[Got the Shakes]

I received my APM earlier this week. I have a pair of HD800 that I use for most of my home listening, but have found myself gravitating toward the APM because not only do I like the sound, but they are just so convenient. No need to worry about cables and connecting to amps. They will be what gets me to start going back and listening to my music collection again.

 

[sceleratus]

I received my APM earlier this week. I have a pair of HD800 that I use for most of my home listening, but have found myself gravitating toward the APM because not only do I like the sound, but they are just so convenient. No need to worry about cables and connecting to amps. They will be what gets me to start going back and listening to my music collection again.

What a great post very succinct way of articulating your experience. I think it’s going to help me a lot because I’ve been around the block Making a decision. Here’s a backstory....I made a tube amp for that I purchased LCD 2s. Now I have tremors and I can’t hold a soldering iron to fix my 300 B so I sold the LCDs on eBay. I am mostly an apple home strike that I’m a total Apple home so I went to order the APMs. They just look damn good I almost don’t care what they sound like and I really can’t hear anymore. After a week I chickened out on the price and ordered the Bose 700s they were a real nice set of cans but I just thought something could sound better. I returned them to Amazon and ordered the Sony 1000 HW 4. I really tried to like them. Really. The return window has expired and I am having a lot of difficulties with Bluetooth syncing to an iPad and iPhone and a MacBook air all very recent gear. I have to do a whole lot of machinations to get them to pair I’ll have to use their app to find out what devices they see and turn Bluetooth off turn Bluetooth on erase one end or the other that Task Bose has down in spades never had to do a thing whether it’s one device or two. Then there are the notification tones that come in when there’s an email or a text what have you they blow my ears off my head. I’m constantly adjusting the volume. Probably user error and maybe I’m just too stupid to figure it out. Anyway I’m taking the eBay photos in a half an hour posting it when it sells I’ll order the Apple PMs. I’m old I can’tRemember the name. Thanks again shakes. I should be called tremors

Disclaimer this was written using English and punctuation on the fourth grade level and I’m too lazy to bring it up to the seventh grade level

 

[tinyman392]

What a great post very succinct way of articulating your experience. I think it’s going to help me a lot because I’ve been around the block Making a decision. Here’s a backstory....I made a tube amp for that I purchased LCD 2s. Now I have tremors and I can’t hold a soldering iron to fix my 300 B so I sold the LCDs on eBay. I am mostly an apple home strike that I’m a total Apple home so I went to order the APMs. They just look damn good I almost don’t care what they sound like and I really can’t hear anymore. After a week I chickened out on the price and ordered the Bose 700s they were a real nice set of cans but I just thought something could sound better. I returned them to Amazon and ordered the Sony 1000 HW 4. I really tried to like them. Really. The return window has expired and I am having a lot of difficulties with Bluetooth syncing to an iPad and iPhone and a MacBook air all very recent gear. I have to do a whole lot of machinations to get them to pair I’ll have to use their app to find out what devices they see and turn Bluetooth off turn Bluetooth on erase one end or the other that Task Bose has down in spades never had to do a thing whether it’s one device or two. Then there are the notification tones that come in when there’s an email or a text what have you they blow my ears off my head. I’m constantly adjusting the volume. Probably user error and maybe I’m just too stupid to figure it out. Anyway I’m taking the eBay photos in a half an hour posting it when it sells I’ll order the Apple PMs. I’m old I can’tRemember the name. Thanks again shakes. I should be called tremors

Disclaimer this was written using English and punctuation on the fourth grade level and I’m too lazy to bring it up to the seventh grade level

Regarding volume, iOS has like three volume settings for media, system, and other sounds. Each have their own level, you need to adjust each while that sound is playing. Normally you can get away with setting system and music though. To change music volume have music playing. To change system/ringer volume pause the music first and be at the Home Screen (not required, but makes it easier).

 

[sceleratus]

Regarding volume, iOS has like three volume settings for media, system, and other sounds. Each have their own level, you need to adjust each while that sound is playing. Normally you can get away with setting system and music though. To change music volume have music playing. To change system/ringer volume pause the music first and be at the Home Screen (not required, but makes it easier).

Perfect.

 

[SparkOnShore]

Do you have any idea why on APM with ANC on, when i turn my head on the right the bass in increasing its presence on my left ear, as well as the opposite? I have not noticed it happening with other headphones. Is it a deficiency of my anatomy maybe?

 

[Heyyoudvd]

I hate to say it, but I'm starting to understand DMS's review of the APM when he referred to them as "soulless".

I've listened to these for hundreds of hours over the past couple months and I love them, and yet I still can't shake the feeling that something is missing.

It's like you're dating someone who's rich, attractive, intelligent, and kind, and yet there's still a spark missing.

The APM are such good all-arounders. I wouldn't say they truly excel in any specific department besides sub bass, build quality, and computational audio (ie. noise cancellation), but they're more than competent in basically every other department. They're solid performers across the board, with no blatant weaknesses. And yet there's still that missing spark.

I can't put my finger on it. Perhaps it's the fact that detail retrieval is merely okay or perhaps it's the fact that the headphones are such good all-arounders, that they feel risk averse and overly agreeable. I'm not sure what it is. But there's some magic pixie dust missing.

Don't get me wrong, I still absolutely love these headphones and am more than glad I purchased them. They do things that no other headphone does. And they'll get even better once Apple eventually ads Spatial Audio and auto-switching to the Apple TV. But there's no question in my mind that I prefer my HD6XX over my APM for most music genres.

 

[MayaTlab]

Do you have any idea why on APM with ANC on, when i turn my head on the right the bass in increasing its presence on my left ear, as well as the opposite? I have not noticed it happening with other headphones. Is it a deficiency of my anatomy maybe?

Is the ANC performance degraded as well ? The APM's design is sub-optimal to ensure a good seal in edge cases (spring loaded joint mechanism at the top of the cups, large-ish square pads, potential for sliding around), so it's possible that when you turn your head it breaks the seal beyond what the Adaptive EQ can correct for.

Personally while the APM works very well in terms of seal when I have my head straight forward and don't move (even though the spring loaded mechanism isn't optimal for heads like mine that require the cups to form a V shape when looking from the front or back, and there is more pressure at the top of the ears than at the bottom - thanks pads memory foam !), they do frequently break seal when turning my head or during some other movements. The Bose 700 are significantly more consistent on my head.

 

[SparkOnShore]

Is the ANC performance degraded as well ? The APM's design is sub-optimal to ensure a good seal in edge cases (spring loaded joint mechanism at the top of the cups, large-ish square pads, potential for sliding around), so it's possible that when you turn your head it breaks the seal beyond what the Adaptive EQ can correct for.

Personally while the APM works very well in terms of seal when I have my head straight forward and don't move (even though the spring loaded mechanism isn't optimal for heads like mine that require the cups to form a V shape when looking from the front or back, and there is more pressure at the top of the ears than at the bottom - thanks pads memory foam !), they do frequently break seal when turning my head or during some other movements. The Bose 700 are significantly more consistent on my head.

Yes, most probably that’s the case for me as well. When I turn my head, for example to the right, my left ear hears significantly increased bass and, as you said, at the same time it can hear more outside noises than the other ear. I think it should be a case that the adaptive eq could rectify though. Yes, most probably it breaks the seal when I move my head. I haven’t tried the Bose that you mention but my Senn momentum 3 do not present this condition, but on the other hand the ANC feature of the Senns is significantly weaker than the one on my APM. Thanks for your feedback.

Edit: I think it’s getting better when wearing the APM towards the top (crown) of my head than towards the front part.

 

[MayaTlab]

Yes, most probably that’s the case for me as well. When I turn my head, for example to the right, my left ear hears significantly increased bass and, as you said, at the same time it can hear more outside noises than the other ear. I think it should be a case that the adaptive eq could rectify though. Yes, most probably it breaks the seal when I move my head. I haven’t tried the Bose that you mention but my Senn momentum 3 do not present this condition, but on the other hand the ANC feature of the Senns is significantly weaker than the one on my APM. Thanks for your feedback.

Edit: I think it’s getting better when wearing the APM towards the top (crown) of my head than towards the front part.

It's interesting that you hear increased bass as a result of a potential breach of seal, but maybe not necessarily to be unexpected given how the algorithms similar to Adaptive EQ some other ANC headphones use behave when there is a breach of seal. Here for example the XM3 :

https://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/headphones/measurements/brands-st-x/wh-1000x-m3/

The "knee" beyond which the bass response is lowered is actually higher than with a proper seal. Perhaps something similar is happening in your case ?

The Bose QC35 II seems to handle that "knee" better when seal is breached :
https://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/headphones/measurements/bose/qc35-ii/

BTW that capacity to maintain a fairly decent FR target in the lower frequencies even with some breach of seal is one of the advantages of some ANC headphones vs closed backs with no feedback mechanism and potentially solves the sort of sealing problems that plague headphones such as the K371. Obviously given this discussion, potentially.

 

[SparkOnShore]

It's interesting that you hear increased bass as a result of a potential breach of seal, but maybe not necessarily to be unexpected given how the algorithms similar to Adaptive EQ some other ANC headphones use behave when there is a breach of seal. Here for example the XM3 :


https://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/headphones/measurements/brands-st-x/wh-1000x-m3/

The "knee" beyond which the bass response is lowered is actually higher than with a proper seal. Perhaps something similar is happening in your case ?

The Bose QC35 II seems to handle that "knee" better when seal is breached :
https://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/headphones/measurements/bose/qc35-ii/

BTW that capacity to maintain a fairly decent FR target in the lower frequencies even with some breach of seal is one of the advantages of some ANC headphones vs closed backs with no feedback mechanism and potentially solves the sort of sealing problems that plague headphones such as the K371. Obviously given this discussion, potentially.

Yes i guess that is the case for me. I could guess that if a headphone will be able to keep a correct FR target even after a breach of seal, that is the APM, maybe after some more future firmware updates by Apple. In any case, if I wear the headphone towards the head’s crown and not towards the front (lets say not to a direction towards the forehead but to the back of the head), above mentioned problem does not occur. Most probably it does not break the seal in that position. But still, the fact remains, that even here we may face some unpredictability of the FR target maintenance under ‘extreme’ head movements.

 

[MayaTlab]

In any case, if I wear the headphone towards the head’s crown and not towards the front (lets say not to a direction towards the forehead but to the back of the head), above mentioned problem does not occur. Most probably it does not break the seal in that position.

Every single time a headphones manufacturer think that they're cleverer than they really are and try to reinvent the traditional yoke mechanism, they always, invariably, make things worse . That's exactly what happened with Bose with the 700 vs. QC 35 II BTW, albeit for completely different reasons (hinge noises transmitted to the earcup and compromised earcup design and touch interactions).
Note to headphones manufacturers : please, if you can't even get the basics right, just stop trying to reinvent the yoke mechanism. For ANC over-ears, the basics mean : no seal breach because of bad design.

 

[Soundfidelity]

Hi I am new in this forum, I don’t know if this question has been ask. Is it possible to use the 3.5mm jack in the AirPods max and use a good third party cable Ito connect to a music player or iPad with 3.5 mm jack , I got a nice HQ cable to hard ware my current headphones to my divice Thanks

 

[MikkiT]

Hi I am new in this forum, I don’t know if this question has been ask. Is it possible to use the 3.5mm jack in the AirPods max and use a good third party cable Ito connect to a music player or iPad with 3.5 mm jack , I got a nice HQ cable to hard ware my current headphones to my divice Thanks

The only port on the APM is a lightning port. There is no 3.5mm jack on the headphones themselves. You can connect the headphones to a 3.5mm jack on your device via Apple’s lightning to 3.5mm cable (£25/$35). Belkin make one as well (currently £18 on Amazon UK).

 

[tinyman392]

The only port on the APM is a lightning port. There is no 3.5mm jack on the headphones themselves. You can connect the headphones to a 3.5mm jack on your device via Apple’s lightning to 3.5mm cable (£25/$35). Belkin make one as well (currently £18 on Amazon UK).

Is Belkin's cable bi-directional? If it's not, then it wouldn't work with the APM. Most of the Lightning to 3.5mm (male) cables on the market are uni-direction with just a DAC/amp in the cable vs containing an ADC as well as DAC/amp.

 

[MikkiT]

Is Belkin's cable bi-directional? If it's not, then it wouldn't work with the APM. Most of the Lightning to 3.5mm (male) cables on the market are uni-direction with just a DAC/amp in the cable vs containing an ADC as well as DAC/amp.

Not certain about the Belkin cable. Lightning is a data-only system and cannot transmit analogue signals (eg audio). The 3.5 to lightning cable must be taking the analogue signal from the source and converting it to digital via the adc then the APM are re-converting it to analogue. The resulting audio quality imo would range from being no different to poorer that going via Bluetooth.