowerBook
and my cell phone. Those of you with iPods might have *three* such
devices; in my case, my phone is my MP3 player.

Right now, I have 3 headsets I use:

1) a standard set of Sony earbuds for the laptop.

2) a custom set of earbuds-with-mic for the Sony Ericsson.

3) a Jabra Bluetooth headset, which works with both.

This was cumbersome, but okay, until the SE earbuds started failing. I
now get phone calls and music in glorious mono, with sometime failure
in BOTH ears. In a fit of outrageous stupidity, SE has decided to stop
selling this separately; it can be replaced under warranty (if I had a
time machine), otherwise the only way to get a new pair is to buy a new
$700 phone. Their cheapest alternative is a headset that sticks a
radio in the middle -- which I'd be fine with, but that one connects to
the phone port rather than the 2.5 mm jack, which would render my belt
clip useless. (This clip is what ships with the phone; remember, this
is outrageous stupidity.)

The Bluetooth headset is still an option, but it's also in glorious
mono, plus there's the charming problem that once it talks to one
device it's completely deaf to the other until I re-pair it. (Tech
call to Jabra scheduled for tomorrow, since it's supposed to be able to
work with seven devices.)

Now that I'm using my laptop for Skype phone calls, it's becoming more
of an issue that I need two-way sound transmission to all of my
gadgetry. The ideal, which I don't think exists, would be a Bluetooth
stereo headset/mic with a button to cycle from one device to the other
on the fly. (One nice advantage of Bluetooth is that you can take a
break and not miss a minute. It's nice to step outside of Starbucks
for a smoke and continue listening to NPR.) I'd take wired if I had
to, but I can't see how that would work, because it would have to have
a 2.5 mm jack AND a dual 3.5 mm jack for the laptop.

Or there's the other alternative -- one night after a sleep-deprived
heavy work week, I was in tech-geek problem solving mode and started to
think how I might solve this problem by adding an extra set of ears to
hold both headsets at once. I actually followed this train of thought
for 10 seconds or so before I remembered that my head can't be
upgraded.

Earlier today I found this site
<http://www.skullcandy.com/link.php?urlLocation=link> which has a gizmo
that's close to what I want -- but at the cost of destroying my belt
clip again.

Anyone with better ideas?

Best,
Jeff