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AirPods Max

apple.com

111–120 of 1001 posts

Re: AirPods Max

#111

$549 a pair. Yikes. I'm fairly confident I've reached my own personal peak for Apple pricing. As a spectator I've no doubt these will sell massive numbers but I'm curious to learn what the market will bear for Apple's products.

For comparison, Sony's WH-1000XM4 which are currently widely considered the state of the art in the active noise cancelling over-ears, will cost you anywhere between $300-$400 depending on where you are. (I was very surprised the price can vary that widely, actually. On Sony's US page they're $279, while in the EU they're €380 which is about $460.)

They are regularly available in Europe for around 300€ (360$), really good deals are around 250€ (300$) [these prices are with VAT].

Re: AirPods Max

#112

These look pretty ugly to me. I'm sure they work well but I don't see them one-upping airpods. Airpods have a key feature in that they can be put in one's pocket or purse.

If you are not from that time, airpod looking ugly and weird was the common theme among most the reviews. Then somehow they became status symbol. There was some video or some blog which argues that Apple making weird looking products intentionally, as they want to use that as symbol rather than some other competition like product.

Eh... airpods look weird, but they're also fairly discrete. You notice the little stems, but they're easy to ignore. This is a pretty big honking device.

I'm not sure I buy airpods are a status symbol either in most people's eyes either. I like airpods, but does anyone really make a judgement based on choice of earbud? I doubt it.

Re: AirPods Max

#113
$549!?

That puts it in the same price category as: Sennheiser HD660S, Audeze LCD-1, Beyerdynamic DT1770/1990, Grado RS2e, among many many others.

Honestly, I don't understand why you would buy these when there are a lot of established professional audio companies offering better sound at a cheaper price. At least airpods have a unique selling point in their portability and ux but I don't see how this benefits over-ear cans.

Re: AirPods Max

#114
This might be the first music product from Apple that I would be skipping. Spatial audio needs to come to Apple TV and the MacBooks before these become worthy of price. And major services need to implement it.

Netflix on Mac with Spatial audio with nothing inside my ear would be worth $549 to me.

Re: AirPods Max

#115
post #29

I thought these looked familiar, but it was just the metal frame reminding me of jabra elite/ evolve. Usually when apple creates a new product they are very careful to give it a distinct look that is immediately identifiable from competitor products. --- Entirely off-topic: Looking forward to seeing people who make 1/3 of what I make (and my salary is pretty average) telling me they are a winner because they snagged…

Why does it matter to you that people "who make 1/3 of what you make" buy this device on release day? That's just pathetic.

[deleted]

Re: AirPods Max

#116
post #85

I am a total apologist for the price of the AirPods and AirPods Pro. I have tried a lot of wireless earbuds. Jabra, Samsung, Jaybirds, Anker…and none of them have the combination of bullet-proof pairing, keeping a connection, audio quality†, and sound cancelling†. †(AirPods Pro, for these.) But hoo boy, $550 is a lot for more traditional headphones. The price premium for earbuds feels right to me, as you have to do t…

> bullet-proof pairing, keeping a connection, audio quality

That'll be because Apple products use a custom protocol to iPhones, whereas all other brands have to use basic bluetooth, which has crappy sound quality, arbitrary restrictions, poor handling of weak signals, lots of delay, and is hard to pair.

Apples walled garden doesn't allow third parties to design or use their own protocols, or use apples protocols, so it's far from a level playing field.

Re: AirPods Max

#117
post #49

A few months ago, I experienced sort of an inflection point regarding the love I had for Apple products when my iPhone broke for no reason whatsoever: it worked perfectly during the day, no physical scratch or anything, woke up and I noticed that the phone was hot, i opened it, tried to close some apps and I noticed that it's quite slow. I opened the settings and kept getting notification popups regarding storage and…

> proposed to "fix" it by buying a new phone of the same (2.5 year old) model for $570.

My first gen MacBook Air's display (the LED backlight to be precise) broke down due to coffee spill. Took it to Apple store, the estimated repair price was almost twice the original purchase price MacBook Air. I didn't know what to say!

Re: AirPods Max

#120
It’s a fashion icon brand with communication capabilities with high price positioning, like luxury merchandise.
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