[bedlamite]

The APM is lifestyle equipment, Focals and Senns and what have you are audiophile equipment. Don’t think it’s fair to judge them using similar metrics. They certainly won’t appeal to the same demographic.

The APM may not sound as good (not that anyone outside of Apple knows how they sound at all, right now), but your HD650 isn’t wireless, can’t do seamless device switching, doesn’t do ANC...see where this is going?

 

[jagwap]

I don't know what you mean by transient response but I'm going to assume it's impulse response, in which case it's derived from the exact same measurement as frequency response

No it isn't. While mathematically it it can be the same through laplace transform, in practice it is not realistic to replace one with the other in real life.

- same applies to many of the things you mentioned : https://www.reddit.com/r/oratory199...o?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
I advise reading these posts from Oratory1990, who's an acoustic engineer : https://www.reddit.com/search/?q=authorratory1990 subredditratory1990&sort=new

I'll take a look. Thanks. He says he is using the harman curves in the FAQ, yet like Tyll, he doesn't include the bass shelf. Good.

If rTings' measurements are to be trusted a large majority of headphones doesn't have excess LF group delay.

Can they? What is excessive?

I don't know what you mean by inter-channel accuracy but if it means channel imbalance then... that's frequency response.

Yes but the tolerance is different for acceptable results. Have you seen headphone manufacturing tolerances? They are usually much worse than you suspect.

BT codecs implementation can be measured. If it's done well distortion and noise floor measure low enough that it's inaudible. If done well.

Have you measured them? They are not great. I was measuring SBC and true wireless today. A bunch of non-harmonic spurious spikes and a modulating noise floor.

So yep : in 2020 FR curve is by far the most important thing to care about. And since we can't design headphones that can ensure that a very specific FR target is reached at your own eardurm, that's where most of the problems are. Everything else should be given a much, much lower priority for concerns if at all.

Yes it is the first thing to care about. My point is here that is all people seem to care about, beacuse that is all they have access to. We should take this to Sound Science where they agree with you.

 

[vkenz]

The Adaptive EQ seems like a thing of the future. Maybe we can save our custom EQ profiles on the headphones itself. That would be cool.

 

[ubs28]

The APM is lifestyle equipment, Focals and Senns and what have you are audiophile equipment. Don’t think it’s fair to judge them using similar metrics. They certainly won’t appeal to the same demographic.

The APM may not sound as good (not that anyone outside of Apple knows how they sound at all, right now), but your HD650 isn’t wireless, can’t do seamless device switching, doesn’t do ANC...see where this is going?

Honestly, the build quality of the APM is on a whole different level than a HD 650. I don’t think it is fair to compare the APM with plastic headphones.

I would agree it is what you call a lifestyle headphone I suppose.

 

[JonFo]

I pre-ordered a MAX set and will get it before the 17th, as I have a massive Apple ecosystem here.
I also fully get why they cost what they do, and long-term, people will consider these good value for what they can do.

Why? Because they will likely do 90% of what my $5K Atmos headphone rig can do, and do it completely wirelessly and even be usable on an Airplane watching a movie on the iPad Pro.

I’m very into immersive audio and have three Atmos systems, a large 5.4.4 system in my custom Home Theater, a 5.4.2 in the media room, and a Smyth Realizer A16 Atmos headphone processor ($4K) and various over-the-ear headsets on which I mount the head-tracker.
So I’ll able to compare the spatial audio of the Max to the benchmark headphone audio processor used in recording studios for mastering immersive audio.

Things that are completely unique about the Max that make them great value:

Positional 3D head tracking using in-cans sensors and BT tracking
Multiple external and internal mics for noise cancelation
Tune the generic HRTF via interaural BT latency between H1 chips for somewhat individualized HRTF
In-cup mics to tune the EQ based on the seal
In-cup mics to possibly map the ear for further HRTF individualization

The Apple ecosystem allows for addressing further HRTF optimization by using the face-recognition scanner in iPhone & iPad models to ‘map’ the shape of each ear, and render a 3D model that is used to compute the HRTF of the combined ears and interaural distance (from prior H1 to H1 metrics). I expect this within the year.

All of the above is a vastly more user-friendly approach to delivering highly accurate (if not as near-perfect as the Smyth) immersive audio that will work for millions of users at a ‘reasonable’ price point.

 

[JonFo]

Writing up the above post made me think a bit more about Apple Spatial Audio solutions.

Atmos renderers are in iOS and soon in TV OS, and hopefully, an update to Big Sur will bring it to MacOS (it is probably in Dolby certification process). So, for content rendered by those devices, Atmos -> Headphone spatial audio is possible.

But what about all the Atmos content on game consoles, BluRay, etc.?

One possibility is that a new (the rumored A12Z-based) Apple TV 4K could include an HDMI input, so one could deploy an HDMI switcher to select input devices and feed the Apple TV Input, then the Apple TV decodes the surround or Atmos audio into spatial audio to cast to the Airpods via BT, and apply appropriate video delay to maintain sync, video (and optionally, undecoded audio) would pass through to the receiver. Likewise, a pass-through mode when the ATV is in standby continues to allow the receiver to handle A/V from whatever input is selected on the switcher.

Or less likely, but much better usability, an ATV model with a 6 or 8 input HDMI switch built-in, but that would be a whole new form-factor. But for an all-headphone based system, that and a TV is all one would need. Or feed the ATV into a TV HDMI input that is NOT the eARC, and plug an Atmos soundbar into eARC HMDI. For larger systems, a receiver/processor could be used as well.

 

[WilcoRoger]

All of the above is a vastly more user-friendly approach to delivering highly accurate (if not as near-perfect as the Smyth) immersive audio that will work for millions of users at a ‘reasonable’ price point.

Since when are 600+€ headphones "reasonably" priced?

 

[AppleheadMay]

Since when are 600+€ headphones "reasonably" priced?

Exactly! Especially those with Beats SQ.

 

[bedlamite]

The Adaptive EQ seems like a thing of the future. Maybe we can save our custom EQ profiles on the headphones itself. That would be cool.

Probably not the same thing, but Bose’s QC35s have Active EQ, which is entirely the reason why they sound so middle-of-the-road and lifeless. If we were to base the APM off the AirPod Pro’s sound signature though, we should be fine.

Saving custom EQs to wireless gear has been a thing for a while, though you can’t do it on an APP. Having the option to do this on the APM would be nice.

 

[DiederickFritz]

Real disappointed on the price point. Apple still using the outdated lightning port and it doesn’t even have any next-gen features like LC3! Also, the name is pretty ridiculous... Like they couldn’t have come up with something better than Airpods Max? Next up: the Airpods SE, Airpods Mini and the Airpods Air

 

[mangamonster]

Super intrigued by the comfort and fit of these cans. Apple's headband seems to create a weight balance that places more pressure over the ears, rather than the top of the head as most cans do. I'm in for a pair to see how all of the tech in these headphones work together, while mostly the fit and comfort being my priority. I also ordered a lightning cable to 3.5 jack adapter for my cabled sources.

Check out this vid for first impressions on the fit/comfort. Very very interesting.
AirPods Max Unboxing and First Impressions!

 

[plakat]

Since when are 600+€ headphones "reasonably" priced?

that’s of course debatable... but I know many models with a much more outrageous price

Exactly! Especially those with Beats SQ.

I don’t think that’s true. For one did. the later beats models show a constant development in the direction of a mich better tuning, plus these run under the Apple brand...

Apple still using the outdated lightning port

How exactly is that port outdated? Proprietary yes, outdated — I don’t think so.

 

[plakat]

oh that probably does work then. kind of sucks you have to pay another $35 for that. should be included but that is just my .02

At that price, yes. Personally I don’t expect to use it though, I have enough wired headphones

 

[SilverEars]

Of course MB is first to get it...

 

[stacey]

Since when are 600+€ headphones "reasonably" priced?

Depends on the SQ.
If they perform as well as other headphones in their price point and have the seamless features alongside Bluetooth, it’s not terrible.

Also to the average person, an audiophile grade headphone would sound sterile to the point of not being fun to listen to. This is something that engineers keep in mind during the final master.