Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

AirPods Max

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 1001 posts

Re: AirPods Max

#341

Post by hrktb »

Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #140
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 can certainly understand when going to make a purchase wanting to choose a reliable brand. However, if you know nothing about headphones, why do you suddenly need an expensive pair now that Apple are selling them?

About the expensive part. In the grand scheme of things the iPhone is 1000+ EUR, with an extra 200 for AppleCare, a watch would be around 500 on top of that.

Adding 550 for something that will sit on one's head for hours and hours isn't outlandish in comparison.

I'm in the Pixel 4 / cheapish Sony headphones camp, but for people riding the high tide it doesn't look out of place pricing wise.

Re: AirPods Max

#342

Post by ziml77 »

helen___keller wrote: post #233

I can respect apple's strategy. For someone like me, who likes convenience but isn't particularly obsessed with sound or sound quality, this release exists to frame Airpods and Airpods Pro as "value" options. Personally, however, I'm actively working on moving away from this ecosystem. I've felt like every purchase is a lose/lose for a while now. I can't deny that Apple products offer a superior experience in almost…

This was my thought as well on one possible strategy they were trying here. Make the in-ear AirPods and their Beats line look like a good deal.

Apple continues to be highly successful, so chances are they do know what they're doing with the pricing here.

Re: AirPods Max

#343

Post by myspy »

hajile wrote: post #327
blantonl wrote: post #308

For all the complaining about the pricing here, just set a reminder to yourself for 1 year later, when the pandemic has waned and some workplaces begin to return to normal. Then take a visual survey of how many people are wearing these in those hip open office development workspaces. You'll see the pricing didn't matter at all. You'll probably be wearing a pair yourself when you do that visual survey.

But my Shure IEMs offer better sound isolation and better sound quality and cost less money.

I love me some Shure, but it's to early to trash these new headphones before having listened to them.

Re: AirPods Max

#344

Post by clajiness »

hajile wrote: post #327
blantonl wrote: post #308

For all the complaining about the pricing here, just set a reminder to yourself for 1 year later, when the pandemic has waned and some workplaces begin to return to normal. Then take a visual survey of how many people are wearing these in those hip open office development workspaces. You'll see the pricing didn't matter at all. You'll probably be wearing a pair yourself when you do that visual survey.

But my Shure IEMs offer better sound isolation and better sound quality and cost less money.

I'm shocked by how many people claim to be able to state absolutes about a product that they've never tried. How do you know your headphones offer better sound isolation and better sound quality?

Re: AirPods Max

#345

Post by mrtksn »

codegladiator wrote: post #262
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 simpl…

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

They sell the product experience. Easily connects, looks nice and sounds nice. Every now and then they would throw some audiphileish numbers in the product description(like it updates 3 gazillion times per second) but it's never the central argument.

Apple products are always about the experience and they wouldn't hesitate to put higher end specs when matter and lower end specs when it doesn't and make nerds uncomfortable or even angry because it would miss-match their convention of GB per USD or Herz per Euro. This is the way it always was, most famously with iPhone where Apple doesn't disclose RAM or CPU frequency or battery capacity and all-knowing reviewers will angrily tell you that Apple sells 1000$ phone with 4GB of RAM and how ridiculous is this compared to, say Samsung where you get 12GB RAM for the same price.

Re: AirPods Max

#346

Post by willis936 »

What a step back. There are no technical benefits to over-ear compared to in-ear and yet they charge more. This makes me lose hope that the Airpods line would improve over time.

The Airpods Pro (I still cringe at the stupidity built into the name) at least had strong technical merits. The only step they missed on was keeping them open back. You lose the ability to have cavity resonance for low frequency frequency response. The phase issues associated with this are imperceptible at low frequencies.

If they coupled that with tuning filters with microphones (flatten response and linearize phase up to an acceptable amount of delay: ~10 ms) then they would have a great product on their hands. Instead they made a piece of jewelry.

Re: AirPods Max

#347

Post by xbar »

Pass. I do not need bigger, heavier Airpods nor a subpar audiophile-on-the-go experience.

I live in a home in the suburbs. I do not wear audiophile headphones in public.

I bought a Schitt Bifrost/Valhalla and Grado PS1000e combo 8 years ago. I use them every day with my Macbook Pro. Except for that year that High Sierra broke all USB audio stuff, it has been great with my Mac.

I use Airpods and Airpods Pro for Apple bluetooth benefits. They are great.

Re: AirPods Max

#349

Post by hbbio »

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…

We are interested in the same audio gear. But they have CABLES!

Most people I know would rather want a headset without any and I suppose that wireless devices come with an array of software problems that Apple can fix better than the others (just supposing, I don't own wireless speakers myself).

Re: AirPods Max

#350

Post by adolph »

hajile wrote: post #289
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…

There's an exponential curve of cost vs quality. Buying in the bend is best. The difference between a $50 and $200 pair of headphones is staggering. From $200 to $500 is still significant. From $500 to $1000 is extremely slight. From $1000 to $5000 is basically unnoticeable. Apple looks to be using plastic driver cones more at home in a $30 pair of headphones while selling something at the inflection point where head…

As a counter point, Apple is bringing computation closer to ears. The Sennheiser 650 is an analog cabled experience and will accurately reflect the upstream digital to analog conversion, typically made without regard to the destination device. If Apple can use on-ear computation to make a plastic driver cone sound like a more expensive material, why would you care about the materials used?

https://www.kenrockwell.com/audio/sennheiser/hd-650.htm

[edit]

Think for a moment about what is possible in a device as large as the Airpods Max. It could fit the guts of an Apple Watch, which can already stream audio via cell modem without a host computer (as long as you are using the Apple services).

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204691

Post reply on HN