I expect that the crown will be extremely awkward to handle at this position. First you need to locate it (blindly) then twist. Touch controls are normally used for fast forward and volume. What's the risk of accidentally triggering these functions? Besides, how often do you accidentally touch your ears/headphones? That's not where your hands normally are.
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AirPods Max Missing Rumored Features: $350 'Sport' Model, Swappable Bands, Touch Controls
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The crown might be the same but the location is very different. It won't be as convenient on the headphones. Just try to raise your hand above your ear and hold it there (perhaps emulate operating the crown). You'll feel pain/discomfort in a few seconds. Expect some AirPods Max owners to get shoulder impingement.
My current headphones (Grado GW100) have physical volume buttons on one of the earpieces, and once I'd used them a few times I knew exactly where they were and now hitting them is second nature. Muscle memory is easily good enough to get the hand to the right place. And from there the physical profile helps the fingers make finer adjustments -- versus some touch surface that activates and does god knows what if my finger grazes it. And even if that happens only rarely, that's more than enough, thank you very much.
I've got a little Yamaha wifi speaker in my house that's got gross little touch buttons with zero tactility. It's set up on a shelf above my eye line and I have to reach up sometimes for the volume controls and it absolutely sucks every time because there's nothing to feel for and half the time it goes wrong. It's just a ****** user experience, and that has no place on an expensive pair of headphones.
Oh for crying out loud. If you're getting "shoulder impingement" and "pain/discomfort" from putting your hand above your ear for a few moments, I think you've got bigger problems than headphone ergonomics are going to solve.
Grados have the controls at the bottom and they are "touch" (push) buttons. They do provide a feedback so I am not referring to them as "touch" in this sense. It's about the difference between moves (push vs rotate). When the control is in the awkward position (and all headphone controls are in awkward positions) some moves are easier than other.
Comparison between the headphones and the speakers is not a good one. With the headphones one can navigate (find) the body points blindly. Speakers are not on the body, so there is no way to find the control without looking. I am sure that finding the crown won't be a big problem. Operating it? We'll see. But make no mistake, it's not the same as operating the crown on the AW.
“ AirPods Max feature a 40-mm Apple-designed dynamic driver that provides rich, deep bass, accurate mid-ranges, and crisp, clean high-frequency extension so every note can be heard. A unique dual neodymium ring magnet motor allows AirPods Max to maintain total harmonic distortion of less than 1 percent across the entire audible range, even at maximum volume.1 Equipped with an Apple-designed H1 chip in each ear cup, a custom acoustic design, and advanced software, AirPods Max use computational audio to deliver the highest quality listening experience possible. Utilizing each of the chips’ 10 audio cores — capable of 9 billion operations per second — computational audio powers a breakthrough listening experience that includes Adaptive EQ, Active Noise Cancellation, Transparency mode, and spatial audio.”Really? Go on, what's the frequency response then? I don't disagree that these are probably great sounding and have oodles of tech in there but audiophile, no. About as audiophle quality as the iPod HiFi was when that launched (of which I've still got one). Doesn't appear that you can use these things with a cord either (although there is lightning). 20hrs battery is tested with volume at 50%. This is clearly squarely aimed at consumer, designed like thewatch, with the same market in mind.
“ Testing conducted by Apple in December 2020 using preproduction AirPods Max and software paired with iPhone 12 Pro units and prerelease software. AirPods Max placed on B&K Type 5128-C High-frequency Head and Torso Simulator (HATS). Volume was set to 100 percent with Active Noise Cancellation on. After playing pink noise to initialize the system, a 20Hz to 20kHz, -3dBFS peak, 1/12th octave stepped sine tone sweep was played and recorded on HATS. Total harmonic distortion was calculated using industry-standard IEC methods. Distortion is dependent on test signal, fixture type, headphone placement, and other factors.”
Apple introduces AirPods Max, the magic of AirPods in a stunning over-ear design
Apple today announced AirPods Max, innovative wireless headphones that bring the magic of AirPods to an over-ear design with high-fidelity audio.
www.apple.com
Also, yes you can use it with a cord. Albeit a strange one. It uses a lightning-to-aux cord that Apple now offers. (It’s also bi-directional which has some interesting implications on its own...)
I might be wrong about this, but I wonder if you could use the existing lightning to 3.5 mm headphone adapter to plug in a regular aux cord.
I’m also wondering whether they’ll be usable corded if the battery is dead. My hunch is no, that there’s too much signal processing stuff built in but maybe I will be pleasantly surprised.
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Those are excellent questions, I have no idea honestly! My guess is that you could use that adapter. The cord they’re selling doesn’t seem to have a crazy converter box built into it, just looks like a cord. And the battery question I say I’d lean towards saying you’re right in guessing it wouldn’t work. Think of the computational power it takes to run just special audio. Maybe it would default to just normal headphones at that point? Unlikely though.
I'll give you that you found the specs, but it shouldn't be that hard to do so, it should be listed on the product's page under specs.“ AirPods Max feature a 40-mm Apple-designed dynamic driver that provides rich, deep bass, accurate mid-ranges, and crisp, clean high-frequency extension so every note can be heard. A unique dual neodymium ring magnet motor allows AirPods Max to maintain total harmonic distortion of less than 1 percent across the entire audible range, even at maximum volume.1 Equipped with an Apple-designed H1 chip in each ear cup, a custom acoustic design, and advanced software, AirPods Max use computational audio to deliver the highest quality listening experience possible. Utilizing each of the chips’ 10 audio cores — capable of 9 billion operations per second — computational audio powers a breakthrough listening experience that includes Adaptive EQ, Active Noise Cancellation, Transparency mode, and spatial audio.”
“ Testing conducted by Apple in December 2020 using preproduction AirPods Max and software paired with iPhone 12 Pro units and prerelease software. AirPods Max placed on B&K Type 5128-C High-frequency Head and Torso Simulator (HATS). Volume was set to 100 percent with Active Noise Cancellation on. After playing pink noise to initialize the system, a 20Hz to 20kHz, -3dBFS peak, 1/12th octave stepped sine tone sweep was played and recorded on HATS. Total harmonic distortion was calculated using industry-standard IEC methods. Distortion is dependent on test signal, fixture type, headphone placement, and other factors.”
Apple introduces AirPods Max, the magic of AirPods in a stunning over-ear design
Apple today announced AirPods Max, innovative wireless headphones that bring the magic of AirPods to an over-ear design with high-fidelity audio.www.apple.com
Also, yes you can use it with a cord. Albeit a strange one. It uses a lightning-to-aux cord that Apple now offers. (It’s also bi-directional which has some interesting implications on its own...)
20Hz to 20Khz is by no means Hi-Res and probably way less than the competing headphones they're going up against (the original iPod Hi-Fi was up to 17KHz & slated at the time as described as audiophile and clearly wasn't). As I've said, I've still got one & think it delivers good sound.
Equally, I've got a pair of Sony MDR-1A's which are described as up to 100KHz.
Now i understand that this is way beyond the limits of human hearing, & I know folk chuck about the blind test stuff, but I have a trained ear and can defo hear a difference, especially when I have them plugged in & the sound card is not set to 96KHz, I can tell.
I don't dismiss them, as more than likely, at more than 3x the price of the Sony's I can't dispute the tech they're packing especially with the magic dolby/spacial sound going on, but to say they're going after the audiophile market, I still stand by my original comment.
They're styled as an
watch & as such, are aimed at the same market, if anything the 20-20 freq response just proves this.Me? I'd probably buy a pair just for the ear cups (as that's usually the first thing to go) but again, as I've said earlier in this thread, by
dropping planned specs this is not producing the best product they can, this is them dropping features to 'rush' it to market.I'll wait for gen 2/3 and hopefully then we'll get the full package.
That’s a good point. What I like so much about the crown on the Watch has a lot to do with it being in the perfect spot to operate on your wrist.
Am i the only one that likes the design of these? I think it looks really clean and minimal (typical apple).
The case is ridiculous though.
The case is ridiculous though.
I'm not buying these anytime soon but I like the look. Black would be the only option I'd consider, though.
I can vouch for this on my Sony WH1000-XM3's and it drives me insane. When the weather gets cold (as in at the moment) the touch panel behaves erratically and for some reason always increases the volume to max (never to min weirdly) while I'm not wearing them on my ears - sometimes they're on my shoulders or a table and while using my phone you see the volume slider go up - no one is touching them, except the air! Also if you put a hood up that might be a bit damp inside (for example it started to rain), and the hood touches the controls it has enough capacitance to mess around with the controls. That means going for a run through a playlist of 300 songs in about 3 minutes... Its honestly not worth it. Thankfully the touch controls can be disabled through the Sony app - but for a €300 original price, these shortcomings piss me off.
I'd take a physical control any day...
I'm suffering the same with my XM3's (the previous generation) and it drives me dotty.
Yeah I hate the volume controls on my xm3 without an Apple Watch woulds be better off just use your phone
Touch controls would have been bad I suspect, so no problem there. Shame they couldn't get swappable left-right to work, that'd be genuinely useful.
Not sure how you could sell a model with different materials for $200 less when it would only cost $140 dollars to buy a couple of the fancier cushions. Different band too I suppose - aluminium instead of steel? Could help reduce the weight too, which makes sense for a sport model.
Not sure how you could sell a model with different materials for $200 less when it would only cost $140 dollars to buy a couple of the fancier cushions. Different band too I suppose - aluminium instead of steel? Could help reduce the weight too, which makes sense for a sport model.
It's a totally apt comparison: as I pointed out, the speaker is placed so I can't see the buttons, and they have no physical profile to orient the fingers -- exactly as one would experience trying to use touch controls on the side of a headphone ear cup.
I actually tried out the Bose NC700 a week before the Airpods Max came out and for the life of me, I just could not figure out how to use the touch controls of the Bose headphones and sent them back. Plus, the headband of the Bose is a bit short for me.
The spatial audio + digital crown and computational audio made the Airpods Max a clear winner for me. I suppose at this point I am done with Bose products and will be going Apple all in.
The spatial audio + digital crown and computational audio made the Airpods Max a clear winner for me. I suppose at this point I am done with Bose products and will be going Apple all in.
No I think they will release a $350 overhead variant, and release the subsequent Max at $599.
It honestly doesn’t seem like a very apple thing 2 make a “sport” version of something (unless it concerns the Apple Watch, ofc), so I don’t think there would be an AirPods Max “Sport”. I think the most likely scenario is that these “AirPods Max Sport” would actually be a Beats product, most likely a “Beats Studio Pro” of sorts. They would slot in at the current Beats Studio3’s $349 price point (which would mean a rearrangement of products in terms of their price point across the entire Beats lineup) and have a similar design 2 the Solo Pros, as well as an upgraded version of the Solo Pros’ hardware (in order 2 fit the over ear design). There’s not any concrete proof or leaks confirming this, but considering how what we once thought 2 b AirPods Pro 2 actually turned out 2 b Beats Studio Buds, this theory seems likely. This could b a similarity situation of us hearing abt what we thinks is an apple product when in reality it’s a Beats product, especially considering how the topic and leaks of this went cold after a while, which often happens with Beats products (cuz 4 some reason, no one is interested in leaking info abt Beats products). The evidence adds up, making this theory increasingly plausible