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AirPods Max

apple.com

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Re: AirPods Max

#261

Post by theklr »

millerm wrote: post #209
r0fl wrote: post #122

I know nothing about headphones, nor do I want to invest any time learning about headphones. I’ve had a bunch of Apple products that have never disappointed me in the last 10+ years. I’ll buy these overpriced headphones because an extra $200 for a product I’ll probably use for 5 years will not break my bank account.

I'll have to say that the spatial audio stuff is friggin' cool in the AirPods Pro. This is a bit spicy for me in the $ department as I already have too many professional over-the-ear headphones. But, would be nice... Dammit. Don't make me do it! I haven't looked, but if this has spatial audio that is compatible with an upcoming AppleTV or something, I'd probably just say "ummm, yeah, I will not be putting any surroun…

That’s the feature I was waiting (and continue to wait) on. I think there’s a future there they’re not pushing quite yet.

Re: AirPods Max

#262

Post by codegladiator »

mrtksn wrote: post #162

Oh, I find it fascinating how the audio gear industry has taught the consumers on how much money you are supposed to spend to have audio experience at certain level. Pay attention on audiophile arguments, they will talk in terms of money(i.e. 150$ headphones vs 500$ headphones) when talking about audio quality. I always find the audiophile market to be borderline fraud. They sell CD demagnetisers, ceramic cable lifte…

> Apple is my hero in that regard

How does apple becomes your hero when they are selling the same thing ?

> deeply troubling subculture where passionately debating about very expensive cables and gadgets without ever being able to pass a blind test on the claims is the norm, almost like cargo cult

That sounds like the apple cult.

> quickly pushing you on the money-spend-for-audio-performance scale where you are simply supposed to check you bank account

We are talking about $549 earphones from apple here.

Re: AirPods Max

#263

Post by bitcharmer »

r0fl wrote: post #122

I know nothing about headphones, nor do I want to invest any time learning about headphones. I’ve had a bunch of Apple products that have never disappointed me in the last 10+ years. I’ll buy these overpriced headphones because an extra $200 for a product I’ll probably use for 5 years will not break my bank account.

Are you trolling on purpose?

Re: AirPods Max

#264

Post by whywhywhywhy »

lostgame wrote: post #33

Is there still latency? E.G. when I open GarageBand, and hit a piano key - is there still a bloody whole second delay before I hear it in my ‘AirPods Pro’ with a ‘custom’ W1 chip on a device supposedly made for creatives? No, really. For creators, this might be the worst value proposition I’ve ever seen. $550 USD for headphones that can’t operate without latency. If it wasn’t for the wheels or the stand on the Mac Pr…

>a ‘custom’ W1 chip on a device supposedly made for creatives?

According to Apple Bloggers creatives are a small market and really Apple is about serving the 99% not you and the Pro doesn't really mean for Professionals and all the other arguments that get wheeled out when this stuff starts to fall short.

Re: AirPods Max

#266

Post by mjburgess »

burlesona wrote: post #255
kishinmanglani wrote: post #132

I'm a sucker. I just bought them. I love being able to switch between my iPhone and my Mac on my AirPods. I have the Sony MX3's, and they are great. I don't like toggling between devices and having it automatically connect to my last used device, have to disconnect it from one, blah, blah. This is what Apple does. They raise prices. People are stunned initially. Others follow, then those prices are the norm. iPhone w…

Ok, can you explain to me how you do it? I have AirPod pros and the only way I can switch between devices is to go to the Bluetooth menu on the device I want to listen to and tell it to connect to the AirPods. That’s fine, and it doesn’t bother me much, but it doesn’t seem especially fast or magical to me. Is there a better way?

That's right. It's just not that easy with other devices.

Not sure how apple devices "just switch", it might be that they have multi-device bluetooth; or they have custom hardware.

But other devices are very "sticky" with their BT connections. My approach is mostly to turn off bluetooth one one device when I want to switch to another.

Re: AirPods Max

#267

Post by gdubs »

eertami wrote: post #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-ea…

Apple has been very successful at leveraging a “complete the set” psychology among the faithful. When you’re happy with all of your other Apple gear, it’s easy to impute — to borrow a favorite Steve Jobs word — the level of quality you’re accustomed to onto a new product you’re unfamiliar with.

Apple has ALWAYS operated at a premium margin, and appealed to users who want quality, but also don’t want to spend time comparison shopping laundry lists of features and components.

These will appeal to people working from home, just in time for Christmas when people are willing to spend a little. With a pandemic raging, if you’re in the market for headphones you can’t exactly go out and try a bunch of pairs on. (Guitar Center is going bankrupt, if I recall.)

So people will likely be happy to know there’s a product made by Apple that fills an additional niche — so they won’t have to give it much thought and will know that it’ll probably be of similar quality to what they’re used to with other Apple gear.

Re: AirPods Max

#268

Post by cmiller1 »

cromka wrote: post #177
eertami wrote: post #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-ea…

> offering better sound That's a bit presumptive. You don't know how these sound, yet. HD660S is based on 650S from the 2000s. Knowing Apple, they were able to innovate a bit here, so let's give them the benefit of the doubt. That having said, I also don't expect them to sound better than any of which you mentioned.

Similarly I'm seeing several comments in this thread saying other companies offer better headphones for cheaper. We simply don't know how these perform yet.

Re: AirPods Max

#269

Post by enw »

londons_explore wrote: post #116
perardi wrote: 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…

Irregardless of the platform, is there any other brand with better Bluetooth UX than Apple?

Re: AirPods Max

#270

Post by cactus2093 »

eertami wrote: post #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-ea…

These are in a completely different category than pro audio headphones, they are wireless with active noise cancellation.

As someone that owns a couple of the high end models you mention, and uses my Bose qc3 headphones every day, if you don’t get why that’s a difference all I can say is I highly recommend trying it. If you don’t want to pay $550, then get the Bose or Sony equivalents.

All the audio quality in the world doesn’t do you much good walking down a noisy street, on a plane, or even sitting in a noisy open office. I’ll happily take pretty good sound + wireless and noise canceling over great sound in these environments.

What I’m guessing Apple is trying to sell based on this price point is sound on the same level of the high end models you mention, with the convenience of wireless noise canceling, plus the (gimmick?) of spatial audio. I’m very curious to try them at some point to see if they deliver.

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