I don't understand how anyone could buy these, when the battery is not user-replaceable and they don't work passively without power. After ~5 years max, these will be unusable.
I purchased the regular AirPods and this point was reached even sooner, after ~2 years of heavy usage they don't work longer than 15 minutes.
With almost all other wireless over-ear headphones you can at least keep using them passively with a headphone jack when the battery inevitably degrades. Some even have user-replaceable batteries. I have been using old AKG headphones for > 15 years.
Yet another throw-away product from a self-proclaimed environmentally friendly company.
My question is how someone can justify paying $550 dollars for headphones from Apple. I can get mid-range studio quality headphones for that price, from a company that is actually focused on producing the best headphones.
Apple has a huge R&D budget and I'm sure that they could make some very nice headphones if they wanted to, but up against a company that's been making really good stuff for 40+ years, I'm skeptical. If it were an innovation thing, I'd be down to get the hot new headphone experience, but these are just wireless can headphones with some noise cancelling, a product that's been around for quite a while now.
(I've had Bose QCs for ~8 years now (the same set, mind you), I'm pretty happy with them. I'm also pretty happy with the earbuds that came with my phone. so it's not like I'm allergic to spending money on stuff I think will be worth it or I'm some audio snob).
Mid range studio quality with active noise cancelation, great build quality, good BL codecs (aptx HD+ || LDAC)? Name that pair please. Those 8y Bose QCs are not even close to being a mid-range studio quality and are worst than a sony xm2 or xm3 in terms of ANC, built entirely of plastic also.
You people are so quick to bash on this company for no reason.
The only headset that I consider on par with this one is the recently released (at 800 euro) bang and Olufsen n95. The price is not always the sum of parts.
> but up against a company that's been making really good stuff for 40+ years, I'm skeptical.
IPhone was up against some groups with decades of making phones. Tesla is up against companies with literally a century of experience. SpaceX is up against companies that have made rockets for decades. Etc etc etc. I am surprised anyone on HN would be skeptical that a company with billions of dollars of cash at its disposal and world class engineering talent could do a passable job here all because an incumbent has experience. Also, are you suggesting that experience of one set of engineers with mastery of obsolete technologies 40 years ago is somehow a gate that a current company needs to pass through and excel at before they can compete with that company’s current engineers on current technology?
> My question is how someone can justify paying $550 dollars for headphones from Apple. I can get mid-range studio quality headphones for that price, from a company that is actually focused on producing the best headphones.
The exact same people that buy Beats headphones instead of AKG or Beyerdynamic prior to Beats getting acquired by Apple. In other words people who buy them as a status symbol, not for their function, because they themselves are not informed consumers.
Their target market has never heard of Grado, this comes up every post. Gruber makes a good comparison to the Macbook, incredibly expensive but the nicest industrial design on the market at the time.
Counter-example: Anker's bluetooth speakers are widely viewed to sound better than those from JBL, Sony & Bose and they have fewer years in the audio industry.
There are a many technologies present in products like this that a company that is purely "focused on producing the best headphones" wouldn't normally concern themselves with such as a DAC, amp, DSP, microphone & wireless protocols. When these components are tightly designed together, Apple can disrupt much in the same way they're doing with their M1 line.
These headphones are meant to be used in noisy environments where the benefit of studio quality headphones is minimal, and where a cord is annoying.
This luxury product looks cool. Paying a lot extra for that is not new. The price premium over competing products is just not that much for many Apple customers.
In case the noise cancellation when on a plane turns out to be head and shoulders above Bose and Sony...that extra 200 USD now does not seem so bad.
> My question is how someone can justify paying $550 dollars for headphones from Apple.
I think Apple may also be finding out the same thing. These are clearly awesome headphones, but it remains to be seen for whom these are not just cool, but indispensable.
Finding that out will help them continue to target the right customers when (I assume) they lower the price in the future and improve its capabilities.
$69 to replace the earpads, which is the most consumable part for me on cans.
I have a pair of Audio Technica A700s, about $150 new that are now 12 years old; I'm on my 3rd set of earpads. AT gave me a new set free the first time I asked, and it cost me $10 with shipping to get new ones out of warranty. The current ones are 3rd party that are much better than the OEM pads and cost me ~$20.
I'd bet that Apple will stop servicing them after a few years though, as they do with all their products.
And regular AirPods are definitely a throw-away product, since the 'battery service' is really just a full replacement. You'd have to physically destroy them to remove the battery.
Apple's just trying to convince headphone buyers to pay more for less. Even if they can't compete on quality with existing headphone makers, they'll undoubtedly make more money.
Some people are going to buy a new pair of AirPods Max every year for $550. It hurts me deep down to know this fact, and it offends me on a level that's hard to describe with words.
But as long as other headphone manufacturers continue to sell quality and serviceable products, I won't be directly affected by it. I just hope Sony, Sennheiser, etc. don't follow Apple's lead. If they do, maybe I'll have to start looking at cheap Chinese brands.
> I just hope Sony, Sennheiser, etc. don't follow Apple's lead.
I don't see this happening because those brands undoubtedly have a much larger share of the high-end headphones market, whereas Apple seems to focus more on a smaller niche with even more disposable income. The fact that AirPods max can only be turned off by placing them in the case is such a weird design decision beyond the other absurdities of the product design. Hopefully Sony and others adopt the good ideas (like replaceable ear cups) while staying true to their customers.
> Some people are going to buy a new pair of AirPods Max every year for $550. It hurts me deep down to know this fact, and it offends me on a level that's hard to describe with words.
Is this a reflection on Apple's product strategy or that there are inequalities in the world?
Not the $10,000 Louis Vuitton handbag or the $80,000 bottle of wine or the other myriad of consumables and products that are clearly priced by what people can pay, rather than purely for their utility value?
You're going to be offended by a lot in this timeline my friend.
It is simply not true that Apple products with sealed batteries have zero value, and therefore can only be thrown out, when they expire. The market for Apple devices with dying batteries is quite strong: just browse eBay if you need proof. There’s an industry of buyers who refurbish these devices at a profit, and the purchase price for these used devices remains impressively high.
Heck, I just sold a three-year-old iPhone X with a “service battery” warning for nearly $400.
As a repair shop owner, I can shed some light on this. The iPhone X battery is relatively simple to replace as a third party. The only negative is that the phone won’t be as water-resistant as before; though we do replace seals, it won’t be sealed like the factory did. (I just had one of our stores replace the battery on my iPhone XS with an extended capacity battery, which was well worth the tradeoffs since my phone lasts an additional 3 hours now.) So your iPhone that just needs a new battery will sell for a lot.
AirPods batteries, on the other hand, are completely unreplaceable, and believe me when I say we’d love to repair them. They’re small and Apple has filled the cavity around them with glue, meaning even if we had a replacement battery they’d be impossible to replace without damaging the AirPod itself. This is extremely upsetting to me, as someone who invests in and runs third-party repair shops at least in part for environmental reasons. Apple needs to do better on their smaller devices, AirPods included.
Counterpoint: My iPhone that was out of warranty and had the screen cracked after taking it in for third-party battery replacement. The official battery replacement was more than the resale value of the phone. Unlike a phone, high-end headphones are not inherently disposable. They can last many decades of regular use. This is a disposable product in a product category that is not usually disposable.
Ok, that is a good counter example, but what about the example I gave in my original post? These very expensive headphones I bought (AirPods 1) only two years ago are now basically worthless.
> "I don't understand how anyone could buy these, when the battery is not user-replaceable"
How many wireless headphones have "user replaceable" batteries? Certainly not any I have bought in recent years. If these last long enough to need a $79 professional battery replacement[1] in 5 years, then I'd say they're money well spent!
Why buy wireless headphones to begin with? I've had a pair of wired Audio Technica headphones for the past 5 years and have had no issues at all. Ear pads are user replaceable, headphone cable is detachable and standard, and I can use whatever DAC/amp I want (or just plug it straight into a device). Wireless just seems like a downgrade in every way
Because Apple offers luxury products. People who buy luxury products are willing to pay a premium for it. Not understanding that different people value different things from you is a very weird stance to take. I personally wouldn't pay the premium price to lease a luxury automobile, but I understand why other people do it.
> I purchased the regular AirPods and this point was reached even sooner, after ~2 years of heavy usage they don't work longer than 15 minutes.
That's not been my experience, mine have a few hours of lifespan after two years, but for earbuds that's not too bad. I regularly killed wired earbuds faster than that due to wear and tear.
Everything else on this design seems to me like they'll be longer lived than their competitors. Steel headbands and magnet attached earcups sound much more durable than plastic and plastic. I'd be willing to bet that more headphones meet an early demise due to worn out earcups and broken headbands than batteries reaching EOL, so this might not be a bad trade-off for users willing to pay $500 for headphones anyways.
> Because Apple offers luxury products. People who buy luxury products are willing to pay a premium for it. Not understanding that different people value different things from you is a very weird stance to take. I personally wouldn't pay the premium price to lease a luxury automobile, but I understand why other people do it.
But understanding it doesn’t mean you cannot criticize it?
My Bose QC35 are now seven years old or so, and they still charge up fast and hold it for a good long while. I don't know if they're as good as new, but they're close enough that I can't tell the difference. I don't see why the airpods max should be notably worse.
That's great to hear! I got a pair a year and a half ago and consider them one of the best purchases I've made for productivity at work. They fit over my behind-the-ear hearing aids, they are great for concentration when the kids are being kids, and the mic is fantastic for zoom calls. It's also the first time I've seriously used a bluetooth device and the novelty of being able to seamlessly switch between music on my phone, youtube on the computer, and work calls still hasn't worn off.
I wear headphones for about 5 hours every work day. If these are more comfortable than the alternative, I’m very ok with amortizing the added ~$300 over the ~1000 hours of extra comfort just in year one.
This is a fancy way of saying "I'll pay more for nicer headphones because I use them a lot". Sadly the point above is that you'll be forced to pay more again and again thanks to the fact they are wireless only so you'll need to replace the batteries.
It is a shame. My living room speakers, which I use for my hi-fi and home cinema setup, were manufactured in 1972. My amplifier was manufactured some time in the 90s. Things break eventually and some won't last as long as my speakers. That's fine. But we should reject things intentionally designed to break after only a few years. Reject convenience. Aim to reduce your footprint. This is especially important if you plan to reproduce.
I wonder what you define as heavy usage for AirPods. I have 2 pairs, one of which is the first generation and I use only for running. I run almost every day for around an hour. I've had them for around 2 years, probably a bit longer. They still last more than 3 hours per charge. Maybe even 4. Are you using them for 4+ hours a day? Also, is there a way to interrogate them to see how many hours of usage they have or what the remaining battery life is?
Edit: I've had a much tougher time with the Apple Watch I pair with the AirPods while I run. My first one only lasted about 1.5 years before its battery became unusable for running.
I used my AirPods for roughly 8 hours a day, probably half of it on the phone. They were done after less than a year. Battery empty after 45min and one side running on like 35% volume only.
The color and composition of these headphones makes me think that after one year of use the headband will look yellow and grimey and the fabric will get snags and runs in it. The build quality looks sturdy, but not meant to last.
People buy the dream. They know it's overpriced or premium. They don't care about a value proposition it's an opportunity to be on the leading front of the dream. When the product dies, the loss of functionality is less important than being dropped from the dream.
Apple gives people a dreamscape where they can transform their homes and workplaces into a creative paradise and share in a world without material tech problems. 'It just works'.
Replacing the current iphone with the next one is always attractive for the customer as long as it keeps everybody dreaming.
I had for around 5 years a pair of in-ear wireless PowerBeats headphones... the battery life slowly degraded until I had to recharge it every couple of days listening to them for just an hour each day... and one day, just out of nowhere, the battery started lasting only 15 minutes, making them unusable.
I thought it was ridiculous that an expensive headphone needs to be thrown away after only 5 years of light usage, but there you go... if you only had your AirPods for 2 years, sounds like I had a decent run myself :)
I still bought the newer Powerbeats model because they're quite nice and I couldn't find anything similar with as good quality. The newer model's battery lasts forever (well, a couple of weeks of light usage took them to around 25%) but I know that, in a few years, it'll get to a couple of days maximum between recharges again... hopefully a bit more than the previous one with better and newer technology.
> when the battery is not user-replaceable and they don't work passively without power
Sony’s XM3 is arguably the most successful noise cancelling headphone in the market and doesn’t do either (it does play unpowered but sound quality is significantly worse).
This viewpoint doesn't hold true far outside of forums like this one and certain subreddits. People just don't care about any of the things you noted, and if they see everyone wearing Airpods Maxes, they'll want Airpods Maxes. They'll see AKG as inferior, even though that's objectively untrue.
According to Gruber's article, you can use these as wired headphones by plugging in a "Lightning to 3.5mm headphone jack cable," but otherwise I agree with you. "Built to last" means more than the material choices (metal vs plastic), but also whether or not you can swap out the batteries.
if you take headphone jack away from the earphones then you can take the jack away from the player device, [viceversa] then you can lockout any non apple earphones and perhaps blacklist nonvetted media
I assume, barring some kind of cataclysm and reversion to barbarism (admittedly looking increasingly plausible of late), that there is no chance whatsoever that I am going to want to be using the same audio headphones in 2026 that I will be using in 2021.
Not because the old ones will SOUND horribly worse than the five year newer ones, but because tech is tech — the new ones will work with all my 2026 devices, connect using the 2026 wireless standard, work with the 2026 cable (if any, besides the 3.5mm analog).
The 2026 models will hopefully be able to download my voice profile and predefined commands and maybe will even unlock my front door when I approach, plus _____________ ????¿¿¿¿
Don't get me wrong — I love shit that will last a long time with finality, and I buy lots of things for that reason: knives and cookware and even furniture that I will hand down to my sons.
But headphones? Not in that category any more than smartphones or computers.
>I don't understand how anyone could buy these, when the battery is not user-replaceable and they don't work passively without power. After ~5 years max, these will be unusable.
First, why would it have to be "user-replacable"? You could take it to Apple, and they'd replace it. Or you could take it to any third-party repair shop (after 5 years you wouldn't have a warranty to care about invalidating this way anyway).
Second, so? People buy all kinds of perishable products... Especially in technology, when after 5 years there will be better wireless headphones out there.
>Yet another throw-away product from a self-proclaimed environmentally friendly company.
Youn don't really believe company's sociatal/enviromental concerns, right? This is empty talk. If a company was "environmentally friendly" they would just close.
Nobody really needs AirPods or whatever Apple and others sell else over the environment, even if they were user replacable. Even more so when the first imperative of any company is "sell ever more stuff to ever more people"...
Even if we accepted the first imperative for a company, there is no imperative for people to keep buying. Much less so when people have choices that are cheaper and more sustainable at the same time.
So aside from irrational consumerism, I am also in the camp of people that don't understand why one would buy this. It is not portable like earpads, it is made to last like a "normal" headphone and all of the software (ahem, computational audio) stuff can be achieved with any normal computer or smartphone where most people already have and use it as the audio source.
So other than your second point (which is in part a side effect of Apple locking down their platform so much) none of those have to do with the quality of the product. And none of them address the underlying issue that you'll be paying $550 for something that will be non-functional in a few years, while headphones with comparable sound quality and capabilities can be had for cheaper.
> I’m tempted to preface everything with “Look, I’m not an audiophile…”, but screw that. I’m not an audio expert, but I do know what I like, and I love the way these headphones sound. They make music sound rich and make movies sound very real.
It is almost impossible to wear a $550 device on your ears and not become immediately biased about how "real" the sounds are.
The better way would be with a double blind test. Would require some sort of device to conceal both the brand and the weight of the damn thing hah.
I wouldn't be surprised if the headphones end up being in line with the rest of the existing offer from other brands.
> It is almost impossible to wear a $550 device on your ears and not become immediately biased
Not saying I disagree about confirmation bias at play - especially given that TFA states at the beginning that they received a pair for review purposes - however I've personally become upset by dropping large amounts of cash on lackluster products before. Not everyone is necessarily susceptible. Some might ask for their money back. In this case, the author didn't even pay the $550 though.
> Not saying I disagree about confirmation bias at play - especially given that TFA states at the beginning that they received a pair for review purposes
You will find it quite difficult to locate any instances of John Gruber saying anything negative about Apple on Daring Fireball.
He's basically like an unofficial arm of Apple PR, and he seems to know that his access is likely dependent upon his continued service in furtherance of Apple's marketing agenda.
Every single review called out the fact that these are very expensive. Gruber even made light of it commenting about whether the button quality was worth the price. I suspect the price (rightly so) would give the reviewers extremely high expectations coming into this and they would be looking for the smallest flaws.
That is literally their job, indiscriminate reviewers aren't worth a damn. Gruber isn't a reviewer primarily, but other reviewers have said these sound great too.
I have a fairly nice headphone setup at my desk (HD650+Schiit Magni/Modi2). I am willing to admit I am biased against other headphones, especially ones that are cheaper than my setup. I am interested to try out Apple's new cans and see how they hold up. They probably won't survive my own biases.
Well if it makes everyone who wears them think it sounds better than the alternatives, that's really just as well. There's not any utility to better sounding headphones other than enjoyment, and you'll enjoy it the same whether it actually sounds amazing or you just think it does.
I am somewhat disappointed that we associate weight with quality. I assume this came from early plastics that were brittle and started to replace metal parts. But the science of plastics have come so far, we have plastics that are incredibly durable while still being lightweight. However many manufacturers are sticking to metal and glass for that "premium look and feed" even if it is heavier and less durable.
Another issue might be the variety of plastic qualities that are hard to tell apart from a quick impression. Something that our launch followed by rush to quick reviews society can't adequately test. Glass and especially metals tend to have more predictable durability profiles.
I think the main problem that we haven't solved in plastics is hardness, so glass screens are here to stay, but I wish we could move away from this plastic == low quality perception. I think it would result in better products at then end of the day.
> I am somewhat disappointed that we associate weight with quality.
To the point that Beats headphones seemed to have random bits of decorative metal added to it simply to increase the weight and make it feel more "premium":
I often wonder this about my Bose Soundlink Mini II. That thing is a shocking little brick when you pick it up. Like, it's roughly the size of a hotdog bun, and you could probably kill someone with it. Great sound though.
I think another aspect of heavy > light is it's (perceived) as a gauge of how much "stuff" is in a product.
If I picked up some very light electronic, I may suspect that it's simply not very dense, and it was made bigger to (try) and fool another "quality signal", size. You know, knock-off products made to look like something bigger/higher quality but containing mostly air.
It is a shame though, since light can be very strong and high value. I personally wouldn't want almost half a kilo of headphones on my noggin, and this article's emphasis on weight is ... disappointing.
I'm definitely guilty of using metal and weight as signals for quality. And heavier metal objects do feel nicer but that's not really my reasoning. If a manufacturer is willing to self-flagellate by making their products out a mode expensive material, using a more expensive manufacturing process, and pony up the shipping costs to transport the heavier goods then I can be reasonably sure that they're not obsessively cost-cutting.
The same mentality is widespread in photography, heavier metal construction (even though often just exterior shell and interior is polycarbonate) and weight are associated with quality and longevity. But it's starting to change as more lenses are exclusively made from "engineered plastics" - a marketing term to make these new lenses sound better.
OTOH, those robust lenses from the 50s to early 80s survived until today and are often still used and adapted on modern mirrorless cameras.
Oddly, for a camera, I prefer some weight. Not so much I will get fatigued, but it is easier to hold steady if it is not feather weight. And having it balance away from the lens is nice.
The oldest lenses I have that I still sometimes use are from the late 1940s, though they are both large-format lenses in shutters (that have been serviced). The main issue with those is that parts are scarce.
I wouldn't expect any gear made today to have that much of a lifetime.
At least this mentality is rooted in reality, as we now have a pretty good data on longevity of plastic cameras from the 80s and 90s that routinely outlast their metal+leather counterparts from the 60s. Here's a very typical "plastic in cameras" horror story:
Another simple example. I bought a zojirushi water bottle 5 years ago, it is still going strong, still keeps water cold for a hours and hours. I bought another bottle 3 months ago, which is much heavier/sturdier than zojirushi. It sucks (it is so strong that it can be used as a weapon though).
The ski boot industry has been focused on reducing plastic weight / thickness while remaining sturdy. People very much appreciate the innovations there.
While certainly some high quality expensive products focus on weight reduction (e.g. carbon fiber in camera tripods or hiking gear), many customers still have a subconscious association between weight an quality. After you’ve removed all the unnecessary parts or features and really optimized high volume manufacturing, at some point product cost is highly associated with part weight. More material costs more money. If a designer or manufacturer goes too far optimizing for cost by removing material, the product is more likely to be damaged under normal use or misuse.
Even if many consumers can’t tell you directly that something feels cheap to them or why, they are subconsciously aware of it. There’s a classic story from the history of industrial design where in the development of a desk clock, the designer, Henry Dreyfus observed consumers in a store evaluating competitive models of clocks. They picked them up and sensed the weight. By adding mass the product became much more successful. [1]
In the course of my work as a product engineer, I’ve designed many docks and stands for devices, and torn down competitive products. These kinds of things often have added weight in the form of stamped steel plates or die cast zinc. The weight helps keep the dock stable so it doesn’t tip when the user puts in the device, and it also adds to the feeling of quality and security.
[1] “In 1939, he designed the Big Ben Alarm clock for Westclock. After a year of development, it was ready to market. The first customer was the John Wanamaker department store in New York City. Henry Dreyfus, in what is considered to be the first live ‘user testing,’ observed potential customers pick up the clock, examine it and put it down without buying it or asking any questions. Eventually, he questioned customers. Why were they putting it down after examining it? What was wrong?
Their response: it felt too light. Something so light couldn’t be substantive. Whether they were right or wrong, Dreyfus realized that people were associating weight with value even though he knew there was no connection. In a radical departure from the notion that ‘less is more,’ he added a 3 oz. weight, serving no function whatsoever, but to create the perception of greater substance. In this case, more weight equated to more value. He said, ‘people want the experience of knowing that their alarm clock had something inside.’ Weight was an attribute that had meaning and relevance… it created a cue that led to a perception of value and substance.”
You seem to be saying both "weight made them more stable and less likely to tip" and "people were associating weight with value even though there's no connection".
I have an internet router, I don't routinely lift it, its weight is immaterial, except ... it has a power lead, internet lead, and some RJ45 leads connected to it, and if they move slightly, it falls over. I approximately never go near it or think about it, but the only times I do when I have to check something or connect/disconnect something, I'm annoyed by how it's designed to stand up precariously, and does so poorly because it's too flimsy cheap and plasticky.
This reminds me of the "I'm clever because I see the lottery is a tax on fools" sayings. Well, gambling is fun and mass is useful and stable clocks don't get knocked over when you dust the bedside table in their vicinity.
I think this is part of the problem why we subconsciously think of weight == quality. In many cases these things are correlated. In fact this use case may be a reasonable time for aluminum and steel.
However the metric is too simple, and easy to game, and it seems that this simplistic weight == quality is emphasized by many reviewers.
Plastics do not have good heat conductivity. I can't stand plastic over-year headphones because my ears get too warm. Apple seems to have solved this problem with fabrics and metal construction.
If you care about waste and renewability, this is kind of a good thing. I can't buy anything made of plastic without feeling shitty about the fact that it's almost certainly going to end up in a landfill within my lifetime, if not within 2-5 years.
I think some of this mentality is partially an effect of the flood of cheap black glossy plastic electronics that came in the 00s and 10s. I'm not an expert on plastic formulations, but the variety used for these products is not pleasant to touch, shows fingerprints like crazy, scratches easily, and breaks easily on top of sounding hollow.
The plastics used for electronics in the 90s didn't exhibit these problems as much, generally being thicker with a nice matte textured finish. Perhaps the key to winning the public mind back over to plastic would be to mimic those 90s plastics.
My issue with plastic for construction of bodies for higher-end products (be it synths, headphones, computers, etc.) is that they are... Soft, they get scratched easily (most of them at least, I know a few types that are scratch-resistant), they show wear and tear in a much more unpleasant way than metal, glass or wood.
It's a hugely important material but I can't imagine ever perceiving plastics, even the higher grade and durable ones, to a premium feeling. I don't associate that with brittleness but more with aesthetics and touch feel.
> My issue with plastic for construction of bodies for higher-end products (be it synths, headphones, computers, etc.) is that they are... Soft, they get scratched easily (most of them at least, I know a few types that are scratch-resistant), they show wear and tear in a much more unpleasant way than metal, glass or wood.
Most of the visible metal bits in any consumer electronic will be aluminum, which is notoriously soft (softer than gold) and scratches easily. Likewise, most any product made of wood (moving beyond electronics now) will be made of a wood that's soft enough to scratch easily. I'm not convinced that scratch-resistance is the metric for instinctively classifying the cheapness of a material.
The weight equals quality thing is probably related to the use of dense metals as money since the dawn of history. Maybe it's a quirk of human psychology that caused us to choose dense metals or maybe it's the choice of dense metals that persists as the weight/quality association.
With plastics, I think there are subtle differences in flex & texture that can clue you in you quality.
This was a fairly hot topic when SLR cameras started switching over to incorporating more and more plastic. This was quite a while ago but there was definitely a class of buyer who associated metal with solidity.
> In some ways, AirPods Max feel quite a bit like a premium Aeron-style modern desk chair — the mesh canopy atop the headband, the telescoping steel stems, the general sturdiness.
In some ways, possibly.
Here's what's nice about Aeron chairs: they last essentially forever. I got a second hand one for cheap. It's easily a decade old, possibly more, judging by the armrest mechanism (which had a redesign, mine is old). Using it every day for two years, on top of what it already had. Still looks brand spanking new.
In case something breaks, I can easily replace any component. There is a healthy replacement parts market. In fact, the person that sold it to me was essentially living off "flipping" Aerons - they would get them wholesale from companies, and then refurbish them.
If you are buying them new, they are covered by a 12 YEAR WARRANTY. Parts and labor.
The AirPods price would be totally justified if they were even remotely like this. Make the battery user-replaceable (even better if they are swappable, for more run-time) and provide user-replaceable parts, plus a healthy warranty, and this could be potentially the Aeron of the headset world.
It isn't, though. The battery is the most egregious issue. Sure, we can understand why Airpods don't have replaceable batteries. Not that it's impossible, but at least it's understandable - they are tiny. It's also possible to understand why Macbook batteries are not easily replaceable - they occupy most of the internal space and are rather fragile.
Batteries inside a laptop have no reason to be glued in. Look at the sleek laptops from Dell or Lenovo. Somehow they managed to put an easily replaceable battery into all of them - even tablets - without sacrificing weight or thickness.
Glued-in batteries are not a necessity contrary to what Apple wants you to believe.
Similarly, Samsung somehow managed to make their Galaxy Buds Live (small airpods pro competitor) very user-serviceable with standard replaceable battery without making them much bigger.
> It's also possible to understand why Macbook batteries are not easily replaceable - they occupy most of the internal space and are rather fragile.
I would guess that the batteries on the AirPods Max are not user-replaceable for the same reason. We'll know more once the iFixit teardown is out.
But stepping back: it seems that the parts most susceptible to long-term wear are replaceable. That is the ear cups (user-replaceable) and batteries. Hopefully the headstrap is more durable than it looks.
Indeed. I bought a secondhand Aeron - with the old armrest design, like yours - and it needed new wheels. I called Herman Miller attempting to buy replacement wheels, and they just sent them to me for free. Other than the wheels, it is in perfect mechanical condition.
I'm a bit spoiled since most of jobs use the Aeron chairs, but I definitely used and sat in Aeron chairs that were at least 6 years old with no issues. I had a coworker that had one he bought for like a $100 during the dotcom bust and he still used it 12 years later with no issues (he ran his own business/contractor and WFH for a long time).
You mean the pads? Those definitely are - that's one of the items you can get from Herman Miller themselves in their online store (vinyl or leather), and there are third party options too.
Even if you mean the arm rest mechanism, that's replaceable as well. As are cables, the seat, lumbar support, gas cylinder, you name it.
> Every other pair of over-the-ear headphones I’ve ever used feel a bit cheap in comparison
This has always surprised my as someone who's owned a couple of pairs of B&W P-series headphones (P5 then PX). Portable headphones should be built to last, not just flimsy plastic. B&W got it right with metal construction (and with the newest PX models forged carbon fibre), no surprises Apple is building robust headphones too.
What B&W provide though, is a really solid benchmark (of many) (with the exception of spatial audio - which from Gruber sounds like it still has some shortcomings to overcome). They're £200 cheaper, really substantial and solid construction (with a proper hard carrying case - although similar limited folding), the newest carbon models will be noticeably lighter (if still a substantial 310g).
Obviously the Sony XM4s and Bose 700s are well in view too (although plastic construction can make them seem a less premium alternative).
I expect these will sell relatively well, but I can't see them flying off the shelves like their in-ear namesakes in such a crowded and competitive market, even with Apple's software bonuses.
> Portable headphones should be built to last, not just flimsy plastic.
Good plastic is not flimsy.
Polycarbonate, an almost commodity plastic, is really strong and light. The next step: composites are way better than any metal if you want a good strength-to-weight ratio. The best, most expensive bikes are made out of carbon fiber composite for a reason.
Plastic is commonly used as casing material for stuff designed for rough environments. Portable power tools, PA speakers, even guns. So if something designed to be used on the battlefield can be made of plastic, there is no problem for headphones worn, at worst, in the subway.
The only problem with plastic is that it suffers from being cheap, as in, not expensive enough. People want expensive products to be made of expensive materials.
Also, subconsciously we associate weight with quality, so much that cheap manufacturers sometimes add metal inserts to their otherwise low quality products to trick people into thinking they are better than they really are.
That it to say, unless you put a premium on look and feel (nothing wrong with that), don't hesitate to buy plastic headphones, they can last you a lifetime as long as the right plastic is used at the right place.
You can also have long-term durability issues. But this is long-term as in probably decades which isn't really generally relevant for consumer electronics. I have a few older kitchen appliances that have started spontaneously developing cracks. I've patched things up and bought a couple of (ill-fitting) replacement parts. But I'll probably end up having to replace them even though they're otherwise functional. (Of course, the materials may well have improved by now.)
Polycarbonate stops bullets, but it's also notoriously soft, scratches easily, it's a thermoplastic (so it melts with heat), and it's soluble in ammonia or acetone (so it's vulnerable to nail polish remover). Other than all that, polycarbonate is a perfect plastic.
Exactly, plastic lasts 10000s years. I'm a believer now - I've rebuilt a lego set from my childhood and all the bricks fit and look pretty much exactly the same, 30 years later
The most durable headphones I've ever owned are Sennheiser HD 25 and made from plastic and super light. It was ~£100, sounds amazing and lasted me 15 years of being dragged to clubs, house parties and getting a fair beating. Only this year have I replaced them and that was only because I lost my old pair in a recent house move and figured "it's been 15 years, there's no shame in buying a new pair even though the old pair might turn up in a random box later".
However those cans don't have bluetooth, noise cancelling, a microphone nor adaptive EQing. They're literally just a high quality speaker, headband and copper wiring.
In terms of build quality, I've always thought Bang & Olufsen made the best headphones. The H9 series is made with aluminum and leather, and costs just slightly less than AirPods Max.
Reading this I immediately thought of the B&W PX. Really nicely made headphones which felt like they would last a long time. The battery would probably be the first thing to go. I really wanted to like them, but alas I just couldn't wear them comfortably for very long. They were too heavy for me.
By contrast, the Bose and Sony headphones, which feel more flimsy in comparison, I can wear for hours without issue.
I have the Sony WH1000 XM3. I disagree they feel more flimsy. The most critique I can come up with is that the clickiness of the buttons isn’t up to Apple standards. And they lack multipoint.
Also to consider, AirPods Max can be extremely well built but you still cannot pack them in a suitcase like you can the Sony or Bose, due to the shitty pouch that’s included...
Seconding the PX series high build quality. After losing my beloved a Sennheiser PXC 550s, I got the PX7 and it's very nicely made. The buttons and the embossed logos on the cups are the only at all cheap-feeling parts.
That said, the B&W v-shaped sound is not my favorite. Not unlistenable, but maybe not what I'd choose again.
I'm surprised he didn't mention anything about bluetooth pairing and general ease of use.
I have a Sony MDR-100 which is a great middle of the road (price/quality) wireless headset. The biggest gripe I have with it is pairing/connecting to my web of devices and music quality. This is one area that Apple routinely gets right. Bluetooth just works better on Apple devices.
I can connect the headset to my windows laptop, play some music, and it will come through muddled. I then switch over to my Macbook Pro and the same music will come through noticeably better. I'm not sure if the Apple Bluetooth drivers are just that much better or if the built in Windows ones are that much worse?
This is probably a result of the headphones being connected in headset mode, meaning the microphone is enabled. On Windows when you pair headphones which have a built in microphone you'll usually see two devices connected in the audio switcher, one for the headphones in headset mode and another for the headphones in listening mode only. Headset mode switches to the highly compressed SBC codec so it can transmit both input and output, but listening mode will usually switch to a less compressed codec like AptX, depending on your Windows device. Try pairing again and clicking on the volume button in the systray and see if you have another option for the headphones to switch to.
I just tried this out after getting off a call and it totally worked. Thank you!
I honestly thought the Headphones vs Headset was just a bluetooth/audio bug and now I feel like a dunce for installing new audio codecs to fix this issue when it was right in front of me the whole time. Sigh.
I've had this problem on Mac. In my case a pair of AirPods sounded really muddy and low quality. macOS was setting them up as the output AND input audio device. The two-way Bluetooth communication eats more bandwidth, hence the lower quality. The solution was to set the audio input to something other than the AirPods.
Try setting your audio input to something other than the headset on the Windows machine.
I honestly don’t understand how this is still an issue with Bluetooth devices in 2020. Why is there no lossless duplex audio profile / codec available at this point?
> I'm surprised he didn't mention anything about bluetooth pairing and general ease of use.
Gruber is writing primarily for people who are familiar with Apple's products. That they pair easily with multiple Apple devices is assumed based on the original AirPods. I suspect if there was any regression he'd have mentioned it.
Yea honestly to me the only reason to get these is seamless bluetooth integration Apple gives.
As long as sound quality is top of class (which they appear to be) then to some extent the thing comes out to "is better pairing experience worth a $200-300 premium over something like Sony MX4s?" For now, I will stick to my MX4s ($280) until maybe Max's come down in price.
> This is one area that Apple routinely gets right. Bluetooth just works better on Apple devices.
that really is not accurate. macbooks are notoriously terrible with bluetooth. with my macbook pro, it is impossible to play music on a bluetooth speaker, as it starts stuttering within seconds of use. this is a common problem over many years, and there's a litany of solutions on the forums, most of which don't work. another common problem is iTunes automatically opening and even playing when bluetooth headphones connect. in many cases, there's no way to prevent it. in my case, the only thing that stopped it was renaming iTunes, which required a lot of ceremony to even do. it seems in zoom meetings, it's always the people with airpods that are having audio trouble. i thought it was well known that apple has terrible bluetooth, at least on their macbooks.
My experience with Bluetooth headphones are Airpods 1, 2, and my Senneheiser Momentums.
I think I can count on one hand how many times the Sennheisers needed a re-pairing, and that's using them pretty much every work day. The Airpods are far from reliable. I use them for running 3x a week, and I probably have to re-pair them once a month. This has been consistent with the 1 and 2.
However, this is due to what Apple is trying to do. The Sennheisers just pairs and plays music. The AirPods are detecting what ear they're in, connecting when in the ear, tapping, Siri, etc. There are much more opportunities for failure with the AirPods.
I'm totally uninformed when it comes to Bluetooth audio. Is BT transmitting full "resolution" audio, or is undesireable compression being done? Does Apple have better control over that? Is it generally just better to use a wired connection?
Apple's BT does not apply any additional compression to compressed audio. If you are listening to an MP3 or AAC, it sends the already compressed audio over the channel so there is no quality loss. If you are listening to uncompressed audio source, I believe it's compressed before it's sent because of limits to Bluetooth bandwidth.
There is lossy compression. There is a rather old codec (SBC) at a few different bit-rates, and a couple newer better codecs from the last 10 years (aptX, AAC, ?). Apple does have the control to make sure better codecs are supported and used. It can be pretty hard to determine and control what codecs are supported and which one is used, this is almost always hidden and never mentioned anywhere.
Bluetooth is transmitting crudely compressed audio. There is a proprietary aptX codec which aims to make Bluetooth compression suck less, which Apple devices do not support: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AptX
Lossy compression, lots of different codecs with differing qualities and compatibilities. However, Shure Aonic 50 BT sound quality for me was phenomenally good (though they were uncomfortable to wear)... most other headphones I've tried have been mildly tolerable to terrible.
One of the more unexpected things on a good pair of noise canceling headphones was hearing conversations on airplanes that folks thought were private. Eliminating some of the background hum almost feels like a super power at times. (And occasionally an unwanted one)
I'm not bothered by seeing people just out and about wearing big, probably expensive headphones, but seeing folks exercising even remotely strenuously in them is what I don't understand. I just can't deal with the thought of all that sweat soaking into the various soft parts of a nice pair of headphones.
Bone conductive headphones are great if you want awareness. They don’t go in your ears, so no ear canal irritation either. Conversely, they are horrible at filtering out surrounding noises.
Very true. I would never wear these things outside given that their overpriced and, currently, many young people in a year like this are unemployed. It's like begging to get robbed.
I know it’s popular in a lot of Japanese animes, but I’ve never seen anyone walking around with over ear headphones in real life. I see them mostly in open offices worn by developers trying to get some quiet while they are coding.
That's really interesting, I see it all the time in NYC. Where are you located? Perhaps it has something to do with urban v suburban v rural? Or a cultural thing?
That's weird cause here in Texas I see them a lot and the only places I'm going right now are grocery stores, walmart/target, and home improvement stores.
If you took public transportation or go any place young people hang out you would see them too. (Malls or coffee shops)
I have a pair of Parrot Zik Noise Canceling Bluetooth headphones. At 326g they are undeniably and uncomfortably heavy. It's not about the headband or earcups, it's the mass it gives your head when turning, leaning, moving. I don't use them because of the weight. At 384g, the Airpod max is about 15% heavier. I currently have a pulled neck as a result of too many hours sitting at my desk. I cannot fathom wearing such a heavy headphone for long stretches. It would be injurious. That Apple would release such a heavy headphone for mass consumption is truly bonkers to me, much crazier than the price.
My motorcycle helmet weighs 1.6kg and I can wear it all day in gale force winds without experiencing painful neck strain. Not to try to be yours or any one else's doctor, but I think there might be other things at play here than weight -- maybe posture, movement (or lack thereof), or something else entirely should be given more consideration.
I can wear a ski helmet all day, but that is in an athletic stance. I think the risk is in static posture with too much weight on my head. But that is exactly the scenario I would buy these for, so lighter weight is absolutely a selling point. I have other headphones under 300g that are fine all day.
> I currently have a pulled neck as a result of too many hours sitting at my desk.
I've found doing face pulls at the gym significantly helped build up all the supporting back/neck musculature that I was beating up sitting at a desk all day. Rows also were pretty helpful for my lower back.
If you're a desk jockey with bad posture you might not want to jump right in to face pulls. I'm a big fan of Athlean-X and all that, but I think a lot of folks aren't ready for even that level of workout. Some of us are so screwed up that the first thing we need is a couple months of foam rolling, scapular activation, awareness training, etc. If you go into face pulls without knowing what a face pull should feel like, you risk ending up with a shoulder issue.
I had shoulder surgery after blowing out my AC joint weightlifting. I went to one PT place that, while good in some areas, focused on strength of my rotators and neglected my mobility. My shoulders got worse after initially getting better and I thought I would need a second surgery. Fortunately I screwed up my lower back so I sought out a new PT place(Catherine at Fields in Motion, Campbell, CA) which not only fixed my back, but identified what was wrong with my shoulder and helped me fix it. It's only now, after months of flexibility and lower-trap strengthening that I know what a face pull is supposed to feel like.
Keep those sternums out, shoulders rolled back, and always keep your core activated(squeeze your cheeks and tighten abs) when you do anything physical. It seems so obvious now, but I went 45 years without figuring it out.
I had to finally learn about face pulls when I was doing hundreds of pushups per day and a bodybuilder friend pointed out how my front/top delt was massive and my rear delt was soft and flat. And sure enough, looking at myself sideways in the mirror, it was pretty comical.
Though there are other ways to work the rear delt. I prefer some rings at home.
I'm curious if you have a multimonitor setup? The times I've dabbled with it I got neck/eye strain pretty quick from not only moving from left to right screens, but also just never being able to look straight ahead.
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I purchased the regular AirPods and this point was reached even sooner, after ~2 years of heavy usage they don't work longer than 15 minutes.
With almost all other wireless over-ear headphones you can at least keep using them passively with a headphone jack when the battery inevitably degrades. Some even have user-replaceable batteries. I have been using old AKG headphones for > 15 years.
Yet another throw-away product from a self-proclaimed environmentally friendly company.
Apple has a huge R&D budget and I'm sure that they could make some very nice headphones if they wanted to, but up against a company that's been making really good stuff for 40+ years, I'm skeptical. If it were an innovation thing, I'd be down to get the hot new headphone experience, but these are just wireless can headphones with some noise cancelling, a product that's been around for quite a while now.
(I've had Bose QCs for ~8 years now (the same set, mind you), I'm pretty happy with them. I'm also pretty happy with the earbuds that came with my phone. so it's not like I'm allergic to spending money on stuff I think will be worth it or I'm some audio snob).
You people are so quick to bash on this company for no reason.
The only headset that I consider on par with this one is the recently released (at 800 euro) bang and Olufsen n95. The price is not always the sum of parts.
IPhone was up against some groups with decades of making phones. Tesla is up against companies with literally a century of experience. SpaceX is up against companies that have made rockets for decades. Etc etc etc. I am surprised anyone on HN would be skeptical that a company with billions of dollars of cash at its disposal and world class engineering talent could do a passable job here all because an incumbent has experience. Also, are you suggesting that experience of one set of engineers with mastery of obsolete technologies 40 years ago is somehow a gate that a current company needs to pass through and excel at before they can compete with that company’s current engineers on current technology?
Like most luxury goods, it's a status symbol, and thus the price justifies itself.
The exact same people that buy Beats headphones instead of AKG or Beyerdynamic prior to Beats getting acquired by Apple. In other words people who buy them as a status symbol, not for their function, because they themselves are not informed consumers.
There are a many technologies present in products like this that a company that is purely "focused on producing the best headphones" wouldn't normally concern themselves with such as a DAC, amp, DSP, microphone & wireless protocols. When these components are tightly designed together, Apple can disrupt much in the same way they're doing with their M1 line.
This luxury product looks cool. Paying a lot extra for that is not new. The price premium over competing products is just not that much for many Apple customers.
In case the noise cancellation when on a plane turns out to be head and shoulders above Bose and Sony...that extra 200 USD now does not seem so bad.
I think Apple may also be finding out the same thing. These are clearly awesome headphones, but it remains to be seen for whom these are not just cool, but indispensable.
Finding that out will help them continue to target the right customers when (I assume) they lower the price in the future and improve its capabilities.
Where are you seeing reviews that show that they're not of this quality?
$79 for airpods max battery service [0]. user-replaceable battery certainly would be nicer. but to describe as "throw-away" seems extreme.
[0] https://support.apple.com/airpods/repair/service#battery
I have a pair of Audio Technica A700s, about $150 new that are now 12 years old; I'm on my 3rd set of earpads. AT gave me a new set free the first time I asked, and it cost me $10 with shipping to get new ones out of warranty. The current ones are 3rd party that are much better than the OEM pads and cost me ~$20.
And regular AirPods are definitely a throw-away product, since the 'battery service' is really just a full replacement. You'd have to physically destroy them to remove the battery.
Some people are going to buy a new pair of AirPods Max every year for $550. It hurts me deep down to know this fact, and it offends me on a level that's hard to describe with words.
But as long as other headphone manufacturers continue to sell quality and serviceable products, I won't be directly affected by it. I just hope Sony, Sennheiser, etc. don't follow Apple's lead. If they do, maybe I'll have to start looking at cheap Chinese brands.
I don't see this happening because those brands undoubtedly have a much larger share of the high-end headphones market, whereas Apple seems to focus more on a smaller niche with even more disposable income. The fact that AirPods max can only be turned off by placing them in the case is such a weird design decision beyond the other absurdities of the product design. Hopefully Sony and others adopt the good ideas (like replaceable ear cups) while staying true to their customers.
Neither of those have user-replaceable batteries. They haven't for years.
And if you wanted to replace the batteries on the AirPods Max, it's only $79. If you can't afford it, don't buy them.
Is this a reflection on Apple's product strategy or that there are inequalities in the world?
Not the $10,000 Louis Vuitton handbag or the $80,000 bottle of wine or the other myriad of consumables and products that are clearly priced by what people can pay, rather than purely for their utility value?
You're going to be offended by a lot in this timeline my friend.
Heck, I just sold a three-year-old iPhone X with a “service battery” warning for nearly $400.
AirPods batteries, on the other hand, are completely unreplaceable, and believe me when I say we’d love to repair them. They’re small and Apple has filled the cavity around them with glue, meaning even if we had a replacement battery they’d be impossible to replace without damaging the AirPod itself. This is extremely upsetting to me, as someone who invests in and runs third-party repair shops at least in part for environmental reasons. Apple needs to do better on their smaller devices, AirPods included.
You are absolutely right in the iPhone & Mac space, but AirPods are famously unrepairable [0].
iFixit's verdict:
- AirPods are not designed to be serviced. No hardware components can be accessed without damage to the device.
- Sealed-in batteries limit the AirPods' lifespan, making them a consumable/disposable item.
[0]: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/AirPods+2+Teardown/121471
How many wireless headphones have "user replaceable" batteries? Certainly not any I have bought in recent years. If these last long enough to need a $79 professional battery replacement[1] in 5 years, then I'd say they're money well spent!
[1] https://support.apple.com/airpods/repair/service#battery
Because Apple offers luxury products. People who buy luxury products are willing to pay a premium for it. Not understanding that different people value different things from you is a very weird stance to take. I personally wouldn't pay the premium price to lease a luxury automobile, but I understand why other people do it.
> I purchased the regular AirPods and this point was reached even sooner, after ~2 years of heavy usage they don't work longer than 15 minutes.
That's not been my experience, mine have a few hours of lifespan after two years, but for earbuds that's not too bad. I regularly killed wired earbuds faster than that due to wear and tear.
Everything else on this design seems to me like they'll be longer lived than their competitors. Steel headbands and magnet attached earcups sound much more durable than plastic and plastic. I'd be willing to bet that more headphones meet an early demise due to worn out earcups and broken headbands than batteries reaching EOL, so this might not be a bad trade-off for users willing to pay $500 for headphones anyways.
But understanding it doesn’t mean you cannot criticize it?
Edit: I've had a much tougher time with the Apple Watch I pair with the AirPods while I run. My first one only lasted about 1.5 years before its battery became unusable for running.
I'm doubt you could get replaceable batteries into something the size of the AirPods and have them light enough to stay in my ears as well as they do.
These beasts are obviously different.
Apple gives people a dreamscape where they can transform their homes and workplaces into a creative paradise and share in a world without material tech problems. 'It just works'.
Replacing the current iphone with the next one is always attractive for the customer as long as it keeps everybody dreaming.
I thought it was ridiculous that an expensive headphone needs to be thrown away after only 5 years of light usage, but there you go... if you only had your AirPods for 2 years, sounds like I had a decent run myself :)
I still bought the newer Powerbeats model because they're quite nice and I couldn't find anything similar with as good quality. The newer model's battery lasts forever (well, a couple of weeks of light usage took them to around 25%) but I know that, in a few years, it'll get to a couple of days maximum between recharges again... hopefully a bit more than the previous one with better and newer technology.
Well, the battery is replaceable in a straight-forward way.
The exact process isn't really that important a buying factor considering you'll do it once in every 1000 days (or something on that order).
Sony’s XM3 is arguably the most successful noise cancelling headphone in the market and doesn’t do either (it does play unpowered but sound quality is significantly worse).
Deleted Comment
Source: https://www.slashgear.com/apple-airpods-max-water-resistance...
...without power?
I would try these on the premise that my remote workflow might be improved.
Just watch as others copy these overpriced headphones.
The entire point is to be impractical.
Not because the old ones will SOUND horribly worse than the five year newer ones, but because tech is tech — the new ones will work with all my 2026 devices, connect using the 2026 wireless standard, work with the 2026 cable (if any, besides the 3.5mm analog).
The 2026 models will hopefully be able to download my voice profile and predefined commands and maybe will even unlock my front door when I approach, plus _____________ ????¿¿¿¿
Don't get me wrong — I love shit that will last a long time with finality, and I buy lots of things for that reason: knives and cookware and even furniture that I will hand down to my sons.
But headphones? Not in that category any more than smartphones or computers.
First, why would it have to be "user-replacable"? You could take it to Apple, and they'd replace it. Or you could take it to any third-party repair shop (after 5 years you wouldn't have a warranty to care about invalidating this way anyway).
Second, so? People buy all kinds of perishable products... Especially in technology, when after 5 years there will be better wireless headphones out there.
>Yet another throw-away product from a self-proclaimed environmentally friendly company.
Youn don't really believe company's sociatal/enviromental concerns, right? This is empty talk. If a company was "environmentally friendly" they would just close.
Nobody really needs AirPods or whatever Apple and others sell else over the environment, even if they were user replacable. Even more so when the first imperative of any company is "sell ever more stuff to ever more people"...
So aside from irrational consumerism, I am also in the camp of people that don't understand why one would buy this. It is not portable like earpads, it is made to last like a "normal" headphone and all of the software (ahem, computational audio) stuff can be achieved with any normal computer or smartphone where most people already have and use it as the audio source.
That is exactly what I'm criticising.
Plenty of reasons why people would convince themselves to buy them:
- I can easily return it if I don't like it (most never do)
- the OS X/iOS integration will be way better than my current headphones (my poison)
- I love Apple
- 2020 sucked, if I can't even go to Thailand this year, I'll at least treat myself to these. I deserve it.
You deserve better than this
It is almost impossible to wear a $550 device on your ears and not become immediately biased about how "real" the sounds are.
The better way would be with a double blind test. Would require some sort of device to conceal both the brand and the weight of the damn thing hah.
I wouldn't be surprised if the headphones end up being in line with the rest of the existing offer from other brands.
Not saying I disagree about confirmation bias at play - especially given that TFA states at the beginning that they received a pair for review purposes - however I've personally become upset by dropping large amounts of cash on lackluster products before. Not everyone is necessarily susceptible. Some might ask for their money back. In this case, the author didn't even pay the $550 though.
You will find it quite difficult to locate any instances of John Gruber saying anything negative about Apple on Daring Fireball.
He's basically like an unofficial arm of Apple PR, and he seems to know that his access is likely dependent upon his continued service in furtherance of Apple's marketing agenda.
If they have to send them back then I'd say it is fair, but I doubt that is the case.
That is literally their job, indiscriminate reviewers aren't worth a damn. Gruber isn't a reviewer primarily, but other reviewers have said these sound great too.
Sound can be analyzed extremely objectively.
Another issue might be the variety of plastic qualities that are hard to tell apart from a quick impression. Something that our launch followed by rush to quick reviews society can't adequately test. Glass and especially metals tend to have more predictable durability profiles.
I think the main problem that we haven't solved in plastics is hardness, so glass screens are here to stay, but I wish we could move away from this plastic == low quality perception. I think it would result in better products at then end of the day.
To the point that Beats headphones seemed to have random bits of decorative metal added to it simply to increase the weight and make it feel more "premium":
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/we-took-apart-some-beats-head...
https://medium.com/@BenEinstein/how-it-s-made-series-yup-our...
If I picked up some very light electronic, I may suspect that it's simply not very dense, and it was made bigger to (try) and fool another "quality signal", size. You know, knock-off products made to look like something bigger/higher quality but containing mostly air.
It is a shame though, since light can be very strong and high value. I personally wouldn't want almost half a kilo of headphones on my noggin, and this article's emphasis on weight is ... disappointing.
OTOH, those robust lenses from the 50s to early 80s survived until today and are often still used and adapted on modern mirrorless cameras.
Overall, agreed, though.
I wouldn't expect any gear made today to have that much of a lifetime.
http://jaredlichtenbergerphoto.com/blog/mamiya-645-pro-mirro...
Even if many consumers can’t tell you directly that something feels cheap to them or why, they are subconsciously aware of it. There’s a classic story from the history of industrial design where in the development of a desk clock, the designer, Henry Dreyfus observed consumers in a store evaluating competitive models of clocks. They picked them up and sensed the weight. By adding mass the product became much more successful. [1]
In the course of my work as a product engineer, I’ve designed many docks and stands for devices, and torn down competitive products. These kinds of things often have added weight in the form of stamped steel plates or die cast zinc. The weight helps keep the dock stable so it doesn’t tip when the user puts in the device, and it also adds to the feeling of quality and security.
[1] “In 1939, he designed the Big Ben Alarm clock for Westclock. After a year of development, it was ready to market. The first customer was the John Wanamaker department store in New York City. Henry Dreyfus, in what is considered to be the first live ‘user testing,’ observed potential customers pick up the clock, examine it and put it down without buying it or asking any questions. Eventually, he questioned customers. Why were they putting it down after examining it? What was wrong?
Their response: it felt too light. Something so light couldn’t be substantive. Whether they were right or wrong, Dreyfus realized that people were associating weight with value even though he knew there was no connection. In a radical departure from the notion that ‘less is more,’ he added a 3 oz. weight, serving no function whatsoever, but to create the perception of greater substance. In this case, more weight equated to more value. He said, ‘people want the experience of knowing that their alarm clock had something inside.’ Weight was an attribute that had meaning and relevance… it created a cue that led to a perception of value and substance.”
From https://drozmarketing.com/designers-role/
I have an internet router, I don't routinely lift it, its weight is immaterial, except ... it has a power lead, internet lead, and some RJ45 leads connected to it, and if they move slightly, it falls over. I approximately never go near it or think about it, but the only times I do when I have to check something or connect/disconnect something, I'm annoyed by how it's designed to stand up precariously, and does so poorly because it's too flimsy cheap and plasticky.
This reminds me of the "I'm clever because I see the lottery is a tax on fools" sayings. Well, gambling is fun and mass is useful and stable clocks don't get knocked over when you dust the bedside table in their vicinity.
However the metric is too simple, and easy to game, and it seems that this simplistic weight == quality is emphasized by many reviewers.
The plastics used for electronics in the 90s didn't exhibit these problems as much, generally being thicker with a nice matte textured finish. Perhaps the key to winning the public mind back over to plastic would be to mimic those 90s plastics.
It's a hugely important material but I can't imagine ever perceiving plastics, even the higher grade and durable ones, to a premium feeling. I don't associate that with brittleness but more with aesthetics and touch feel.
Most of the visible metal bits in any consumer electronic will be aluminum, which is notoriously soft (softer than gold) and scratches easily. Likewise, most any product made of wood (moving beyond electronics now) will be made of a wood that's soft enough to scratch easily. I'm not convinced that scratch-resistance is the metric for instinctively classifying the cheapness of a material.
With plastics, I think there are subtle differences in flex & texture that can clue you in you quality.
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It's consumer theatrics
But I think I agree that it's overkill, as the weak spot is definitely going to be the usb port.
In some ways, possibly.
Here's what's nice about Aeron chairs: they last essentially forever. I got a second hand one for cheap. It's easily a decade old, possibly more, judging by the armrest mechanism (which had a redesign, mine is old). Using it every day for two years, on top of what it already had. Still looks brand spanking new.
In case something breaks, I can easily replace any component. There is a healthy replacement parts market. In fact, the person that sold it to me was essentially living off "flipping" Aerons - they would get them wholesale from companies, and then refurbish them.
If you are buying them new, they are covered by a 12 YEAR WARRANTY. Parts and labor.
The AirPods price would be totally justified if they were even remotely like this. Make the battery user-replaceable (even better if they are swappable, for more run-time) and provide user-replaceable parts, plus a healthy warranty, and this could be potentially the Aeron of the headset world.
It isn't, though. The battery is the most egregious issue. Sure, we can understand why Airpods don't have replaceable batteries. Not that it's impossible, but at least it's understandable - they are tiny. It's also possible to understand why Macbook batteries are not easily replaceable - they occupy most of the internal space and are rather fragile.
I don't know what Apple's excuse is, this time.
Glued-in batteries are not a necessity contrary to what Apple wants you to believe.
Similarly, Samsung somehow managed to make their Galaxy Buds Live (small airpods pro competitor) very user-serviceable with standard replaceable battery without making them much bigger.
I would guess that the batteries on the AirPods Max are not user-replaceable for the same reason. We'll know more once the iFixit teardown is out.
But stepping back: it seems that the parts most susceptible to long-term wear are replaceable. That is the ear cups (user-replaceable) and batteries. Hopefully the headstrap is more durable than it looks.
The arm rests got janky in mine after 2 years. Maybe they are replaceable...?
Even if you mean the arm rest mechanism, that's replaceable as well. As are cables, the seat, lumbar support, gas cylinder, you name it.
This has always surprised my as someone who's owned a couple of pairs of B&W P-series headphones (P5 then PX). Portable headphones should be built to last, not just flimsy plastic. B&W got it right with metal construction (and with the newest PX models forged carbon fibre), no surprises Apple is building robust headphones too.
What B&W provide though, is a really solid benchmark (of many) (with the exception of spatial audio - which from Gruber sounds like it still has some shortcomings to overcome). They're £200 cheaper, really substantial and solid construction (with a proper hard carrying case - although similar limited folding), the newest carbon models will be noticeably lighter (if still a substantial 310g).
Obviously the Sony XM4s and Bose 700s are well in view too (although plastic construction can make them seem a less premium alternative).
I expect these will sell relatively well, but I can't see them flying off the shelves like their in-ear namesakes in such a crowded and competitive market, even with Apple's software bonuses.
Good plastic is not flimsy.
Polycarbonate, an almost commodity plastic, is really strong and light. The next step: composites are way better than any metal if you want a good strength-to-weight ratio. The best, most expensive bikes are made out of carbon fiber composite for a reason.
Plastic is commonly used as casing material for stuff designed for rough environments. Portable power tools, PA speakers, even guns. So if something designed to be used on the battlefield can be made of plastic, there is no problem for headphones worn, at worst, in the subway.
The only problem with plastic is that it suffers from being cheap, as in, not expensive enough. People want expensive products to be made of expensive materials. Also, subconsciously we associate weight with quality, so much that cheap manufacturers sometimes add metal inserts to their otherwise low quality products to trick people into thinking they are better than they really are.
That it to say, unless you put a premium on look and feel (nothing wrong with that), don't hesitate to buy plastic headphones, they can last you a lifetime as long as the right plastic is used at the right place.
However those cans don't have bluetooth, noise cancelling, a microphone nor adaptive EQing. They're literally just a high quality speaker, headband and copper wiring.
By contrast, the Bose and Sony headphones, which feel more flimsy in comparison, I can wear for hours without issue.
Also to consider, AirPods Max can be extremely well built but you still cannot pack them in a suitcase like you can the Sony or Bose, due to the shitty pouch that’s included...
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/12/08/airpods-max-shipping-es...
That said, the B&W v-shaped sound is not my favorite. Not unlistenable, but maybe not what I'd choose again.
I honestly thought the Headphones vs Headset was just a bluetooth/audio bug and now I feel like a dunce for installing new audio codecs to fix this issue when it was right in front of me the whole time. Sigh.
Try setting your audio input to something other than the headset on the Windows machine.
Gruber is writing primarily for people who are familiar with Apple's products. That they pair easily with multiple Apple devices is assumed based on the original AirPods. I suspect if there was any regression he'd have mentioned it.
As long as sound quality is top of class (which they appear to be) then to some extent the thing comes out to "is better pairing experience worth a $200-300 premium over something like Sony MX4s?" For now, I will stick to my MX4s ($280) until maybe Max's come down in price.
that really is not accurate. macbooks are notoriously terrible with bluetooth. with my macbook pro, it is impossible to play music on a bluetooth speaker, as it starts stuttering within seconds of use. this is a common problem over many years, and there's a litany of solutions on the forums, most of which don't work. another common problem is iTunes automatically opening and even playing when bluetooth headphones connect. in many cases, there's no way to prevent it. in my case, the only thing that stopped it was renaming iTunes, which required a lot of ceremony to even do. it seems in zoom meetings, it's always the people with airpods that are having audio trouble. i thought it was well known that apple has terrible bluetooth, at least on their macbooks.
My experience with Bluetooth headphones are Airpods 1, 2, and my Senneheiser Momentums.
I think I can count on one hand how many times the Sennheisers needed a re-pairing, and that's using them pretty much every work day. The Airpods are far from reliable. I use them for running 3x a week, and I probably have to re-pair them once a month. This has been consistent with the 1 and 2.
However, this is due to what Apple is trying to do. The Sennheisers just pairs and plays music. The AirPods are detecting what ear they're in, connecting when in the ear, tapping, Siri, etc. There are much more opportunities for failure with the AirPods.
I missed that one. I'll revisit them when they release the S/Pro/Max version.
Just saved future me a cool 500 quid, cheers John!
Sweat corrodes stuff.
I don't even like wearing earbuds on a forest path. I really can't imagine over the ear headphones around a city, even sitting in public transit.
Basically you have two axis:
Size/Fit: Earbuds and myriad variations; Supra-aural (on ear), circumaural (over the ear)
Isolation: Circumaural/over-the-ear can be open-back or closed-back; and they can have various degrees of noise isolation and cancellation.
As for the look and age, it's really a subjective perspective - I personally feel I'm old enough not to care about wearing over-the-ear outside :D
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If you took public transportation or go any place young people hang out you would see them too. (Malls or coffee shops)
All the wireless buds used to be those ones that were strung together at max wirelessness
We've got the ocean, got the babes
Got the sun, we've got the waves
The mountains and the rain
And high-speed train
Why would you live anywhere else
I've found doing face pulls at the gym significantly helped build up all the supporting back/neck musculature that I was beating up sitting at a desk all day. Rows also were pretty helpful for my lower back.
I had shoulder surgery after blowing out my AC joint weightlifting. I went to one PT place that, while good in some areas, focused on strength of my rotators and neglected my mobility. My shoulders got worse after initially getting better and I thought I would need a second surgery. Fortunately I screwed up my lower back so I sought out a new PT place(Catherine at Fields in Motion, Campbell, CA) which not only fixed my back, but identified what was wrong with my shoulder and helped me fix it. It's only now, after months of flexibility and lower-trap strengthening that I know what a face pull is supposed to feel like.
Keep those sternums out, shoulders rolled back, and always keep your core activated(squeeze your cheeks and tighten abs) when you do anything physical. It seems so obvious now, but I went 45 years without figuring it out.
Though there are other ways to work the rear delt. I prefer some rings at home.