As a Sony mx4 owner and total Sony bluetooth shill, I'd have liked to have seen more discussion about how the AirPods Max compare to the Sony's major faults -- namely, the time it takes to turn on and connect, to switch between noise canceling modes and the UX for switching between devices, such as phone and laptop.
I'm not a headphone miser -- I currently own Audeze LCD-XCs, Oppo PM-1s and a pair of electrostatic headphones, but have also owned flagships from Grado, Audio Technica and Sennheiser -- and to me, the AirPods Max price isn't ludicrous if it sounds and works as good as it looks. The build quality and materials on the Sony are just laughably bad for $275, and a colorful all aluminum and steel build would be easily worth an extra $200. That's the difference in price between AudioTechnica's ATH-A900 and ATH-W900, which are the same headphone except the A900 is plastic and the W900 is gorgeous wood.
But to truly be worth the money, I'd also expect the AirPods to solve my user experience woes. To be on as soon as I put them on my ears, and to be able to figure out which of 2-5 devices I'd like to listen to with a minimum of fuss. As an example: with the Sony, if I'm connected to my laptop, even if it's in sleep the headphones want to continue to communicate with the laptop. So if I want to use my phone, unless I want to open the laptop and manually disconnect, I either need to start bluetooth pairing on the Sony (involves turning off and turning back on with a long hold, about 15 seconds) while forgetting the device on the phone and waiting for it to show up again.
Or I can take a walk. Far enough away that the bluetooth connection fails, like to my garage from the house. I've seriously done this rather than boot and log into my work laptop. Connectivity issues have caused me to miss out on important parts of meetings and even fumble meetings I've lead. Having this bulletproof would be worth $100 easy.
I'm also a little nervous about a $550 headphone that relies on so much on solving audio problems in software. My whole life I've had vendors tell me they've solved a problem with better acoustic modeling only to find the end result is worse than simply using a more powerful amplifier design, or a bigger and more efficient driver (this is why I'm so into planar magnetics and electro statics, driver designs that just don't sound like moving coil). The Airpods look to have very small amplifiers and output capacitors, a relatively small driver and a very straightforward style, something I'd expect from $150 Sennheisers. It's just easier to get good sound from quality components than from software magic...but then, a few years ago i'd have said the same about big optics and large sensors for photography. Did Apple do for sound what they did for images? At the moment, no review I've seen is competent enough to really make that case.
It's troubling that this review gave the ANC nod to the Sony, not for any lacking of the Sony (the ANC is simply incredible, you've just got to try them) but because I'd expect Apple's engineers to have put a lot of energy into the ANC problem. If they can't beat Sony on this stage, I'm worrier about all that software going in to modeling other aspects of sound. Including spatial audio, which if it worked well would be worth another $100 easily -- this is another feature I've been sold by audio software vendors since probably 1996 and I've never found it to be very good.
The commentary about the headphone case I don't agree with. I've got big headphone cases (google the case for the LCD-XC, it looks like it should hold a handgun) and the thing about them is as protective as they are, you don't actually use them. They just take up too much space, something that's a premium with commuters. Instead you just fold up your phones and chuck them in your laptop messenger, where they bounce around with keys and pens and notepads. The minimal case for the Airpods, doofy as it is (face it, it's a headphone bra), might actually get used, meaning that aluminum is going to stay unscratched longer than my Sonys.
It'd also be nice to know if the Airpods worked in freezing temperatures, because the Sony do not. They start glitching out under 35º.
Finally: I find it very odd that the coloration of the AirPods Max follows the iPad line -- not the iPhone line. I'd love a headphone to match my Pacific Blue iPhone Pro and would pay a premium for it. Yes I'm that vain. Duh, I'm an audiophile.
