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AirPods Max Unboxing Videos: 'More Than Good Enough to Compete With Other High-End Headphones'
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Ah nuts. Is the expensive Apple cable the only way to go for this then? There are third-party 3.5 to Lightning cables out there but I'm guessing no...
Heres what you clearly refused to do.....a simple google search.
More audiophile praise for the HomePod as professional tests confirm Apple's claims - 9to5Mac
There has been much debate about the audio quality of the HomePod. The majority of reviews have praised the speaker...9to5mac.com
Reddit audiophiles test HomePod, say it sounds better than $1,000 speaker
In-depth test says $350 speaker has a “near-perfectly flat frequency response.”…arstechnica.com
An Apple fansite and a tech site mostly focused on computers. Lol. Get outta my face. You think sites like that review high-end audio? You need to read much more widely than that.
Apple make great products but their audio stuff is no better than Bose, B&O and all the other high aesthetic, mediocre sound quality companies.
Seriously, 9to5 Mac said the HomePod was high-end audio?
You believed people on Reddit that a HomePod was better than a speaker costing a thousand dollars.
Your lack of knowledge is just embarrassing. Just stick to the 'Designed by Apple in Cupertino' and you'll do just fine.
As far as just sales dollars; I’m pretty sure the AirPods line already puts them up with the big boys. But as far as “premium”, I have serious doubts.
Apple’s hit ratio on audio products is pretty poor. Worse than 50% in my opinion.
My brand new Beats Flex have atrocious sound. They literally have background hiss! They couldn’t figure out how to put in a decent amp circuit in 2020?!? I can’t imagine a decent audio company like Sennheiser putting out something like this. Yes, they are inexpensive; but my < $30 Sennheiser earbuds sound vastly better.
The AirPods Pro are well loved (I’d call that a hit), but the AirPods have been made fun of by many an audiophile for good reason.
And don’t get me started on the whole headphone jack nightmare. A “Pro“ iPad with no headphone jack? So pretty much every audio professional has to have some gangly dock hanging off for critical audio work? I tried this for about a week when the new 11” came out before I returned it for a 10.5” Pro (last with the jack). Really happy with that choice.
All the rage in the audiophile world right now are portable DAC/amps. Companies like FiiO are really innovating in this area. And it’s a high margin business! But Apple’s weird obsession with eliminating useful ports leaves them completely out of this market.
Apple has every resource to be a true leader in the audio space. And with Apple Music they have every possible connection in the music industry...who want them to succeed. But instead they consistently shoot themselves in the foot. If only they would learn that you can sell mass market products and ALSO pro-sumer level products and give consumers choice. Not everything has to be pure “simple”.
And then occasionally they produce a product that is just genius level good. The new MacBook Air as an example. An absolute killer music and creativity machine. A fanless music studio in your backpack.
50% hit ratio. At best.
Finally, the sane voice of objective reason. I think you're the only one on here.
Apple audio products are mostly over-priced rubbish, IMO. They're on a par with other low tier (who like to think of themselves as mid-tier) companies who pour their R&D into design and aesthetic but cannot engineer real audio quality to save their lives.
This is the realm of B&O and Bose and many others. They're a fashion left over from the 1980s when people were seduced by bold and daring designs into thinking the sound quality was amazing too. It wasn't.
You have to hand it to these companies. They're still going strong. Seducing people with beautiful designs and crappy sound sound quality.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not bashing Apple. They make other fantastic products but their efforts in the audio market are laughable compared to other similarly priced products - from companies who only do audio stuff.
Part of the problem here is that there are no strict definitions of 'high-end', 'audiophile', or even 'hifi'. So reviewers can get away with writing pretty much whatever garbage they like.
IMO I agree that Apple just makes fairly OK-ish consumer stuff which works well for what it is, but is in no way to be confused with the kind of distortion and accuracy standards to be expected from gear 2 or 3 times the price.
What Apple do best of all is please the brand-fans and harmonise their ecosystem so that at all ties together pretty easily.
Wow, you didnt even read the damn articles. What I posted are aggregates which include audiophile opinions and testing. But keep blabbing. Gotta love comments form people who don't even read.
yes, they are very good at the whole ecosystem thing. They cannot be beaten there.
They're even better at marketing. Take a look at the AirPods Max page on Apple's site. You'd think they'd created something that could destroy products three or four times the price.
'Spatial audio for cinema-like sound that surrounds you.' What does that even mean?
Apple, just concentrate on making headphones that actually have $500 sound quality and dispense with the gimmicks.
Your lack of both knowledge and reading skills is even more embarrassing since you clearly didn't read anything contained in either article yet are taking the high ground. Must be a blast at parties!
I'm not having a go at you. As someone else mentioned further back, when proper audiophile sites start reviewing these things, they'll get called out for what they are. I didn't see Apple offering to let Stereophile, Inner Fidelity, The Absolute Sound and other sites review these new headphones.
Sorry if I came across rude.
Thats fine, let them review it and we shall see.
Apple isn't going after that market anyway. They are going after Bose and B&O and will most likely destroy both of them in sound and features for a little more than Bose pricing and less than a lot of what B&O offers. Early word is that Apple will take the crown on noise cancelling away from Sony and Bose.
There is a whole other world outside of the Apple, Sony, Bose one.
Even noise cancellation and Bluetooth would be considered heresy for high-end manufacturers. Audiophiles (not me) would find the compromise to sound unacceptable.
Of course there is another world out there with headphones that are 2, 3, 4 thousand dollars.
As far as sound Apple is doing for sound what they did for digital phone photography. The way they can analyze a dozen pictures , mold them together in a matter of milliseconds after you tap the button and give you a very nice picture. Thats exactly what they are doing for sound. It'll sound off the charts for 80 percent of people and even the audiophiles will say not bad at all even though theres better or more accurate.
The overall point is that even the highest of high, snobbiest of audiophiles probably wont be saying these are garbage by any means.
Um, comparing Apple's advances in computational photography cannot be compared to their lacklustre efforts in the audio sphere - but I understand what you're trying to say.
They won't say they are garbage but they will most definitely be saying that better sound quality can be found cheaper elsewhere.
I've tired every audio product Apple has ever released and their formula always seems to be this:
Engineer an audio product that costs X amount but only include audio components that (at best) equate to half the price in pure audio quality. Make sure you emphasise the design aspects above all else. That will convince most people to cough up the cash.
When it comes to audio, Apple are great at engineering a product that looks great to the point that most consumers think, 'How could it possibly sound poor when it looks that good?'
It's a great marketing tool.
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That's a reasonable and diplomatic thing to say. Compared to a $50 pair of headphones I suppose these are high end. But in the entire spectrum from the lowest to the highest, I doubt they will be judged close to the top. I have the latest Bose (in addition to my LCD-3s) and even if the Apple cans are better than the Bose, I'm sure that's about the best I'll be able to say.
I know not of whom you are speaking about but she sounds like the Nigella Lawson of tech 😉
Having been a part of that world as an observer, I can definitely say you're wrong
I have known audiophiles who won't even entertain a product unless its price is thousands of dollars, where value means nothing as long as it is built with unicorn tears.
Or course, but Apple has a magic sauce of integration and wow factor which is what made Apple APPLE...the most valuable company on planet earth, fora reason. On top of high end quality industrial design which is a staple.
Im just going to go out on a limb here.....have you actually heard a homepod? Or know whats possible with producing Dolby Atmos using two of them...let alone now with the Airpods Max?
Sound is a very subjective thing and you or anyone else can go ahead and get another nice pair of cans for 2-300 and call it a day. The fact these are already sold out for 3-4 months looks to me like they might have another hit similar to what happened with original airpods. Apple pretty much owns the consumer headphone space and now they are going for the slightly higher end.
I fully anticipate next fall all the NFL players will have ditched their beats for these and again like what happened with beats, these will be the over the ear cans to buy for most.
Value is in the eye of the unicorn tear collector, of which I am one. And don't forget the $500 special braided cable.Having been a part of that world as an observer, I can definitely say you're wrong
So, I just watched four unboxing videos for “first impressions”, yes biased pre-reviews most likely.
Comments the reviewers made:
1) The ANC is better than the Sony or Bose
2) The sound quality is better than Sony or Bose
3) Spatial Audio is better than on the AirPodsPro
That’s 3 wins if true, but we await the real reviews.
The price of these isn’t a issue to me, the value is.
Oh, and I don’t like the look of either the heqdphones or the case.
So, I will only be buying these if the Spatial Audio for Dolby Atmos etc. far exceeds what I can get elsewhere in headphone form. The auto device switching is cool and valuable but not everything.
note: I think Beats are garbage, Bose pretty poor and Sony also too fake with the Bass.
Comments the reviewers made:
1) The ANC is better than the Sony or Bose
2) The sound quality is better than Sony or Bose
3) Spatial Audio is better than on the AirPodsPro
That’s 3 wins if true, but we await the real reviews.
The price of these isn’t a issue to me, the value is.
Oh, and I don’t like the look of either the heqdphones or the case.
So, I will only be buying these if the Spatial Audio for Dolby Atmos etc. far exceeds what I can get elsewhere in headphone form. The auto device switching is cool and valuable but not everything.
note: I think Beats are garbage, Bose pretty poor and Sony also too fake with the Bass.
Haha, you gotta love how some random-ass rumor that may or may not be true becomes "what Apple had planned".