Poll: AirPods Max

  • Thread starter Thread starter LiE
  • Start date Start date

Will you buy/have you bought AirPods Max?

  • Yes

    Votes: 26 11.6%

  • No

    Votes: 198 88.4%
  • Total voters
    224
Well I have had them a little over 24 hours and had plenty of usage. Interestingly, although I’m primarily working from home, just these last two days I had two separate appointments in Central London which would match my normal work commute journey. One I used my trusty 4yo RevA Bose QC35s and the other today with the AirPods Max.

I think MKBHD’s review is pretty consistent with my experience and I’m definitely no reviewer or audiophile but here are some of my thoughts -

The Good:
  • They sound great to me. Improvement over Bose QC35, lovely clarity and base at all volume levels
  • Super easy switching between my work and personal Macs, iPhones, iPad etc
  • Premium build quality, no creaks or clicks when wearing or putting on / off
  • Exceptional ANC, far superior to my QC35s. Particularly noticeable walking along pavements on busy roads and on London Underground. I look forward to testing on a flight
  • Excellent transparency mode, feels less artificial than QC35s and directional sound feels natural. Also super easy to activate with one button (I understand than QC35 II have a similar 1 button activation for this too?)
  • Manual controls are very responsive. I had gotten used to that typical “Bluetooth Lag” with my Bose for changing tracks, adjusting volume etc but the AirPods feel almost instantaneous
  • Despite being noticeably heavier, they’re still very comfy. The overengineered headband does the job of distributing the weight
  • Lightning charging. This has definitely divided people saying it should be USB-C but for me, I have a lighting cable on my desk for charging my keyboard / trackpad / AirPods (revA) so I see this as pretty convenient. My QC35s need micro-USB which is far less convenient
The Bad:
  • No on/off switch and without case, 2 hour full power until passive lower power mode. I hope they change this to be adjustable with a software update
  • Pricey. They’re definitely not cheap but I’m not offended by the price as some people seem to be. They’re definitely a premium build over Bose in my opinion and the integration into Apple products adds quite a bit extra. I also am lucky to not have paid full price for them
The Ugly:
  • No two ways about this, I hate the “case” / “sleeve” / “handbag” and it makes very little sense to me. I’ll be on the look out for 3rd party alternatives that incorporate the magnet placement to put them into sleep mode for sure
The positives outweigh the negatives for me and I see them being my daily drivers for commuting, general music, traveling and work calls (specifically whilst I’m still WFH). For exercise I’ll continue to use AirPods (revA) and for my PC gaming I have a Sennheiser Game One headset.
 
@shiver
Really interesting thoughts, thanks.
Here's a question for you, are the left and right fixed? Is it possible to wear them so that the volume control is on the left earpiece? After breaking my shoulder last year, I have problems with my right arm. It's no problem raising it to reach the controls but it's uncomfortable when I lower it.
 
Feek said:
@shiver
Really interesting thoughts, thanks.
Here's a question for you, are the left and right fixed? Is it possible to wear them so that the volume control is on the left earpiece? After breaking my shoulder last year, I have problems with my right arm. It's no problem raising it to reach the controls but it's uncomfortable when I lower it.
Click to expand...
Interesting question - whilst the the cans look fairly symetrical they are definitely designed to be on one way round due to the placement of mics and sensors in the cups. I just tried wearing them the "wrong" way round and they're not uncomfortable and still work but do sound different.

The only adjustment I found in settings was the direction the crown goes for volume up/volume down and which sound modes it cycles through on the other button.

You can also make the same adjustments with your Apple Watch if needed : https://support.apple.com/en-euro/HT210643
 
shiver said:
Interesting question - whilst the the cans look fairly symetrical they are definitely designed to be on one way round due to the placement of mics and sensors in the cups. I just tried wearing them the "wrong" way round and they're not uncomfortable and still work but do sound different.
Click to expand...
Thanks, I've now found pictures where the cups are labelled L and R so clearly they're only meant to be used one way round.
 
Feek said:
It sounds like he still has them in transparency mode when he thought they were in noise cancellation mode. Plus, he already hated them before he even opened the box!
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Im convinced there was some setting he did wrong as it mentions in the comments.

Though saying that, I dont trust the apple biased channels either (basically 99% of all american tech youtubers).

Snazzylabs is coming out with a review soon, and he's definitely one of the best so will wait until his review is released to properly judge. I still dont think they're worth the £200/250 premium though
 
ZP9 said:
Im convinced there was some setting he did wrong as it mentions in the comments.

Though saying that, I dont trust the apple biased channels either (basically 99% of all american tech youtubers).

Snazzylabs is coming out with a review soon, and he's definitely one of the best so will wait until his review is released to properly judge. I still dont think they're worth the £200/250 premium though
Click to expand...

I don’t think any reviews are going to convince you at this point tbh.
 
ZP9 said:
Im convinced there was some setting he did wrong as it mentions in the comments.

Though saying that, I dont trust the apple biased channels either (basically 99% of all american tech youtubers).

Snazzylabs is coming out with a review soon, and he's definitely one of the best so will wait until his review is released to properly judge. I still dont think they're worth the £200/250 premium though
Click to expand...

If they were priced at £349-400 would you buy them over say the XM4's?
 
Throrik said:
His 'reliable' reviewers are generally trash too haha. Never even heard of the ones he's linked this time, but looking at some of their content they're just worse versions of other bog standard Youtube reviewers.
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99% of these american youtubers have massive apple bias, too bad you cant see that.

I guess you just disregard every review that says anything bad about any apple products then huh, grow up
 
tombrr said:
If they were priced at £349-400 would you buy them over say the XM4's?
Click to expand...

If I tested both them and the XM4's and they are both very similar in sound quality and noise cancelling, then i'd be tempted at the £350 price. But given that they have a terrible case, and are heavy on your head, worse battery life that still leans me more towards then XM4's.

I dont really care about the fact it has no headphone jack as I listen 99% on spotify and youtube. The only benefit (for me personally) I see at the moment is the ease of connectivity which is great as I have an iphone. I just hope it has good bass as well as thats important to me.
 
I think that it is caveat emptor with any first iteration of an Apple product. This coming from someone who had a series 1 apple watch with no GPS. Same reason I won't be buying an M1 Mac. I am sure they will sort the case/magnet thing in the future but it is difficult to see it being a software only update.
 
ZP9 said:
99% of these american youtubers have massive apple bias, too bad you cant see that.

I guess you just disregard every review that says anything bad about any apple products then huh, grow up
Click to expand...

I don't like any of the Youtuber for most tech, and seeing as I've already criticised these in this thread and multiple other products no I don't disregard anything bad about Apple. But moving on...
 
ZP9 said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3JKaWQpy84

Harsh words from a reliable reviewer
Click to expand...
It’s not a shock that apple/beats can’t make high end headphones, they have never managed it in the past. I am surprised at how bad he thinks they are though - I’d have expected them to at least be half decent.

If people want apple headphones at apple prices I’m sure they’ll still sell like hot cakes though.
 
If I was blind-buying a pair myself I'd just look at the overall body of evidence; for the few bad reviews, the general opinion of the majority including Head-Fi posters - who are a hard-to-please lot - is that they're now the wireless headphone to beat, taking into account the crap case/power management until 3rd party solutions appear, and the Apple pricing.

Also something I just learned: you can tweak the default sound a bit via the following, if you wish to tune them slightly differently to your taste.

Settings > Accessibility > AirPods > (Select AirPods Model) > Audio Accessibility Settings > Headphone Accommodations (On) then go from from there

You can do custom audio setup which has you A/B test a sound clip or you can select your own tuning preferences (fine print explains what you're modifying).

The APM are using DSP to get the sound to your ears in the first place, so any alterations are simply adjusting the DSP rather than some sort of destructive EQ'ing.
 
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