[rael67]

There is no setting on the iPhone called stereoaudio or 3D-Audio.

The wording in post 2331 (holographic) and particularly in your post, 2332, is unfortunate. The ‘spatial audio’ you describe is not unique to the APM. Whatever effect you’re enjoying is a result of the engineering/mastering of the recording and could be heard on other headphones. I recommend an edit that makes this clear. People less well informed could be misled by your wording.

I appreciate your facility with the English language. I’m sure this is just accidental!

There is a setting when you have German as language, see photos. I changed it in my post to surround, that’s ok?

 

[tkddans]

I got them today.
As I wrote in a previous post there are a lot of very peculiar design / engineering decisions with these headphones. One of which Is that the headband joins the earcups at the very top with a single arm. In theory this should be a recipe for disaster as it would exert excessive pressure on top of the temples vs. the bottom of the ear (there's a reason the yoke mechanism was invented, it's to apply pressure from the middle of the earcup naturally). Hence Apple's decision to complicate the joint mechanism with a spring to even the pressure around the listener's ear.
Except that my own head seems to be an edge case. I seem to need the earcups to form a V shape when seen from the front / rear. I already couldn't get a proper seal with the K371 as the headband would get in the way of the cups for them to align properly with the side of my ears. With the APM it seems that the spring in the joint mechanism isn't strong enough to form that V shape and apply even pressure around my ears. There's clearly more pressure around my temples. That being said thanks to the pads' design, very much unlike the K371, seal remains good enough and ANC and adaptive EQ seem to work.

Looking forward to hearing your impressions.

 

[Author]

There is a setting when you have German as language, see photos. I changed it in my post to surround, that’s ok?

That’s interesting. I can see where there could be confusion due to the words you’re seeing in your Bluetooth settings for the APM. We DO have something similar (in wording) where the demonstration is performed, accessed from the headphone’s Bluetooth (not accessibility) settings. In the US it says Stereo Audio/Spatial Audio. My mistake was thinking you were talking about the sound choices in the accessibility settings. My apologies.

Be well! As long as readers don’t think Spatial Audio works when listening to music, then we’re good. Like others have said, Spatial Audio applies to the sound that accompanies some video presentations in apps like Apple TV+ and Disney+.

 

[MayaTlab]

The great thing about the APM's symmetrical design front to back is that it becomes a breeze to guesstimate whether a perceived channel imbalance is the product of one's anatomical differences between one's right and left ears or something that's truly coming from the HPs . With other HPs reversing the headphones L/R changes the way the cups interact with your ears, not so with the APM.

 

[yticolev]

So the music you hear in Atmos etc is in fact music! And there is nothing to stop any music producer from encoding it in otherwise vanilla music. I listened to several orchestral examples on YouTube before giving up the APMs. Quadriphonic recordings existed over a period of at least several years and any such multichannel music could be re-encoded (don't know if any valuable historic quadriphonic music exists - back in the day, I chose stereo versions when available - seem to recall a Doors album that was quad and that one might be really cool in spatial).

 

[Author]

So the music you hear in Atmos etc is in fact music! And there is nothing to stop any music producer from encoding it in otherwise vanilla music. I listened to several orchestral examples on YouTube before giving up the APMs. Quadriphonic recordings existed over a period of at least several years and any such multichannel music could be re-encoded (don't know if any valuable historic quadriphonic music exists - back in the day, I chose stereo versions when available - seem to recall a Doors album that was quad and that one might be really cool in spatial).

Yep. There is certainly no stopping any music from being encoded as you describe. To attribute said effect to Apple’s Spatial Audio is another matter entirely.

 

[MICHAELSD]

treble score: 5,8!! words: The treble accuracy of the Apple AirPods Max is sub-par. It's underemphasized throughout most of the range, resulting in veiled vocals and lead instruments. Sibilants like S and T sounds are slightly dulled.

this is the worst treble score I ever saw on rtings for headphones I’ve been interested in. There should be others as well I guess but I have not searched for their reviews.

Momentum 2.0 Wireless received a similar score for its treble. In fact, a lot of popular headphones have a veiled treble. Even the V-MODA M-100, which would be expected to have a V-shaped sound profile, has a veil although it starts around 5KHz.

 

[Hanesu]

Customized mine a bit!

 

[yticolev]

Yep. There is certainly no stopping any music from being encoded as you describe. To attribute said effect to Apple’s Spatial Audio is another matter entirely.

Depends on which part of spatial audio you are talking about. The more interesting part of movies is surround sound encoding to 6 channels (or whatever it is) and Apple making theater sound in *headphones*. Which is amazing. Yes, others have done something similar, like binaural audio, but few as well with Atmos/Dolby encoding.

If you are talking about keeping sound appearing direction from source such as an iOS device, that's a neat trick, but does not really improve the musical experience. If I'm walking around enjoying spatial music with my iPhone on a counter, such directionality would be annoying and distracting. However that directionality playthrough is amazing in transparency mode with all those external microphones and way better and more useful than any other device I've heard of (safer too for pedestrian or cycling use).

 

[amoeba1126]

Momentum 2.0 Wireless received a similar score for its treble. In fact, a lot of popular headphones have a veiled treble. Even the V-MODA M-100, which would be expected to have a V-shaped sound profile, has a veil although it starts around 5KHz.

^This. Many listeners actually don't LIKE bright headphones, much less overly bright trebles. I am personally one of them. Headphones like the K701 and HD800 are fatiguing to me overtime and harsh even in short term usage with their peaks and what not. It's a big reason why I have had the headphones that I did (LCD-2, HD650, modded TH-X00). It is a big reason of why I laugh inside when people throw around terms like "hi-fi" and "audiophile" like they actually know what they are talking about.

 

[tinyman392]

^This. Many listeners actually don't LIKE bright headphones, much less overly bright trebles. I am personally one of them. Headphones like the K701 and HD800 are fatiguing to me overtime and harsh even in short term usage with their peaks and what not. It's a big reason why I have had the headphones that I did (LCD-2, HD650, modded TH-X00). It is a big reason of why I laugh inside when people throw around terms like "hi-fi" and "audiophile" like they actually know what they are talking about.

*cries in corner* I actually prefer neutral headphones I think Tyll openly admitted he preferred a warmer headphone with more relaxed treble as they are more forgiving and easier to listen to. And I do agree with those remarks. It’s making the warm signature work out that becomes the challenge. Actually, I feel like if the Harman Target has taught us anything it’s that people tend to prefer warmer headphones with relaxed treble. It’s a challenge of relaxing it enough to take the edge off, but not destroy the detail and clarity that you can lose if you overdo it.

 

[MayaTlab]

Out of curiosity, what is the fifth digit character of your serial number ?
The fourth and fifth digits of your iDevice's serial numbers supposedly are the year + week of manufacture indicators : https://en.tab-tv.com/?p=20811
Most APMs should have "D" as the fourth digit (manufactured in the second half of 2020).
Mine's fifth digit is "K" indicating that it was made in October. I would have expected something a little bit later.

 

[tinyman392]

Out of curiosity, what is the fifth digit character of your serial number ?
The fourth and fifth digits of your iDevice's serial numbers supposedly are the year + week of manufacture indicators : https://en.tab-tv.com/?p=20811
Most APMs should have "D" as the fourth digit (manufactured in the second half of 2020).
Mine's fifth digit is "K" indicating that it was made in October. I would have expected something a little bit later.

I have DQ which should mean November.

 

[amoeba1126]

*cries in corner* I actually prefer neutral headphones I think Tyll openly admitted he preferred a warmer headphone with more relaxed treble as they are more forgiving and easier to listen to. And I do agree with those remarks. It’s making the warm signature work out that becomes the challenge. Actually, I feel like if the Harman Target has taught us anything it’s that people tend to prefer warmer headphones with relaxed treble. It’s a challenge of relaxing it enough to take the edge off, but not destroy the detail and clarity that you can lose if you overdo it.

While the devil is in the details, it's sticking the landing in the big moments that makes a hero. At the end of the day, there is a "sufficient / acceptable" floor to things like detail and clarity and unexplored wilderness for things like wireless, portability, simplicity, and comfort. Most people do NOT enjoy having multiple headphones.

I have the TH-X00, Audeze Penrose, and Airpods Pro on my desk as we speak. If I didn't game or if the Max supported wireless 2.4GHz (or 5GHz) connectivity, all of them would be replaced by it at this moment. The TH-X00 is super comfy after all the changes, but it keeps me tethered to a device. The Penrose are wireless and sound fantastic, but the comfort is fairly mediocre and battery life anywhere from below average to unremarkable as well as lacks ANC support. My Airpods Pro are super portable with decent battery life and ANC / Transparency mode is fantastic on the go. Downside, they aren't super comfortable (no in-ears are) and don't sound nearly as good as the Penrose and TH-X00.

Having a single pair of headphones that can do those things at still a very high quality at the sacrifice of having less detail and clarity is totally worth it for 99% of the people out there. Those are the big moments of their lives.

 

[tinyman392]

While the devil is in the details, it's sticking the landing in the big moments that makes a hero. At the end of the day, there is a "sufficient / acceptable" floor to things like detail and clarity and unexplored wilderness for things like wireless, portability, simplicity, and comfort. Most people do NOT enjoy having multiple headphones.

I have the TH-X00, Audeze Penrose, and Airpods Pro on my desk as we speak. If I didn't game or if the Max supported wireless 2.4GHz (or 5GHz) connectivity, all of them would be replaced by it at this moment. The TH-X00 is super comfy after all the changes, but it keeps me tethered to a device. The Penrose are wireless and sound fantastic, but the comfort is fairly mediocre and battery life anywhere from below average to unremarkable as well as lacks ANC support. My Airpods Pro are super portable with decent battery life and ANC / Transparency mode is fantastic on the go. Downside, they aren't super comfortable (no in-ears are) and don't sound nearly as good as the Penrose and TH-X00.

Having a single pair of headphones that can do those things at still a very high quality at the sacrifice of having less detail and clarity is totally worth it for 99% of the people out there. Those are the big moments of their lives.

The AirPods Max will probably be my office headphones as they seem to be perfect for that. Conference headphone that can connect to all of my devices quickly and easily. Take the call on my laptop then switch to my phone for music or iPad for videos. I could also charge them while in call (something APP can’t do). I’ve taken them out of the house though and they do fine if I got shopping or something; the ability to switch with transparency and stuff like that makes it even better for this sort of stuff if you’re traveling/commuting. I also find them extremely comfortable to wear, though I’ll wait for the summer before I finalize that statement. I also tend to use over ear headphones as earmuffs at times too when I commute by foot. The APP actually will work for most, if not all of this too, they are also pocketable which is a plus.

I’ve been using the Ananda BT that I recently got and feel those will probably be my goto for indoor home use.