With 550$, I can do a 1 week trip in Berlin or any city in Europe from the city I live in. I will pass.
AirPods Max
651–660 of 1001 posts
Re: AirPods Max
#652I'm surprised no one is pointing out similar these are to the surface headphones. Pairing to multiple devices, ambient mode with adjustable noise canceling, playing and pausing music when you take them off or on, etc. I like some of the design of Airpods Max (the crown seems strange) and the sound quality is probably better.
Those are all the same traits that the current Airpods Pro have. The new parts are form factor / additional microphones / etc
Re: AirPods Max
#653Actually I'm surprised nobody's asking about a wired headphone jack. Without one, you won't be able to watch movies on planes, which is a pretty significant use case for over-the-ear noise-cancelling headphones. Probably gaming as well -- I don't do a ton of gaming, but StarCraft basically doesn't work over Bluetooth (probably due to buffering requirements).
Bluetooth is enabled while in Airplane mode, so I don't get your point frankly. Gaming latency is true though - when I use Bluetooth headphones on my TV, Game Mode gets automatically disabled.
Apple rolled out a low-latency audio feature a few weeks ago -- if you have a HomePod/pair of HomePods set as your primary output on your ATV4K, they're able to stay in sync with the TV even when you're doing something where any audio latency would be noticeable. For example, if I'm streaming a game from my PC, video and audio are in lockstep (which you wouldn't expect to see normally, since the audio would get 1-2s of buffer from the video) and there's no noticeable input latency (which you'd see if the device was holding back the video to build an audio buffer).
Re: AirPods Max
#654I mean I will have to wait to see them in person but tbh they look pretty ugly, like a no-name luxury headphone you would see at bestbuy for $70 marketed to a female market. The price point is ridiculous but the Bose go for like $350? so I can see it I guess. Will have to wait till reviews. For me on quality to buy they would have to compete the entry level prosumer stuff HD-650 etc. But they are closed back, active…
These are almost so plain looking they stand out. I wonder if that's what they were going for, since they could've easily stuck an apple logo in all that empty space.
I'm sure this will go like any other apple product release - the internet will make fun of it but in real life it successfully becomes a fashion statement.
Re: AirPods Max
#655Its nice that Bluetooth 5.0 lets someone else besides Sony use their lossless technology.
Re: AirPods Max
#656lmao it's $792 in Hungary, EU. Yes we have the highest VAT in Europe but still. Not that I have a comment on HN salary like most people here so yeah, that's fucking expensive.
Re: AirPods Max
#657I 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…
They're not that far off higher-end over-the-ear ANC/wireless headphones, give or take Apple's brand premium (which many other makers of expensive things also happily apply). That's not to say they are cheap but it feels closer to existing market pricing than $250 wireless earbuds - a move Apple pulled off seemingly successfully.
If by "not far off", you mean "over $200 more". For consumer devices: The Sony 1000XM4s are $270. Bose QC35 IIs are $265. You'd have to go up to pro-grade gear, such as the M&Ds or Beyerdynamic Amirons, to match this price. Maybe Apple headphones are pro grade, but the AirPods are not, so I don't think they're going for that market segment.
Re: AirPods Max
#658Oh, I find it fascinating how the audio gear industry has taught the consumers on how much money you are supposed to spend to have audio experience at certain level. Pay attention on audiophile arguments, they will talk in terms of money(i.e. 150$ 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, where you actually pay for the product experience instead for being part of some 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.
Out of the frying pan, into the fire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_distortion_field
I’m joking, I’m a lifelong Apple fan, but this comment was amusing given the long history of people calling the Apple subculture a “cult”.
Re: AirPods Max
#659It feels like we are seeing the result of diminishing returns with technology advancement. To make a product that Apple believes is significantly better than the competition they had to design a very intricate solution that includes: * High end look and feel not similar to the bulk of their products with lots of textile webbing and memory foam ear cups. These get way more wear and tear than normal electronics being e…
I like that they are working on spatial audio. The AR applications are interesting.
the smaller AirPods will have the same feature of spatial audio
Re: AirPods Max
#660$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…
Does anybody know if any product of "established professional audio companies" has built in "gyroscope and accelerometer" and can remap "the sound field so it stays anchored to the device, even as the user’s head moves"? I guess some virtual reality headgear has something like that, but which audio headphones? And which audio headphones of "established professional audio companies" have four microphones built in and…
"the sound field so it stays anchored to the device, even as the user’s head moves"
What does this mean? I genuinely don't get it.