Imagine the following problem:
Because I do a podcast with John and Brendon about portable gaming NPCs, I test a lot of gaming handhelds. And by a lot, I mean I currently have a Steam Deck, a modded Legion Go, a PlayStation Portal, a Switch, and an Ayn Odin 2 in my nightstand drawer. I love checking out different form factors (especially since I’m currently looking for the most ergonomic while dealing with pesky RSI issues). But guess what I don’t like? Having to deal with multi-point Bluetooth earbuds that can only connect to 2-3 devices at the same time. This leads to me unpairing and re-pairing my earbuds over and over again.
You see, a while back I realized something: Apple’s old-school wired EarPods are still pretty great if you’re looking for a reliable, universal way to connect one pair of earphones to a multitude of devices. In fact, mobile device manufacturers haven’t been as brave as Apple and have decided to leave the Universal Audio Jack port on their portable consoles, despite the latest advancements in Bluetooth. So whether I’m running side quests in Dragon’s Dogma 2 on Windows, playing Wind Waker on my portable Wii (that’s not a typo), or streaming Astro Bot from my PlayStation 5, I can just pick up my trusty wired Apple EarPods and know they’ll work with any type of device. It’s weirdly freeing and simple, and I’m not the only one who feels this way.
Now imagine the second problem.
I mostly play video games at night, so I want to be able to concentrate and hear the sounds around me. If you’re a dog owner, you’ll understand. We have two dogs that sleep in the bedroom with us, so I need to be able to hear them fast asleep, snoring, and other sounds. I have to tell you, I don’t want to get so “zoned” with both gaming earbuds on that I accidentally miss my dog throwing up in the bedroom. I learned my lesson the hard way.
Now, I could have just left the Apple EarPods alone, chosen not to wear the right EarPod, and left the cord hanging where it was. But “leaving it alone” and not challenging the status quo isn’t how I got to this point in 15 years of MacStories. Instead, I grabbed a pair of scissors and cut the cord of the right EarBud just above the connector where the main cable splits into two.
Check it out: the Apple EarPods that I’ve been using as my go-to gaming “headphones” for the past two months.
I use EarPods with all my gaming handhelds and they are honestly perfect. If you remove the right channel, the audio is automatically routed as mono to the left EarPod. There are ways to force mono audio instead of stereo in games on both Linux and Windows. The result is a comfortable, great sounding, cheap and easy to deploy wired earphone. It works for everything and allows me to tune into the sounds around me, especially my dog Ginger, who hates to get out of bed when he’s sick for any reason. Poor Ginger.
If you search for “mono earbuds one ear” on Amazon, you get a bunch of results. Could I have bought one of those? Yes, but I really love the look and sound of Apple’s EarPods, so I wanted to be in a place where I could just buy one.
Plus, this is MacStories, and I’ve done a lot worse than cut the cord on my EarPods. If both of the very specific issues I mentioned above apply to you, I can’t recommend enough that you mod Apple’s EarPods.
