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AirPods Max

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611–620 of 1001 posts

Re: AirPods Max

#611

$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 ones have microphone.

Re: AirPods Max

#612
post #548
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…

I don't think you need to be an audiophile to notice that my $160 Beyerdynamic DT880 would blow any AirPods out of the water in terms of sound quality. And also comfort honestly.

Presumably you haven’t actually tried the AirPods Max yet.

Re: AirPods Max

#613
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…

[deleted]

Re: AirPods Max

#614
post #267

$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 com…

It's scary to me how precisely this post describes me, and how I haven't even been cognisant of it.

Re: AirPods Max

#615
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, 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.

The lack of self-perception here is astonishing.

FYI, for those of us outside of the cult-of-Apple who watch how Apple sells phones with a bill of materials of $300 for $900+ to people who see them as a status symbol and a community of high-end influencers, we view Apple exactly as you describe here

The way you describe Apple as "selling an EXPERIENCE" instead of selling headphones perfectly demonstrates how the Apple cult transcends a product market and speaks emotionally to the Apple cult. You aren't buying headphones, you're buying into the Apple Experience(TM).

And finally I want to take a small laugh at the fact that you describe "THEM" as a creepy subculture and cargo cult, while in the same breath calling the Apple corporation "Your Hero"!! Cargo Cult is a great way to describe how we view you and your hero Apple.

Re: AirPods Max

#616

$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…

Besides assuming that Apple can’t match those other (very small, likely undercapitalized) audio companies in terms of sounds quality— something I sort of doubt considering that Apple probably spent more in R&D on these than those companies have had in total cumulative revenues combined— it also assumes that it’s all about the sound quality. As someone who just ordered these, I wear noise canceling headphones (current…

I'm in the same boat. I like my Sony MX3's but the experience hasn't been polished:

>The touch controls aren't reliable

>My bluetooth connection disconnects randomly every couple hours

I ordered the airpods pro and expect a polished experience because Apple has a track record of just that

Re: AirPods Max

#617
post #192

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…

My Bose QC35's connect to both my Macbook & my iPhone at the same time. Hit play on either one, and sound comes out. Listening to something on my laptop and someone calls? It rings and I can answer. I'm sure the AirPods Max will be pretty awesome in its own way though.

Does anyone know why multipoint is so rare? Is it hard to implement? Does it drain too much battery?

Re: AirPods Max

#618
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, 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.

I give you the $539 leather watch band: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MTQG2AM/A/apple-watch-her.... The $699 wheels: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MX572ZM/A/apple-mac-pro-w...

I think Apple is very complicit in the cargo cult and charging bullshit prices for fashionable items.

Re: AirPods Max

#619
post #550

$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…

It might be a bit of a hot take but from my point of view audio is mostly a solved problem. It's not like video where we still have trade-offs in terms of quality due to the huge bandwidth and processing involved for very high resolutions as well as the difficulty of reproducing very high dynamic ranges and framerates. None of this is relevant for audio. Despite what some audiocultists would have you believe CD quali…

Audio (gear) is nowhere near to being a solved problem. One open problem is to match your own personal HRTF to your gear. Audio (production) is also not a solved problem. Your experience is decided by the recording/mixing engineer, and there may be multiple renderings possible of the same content. In much the same way, different conductors of the same orchestra can produce different flavors of the same composition. Then there is the spatial localization for games and movies, which is still not quite solved.

>And there's nothing wrong with that, it just annoys me when audiophiles try to justify their fashion statements with pseudo-science.

Yes, those people can get nutty, ignore them! Audio is much bigger than Audiophile :)

Having said that, with no pressure from consumers, why would anyone invest money in new headphone designs? I recently purchased a pair of planar magnetic headphones which used to be crummy when I tried them a few years back. The newer design is very efficient, the manufacturing process is also pretty solid, and the sound is fantastic.

Re: AirPods Max

#620
post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying they're popular or good? AirPods are popular but I don't think they're very good at all. At least the pros have the rubber tips.

This whole "People just buy them because they are popular" thing is trite. AirPods were tremendously mocked when they were launched and became popular in spite of that. You don't like them. Millions of people do. Lots of people don't value the things you (or I!) value.

I think its a valid discussion point and not trite to ask if OP thinks Apple marketing will win out or if they think the product is industry leading by some performance metric.

It seems like there's nothing but "never bet against Apple" type nothing statements backing up everything but I want to give the comments a reasonable shake.

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