[MayaTlab]

I get that if your material is Apple Music on an iPhone there is no bottleneck and APM are likely as good or better than anything else out there at the same price or less.

Let’s assume though that your source is an android device capable of LDAC or APTX-HD and you have Tidal Hifi/Amazon HD/local flacs.

It doesn't matter : the main bottleneck is the FR curve at your eardrum. In 2021 FR curve is by a long, long shot where you'll get the biggest returns if you invest in ways to correct it to your preferences and your own anatomy.
Some implementations of LDAC or aptx (even HD) can have worse artefacts than an excellent implementation of 256kbps AAC (cf link in my previous post).
Listening to the stock XM3/4 FR curve in 909kbps 16/44 LDAC is a completely pointless exercise : they'll still sound like butt cheeks because of their horrendous default FR curve.
I prefer to listen to my pair of modified HD650 on a Qudelix 5K with my own PEQ settings even in SBC over listening to my HD650 on my Lavry DA11 in USB, but without EQ.

 

[MICHAELSD]

256kbps AAC from an iPhone is for the most part virtually transparent up until around 16KHz. There may also be a slight drop-off in the lowest frequencies that the FR compensates for.

For those using an Android phone AirPods Max may not be the best option especially since Android comparatively struggles with AAC, but then again why even bother considering these for someone who isn’t in the Apple ecosystem?

source: https://www.soundguys.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-bluetooth-headphones-aac-20296/

 

[tinyman392]

I get that if your material is Apple Music on an iPhone there is no bottleneck and APM are likely as good or better than anything else out there at the same price or less.

Let’s assume though that your source is an android device capable of LDAC or APTX-HD and you have Tidal Hifi/Amazon HD/local flacs.

There's a reason why I said that AAC 256 is transparent to lossless vs comparing to a lossy format like LDAC, HWA, or APTX-HD. Most, even on here, likely would have trouble telling the difference between lossless and that same lossless transcribed to AAC 256 in an AB blind test.

Edit: the 320 MP3 and 256 AAC vs lossless debate is a pretty heavy one in audiophile circles... Typically it ends up being that those that can tell the differences between the two need to learn to listen to the compression artifacts that exist between the recordings. You'd technically get compression artifacts with any lossy format, even LDAC, APTX-HD, and HWA as you would AAC and MP3. Granted, the compression artifacts would be different for each format.

 

[neil74]

I think the 320 mp3 256 AAC argument is a wash, the only factors muddying it are source material i.e. I think the reason Spotify has such inconsistent quality has nothing to do with its choice of codec or bitrate. With the exact same masters I’d lose no sleep choosing between any of them.

 

[jude]

RE: the updated sound, I don’t feel that I’m really hearing too much of a change if any. The maybe the mids to highs transition is a bit more Harman-esque. I guess Jude could verify with new measurements. I’d certainly be curious if there was a change but don’t expect him to keep testing each update as he is quite busy.

if there’s a change, it’s minimal but it does “feel more impactful.” It could also purely be the suggestion of this thread playing mind games on my psycho-acoustic perception.

With 3C39 confirmed on our AirPods Max, I quickly ran measurements (wireless) on just one seating as I was leaving. I'm not seeing any notable differences from the previous measurements I posted, in terms of frequency response and THD, for whatever that's worth.

I'll try running a few more next week.

 

[tkddans]

With 3C39 confirmed on our AirPods Max, I quickly ran measurements (wireless) on just one seating as I was leaving. I'm not seeing any notable differences from the previous measurements I posted, in terms of frequency response and THD, for whatever that's worth.

I'll try running a few more next week.

Thank you for checking for us. It was all psychological it turns out!

 

[Gamerlingual]

I get that if your material is Apple Music on an iPhone there is no bottleneck and APM are likely as good or better than anything else out there at the same price or less.

Let’s assume though that your source is an android device capable of LDAC or APTX-HD and you have Tidal Hifi/Amazon HD/local flacs.

I’ve noted a big difference in quality when using LDAC on my Pandas, XM3, and XM4 cans. Everything cleans up especially on the XM3 and XM4. To my ears, they make a huge difference. I’ve used LDAC sources like the FiiO M6, Sony DMP-Z1 and the Sony NW1Z. Everything sounds much cleaner than when using AAC without EQ on any iOS device when using the XM3 and XM4. Drop added a firmware on SoundID that made the Pandas sound even better on stock EQ and their wide range of EQ adjustments only make them better. The Max are still limited, as even on Apple’s own EQ presets on their Music tab under settings change nothing, but yet you can change the sound on the AirPods Pro. Very puzzling, indeed. The Max do sound good than what most wireless cans output. But you need to play with sources more to get the most out of all the codecs that are available with other headphones to really get the sound that you like.

 

[Maukey]

256kbps AAC from an iPhone is for the most part virtually transparent up until around 16KHz. There may also be a slight drop-off in the lowest frequencies that the FR compensates for.

For those using an Android phone AirPods Max may not be the best option especially since Android comparatively struggles with AAC, but then again why even bother considering these for someone who isn’t in the Apple ecosystem?

source: https://www.soundguys.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-bluetooth-headphones-aac-20296/

I firmly agree with this. The AirPods Max are meant to be used with Apple products. Like all Apple products, they're designed to work best within the ecosystem. If I was Android/Windows, the Max would not be my choice. My choice in that scenario would be the B&O H95 if money were no object, or either the B&W PX7, Sony 1000XM4, or Momentum 3 depending on what you're after. I call the 1000XM4 the best value in the wireless anc space. The price is very reasonable when you look at the overall package. The Momentum 3 are the best sounding to my ears in the under $400 price range, I just had major issues with the buggy app. The B&W PX7 is VERY good in features and sound. I actually prefer it to the Momentum 3 on some tracks. My main issue with the PX7 is the inconsistency in the Treble range. It can be quite harsh and make some tracks sound off.

 

[tinyman392]

With 3C39 confirmed on our AirPods Max, I quickly ran measurements (wireless) on just one seating as I was leaving. I'm not seeing any notable differences from the previous measurements I posted, in terms of frequency response and THD, for whatever that's worth.

I'll try running a few more next week.

Interesting findings. Thanks for doing that for us

 

[tinyman392]

I’ve noted a big difference in quality when using LDAC on my Pandas, XM3, and XM4 cans. Everything cleans up especially on the XM3 and XM4. To my ears, they make a huge difference. I’ve used LDAC sources like the FiiO M6, Sony DMP-Z1 and the Sony NW1Z. Everything sounds much cleaner than when using AAC without EQ on any iOS device when using the XM3 and XM4. Drop added a firmware on SoundID that made the Pandas sound even better on stock EQ and their wide range of EQ adjustments only make them better. The Max are still limited, as even on Apple’s own EQ presets on their Music tab under settings change nothing, but yet you can change the sound on the AirPods Pro. Very puzzling, indeed. The Max do sound good than what most wireless cans output. But you need to play with sources more to get the most out of all the codecs that are available with other headphones to really get the sound that you like.

Music EQ only applies to the Music app and the selection is limited and not really all that great to be honest. I know there was a beta or two where it stopped working completely for anything which was very weird, but definitely a bug.

The only real “universal” customization Apple offers is through their sound accommodations that they offer in their accessibility settings through: settings > accessibility > AirPods > [choose any set of AirPods] > Audio Accessibility Settings > Headphone Accommodations > ON. From there you can select Balanced, vocal, or brightness with slight, moderate, and strong settings. You can also use an audio gram as well if you have created one of those using one of the various apps that support the feature. One issue with accommodations is that these will carry over to all AirPods you have and only applies to the iPhone its set on. The other issue is that they give you a vague description of what’s actually being done with even vaguer descriptions of how much it’s doing it (slight, moderate, or strong); how many dB is slight/moderate/strong? Most of the frequency ranges are pretty easy to decode like vocal range is likely the 500-4K range while brightness is likely a high shelf boost. Balanced tone is the vague one that really has no good definition as it “will provide boost over a range of frequencies.” I’m not even certain that boost is over a range as it might actually be multiple ranges and with no clue how much. To my ears, the balanced tone gets the sound somewhat close to flat with both the APP and APM.

Drop’s update is very nice to have. I haven’t noticed huge bounds in audio improvement, but they were always a step better than the APM in just about every way. The new SoundID is nice as it gives the headphones a true-to-life flat EQ which is nice to have along with the ability to customize your own EQ to suit your own preferences; this is the huge gain from the app IMO. It isn’t without its gripes though. The upload process is buggy with it failing every 3rd time for me (requiring me to re-upload the EQ to the headphones). The upload process itself takes a minute or two (it’s not super short by any means) and you cannot EQ while music is playing through the headphones and hear what your changes are doing on your own music until you do an upload. So if you’re trying to do small tweaks to get it just right, you’ll end up spending a lot of time to just make a 1-2 dB change in your EQ. This also makes ABing your EQ in real time impossible. None of this is an issue if you set up your EQ based on measurements. But if you, for example, change the pads on them (like one of the 4 new pads Drop recently released), you will need to EQ by ear to get it adjusted appropriately.

The developers of SoundID have stated that upload failures were due to server issues and authentication (for the first few hours after launch it was impossible to even get 1 upload in due to this). This leads me to believe that SoundID needs to authenticate licensing before uploading an EQ to your headphone which means you’ll need internet to actually EQ the Panda and if the licensing expires SoundID has the right to just pull support on their end. You can test this yourself by turning off WiFi and cellular radios (data) and try to upload an EQ, it won’t work and stuff will be grayed out; you’ll also get a no network connection pop up too.

All this being said, is the SoundID better than what Apple offers? The main advantage the Apple system gives you is that you hear the differences immediately and while your own music is playing. SoundID on the other hand gives you full control over the EQ so you know exactly what you’re doing with very precise control over the parametric EQ. For sure, I’d still say SoundID is going to offer much more power than anything Apple currently offers.

 

[Gamerlingual]

Music EQ only applies to the Music app and the selection is limited and not really all that great to be honest. I know there was a beta or two where it stopped working completely for anything which was very weird, but definitely a bug.

The only real “universal” customization Apple offers is through their sound accommodations that they offer in their accessibility settings through: settings > accessibility > AirPods > [choose any set of AirPods] > Audio Accessibility Settings > Headphone Accommodations > ON. From there you can select Balanced, vocal, or brightness with slight, moderate, and strong settings. You can also use an audio gram as well if you have created one of those using one of the various apps that support the feature. One issue with accommodations is that these will carry over to all AirPods you have and only applies to the iPhone its set on. The other issue is that they give you a vague description of what’s actually being done with even vaguer descriptions of how much it’s doing it (slight, moderate, or strong); how many dB is slight/moderate/strong? Most of the frequency ranges are pretty easy to decode like vocal range is likely the 500-4K range while brightness is likely a high shelf boost. Balanced tone is the vague one that really has no good definition as it “will provide boost over a range of frequencies.” I’m not even certain that boost is over a range as it might actually be multiple ranges and with no clue how much. To my ears, the balanced tone gets the sound somewhat close to flat with both the APP and APM.

Drop’s update is very nice to have. I haven’t noticed huge bounds in audio improvement, but they were always a step better than the APM in just about every way. The new SoundID is nice as it gives the headphones a true-to-life flat EQ which is nice to have along with the ability to customize your own EQ to suit your own preferences; this is the huge gain from the app IMO. It isn’t without its gripes though. The upload process is buggy with it failing every 3rd time for me (requiring me to re-upload the EQ to the headphones). The upload process itself takes a minute or two (it’s not super short by any means) and you cannot EQ while music is playing through the headphones and hear what your changes are doing on your own music until you do an upload. So if you’re trying to do small tweaks to get it just right, you’ll end up spending a lot of time to just make a 1-2 dB change in your EQ. This also makes ABing your EQ in real time impossible. None of this is an issue if you set up your EQ based on measurements. But if you, for example, change the pads on them (like one of the 4 new pads Drop recently released), you will need to EQ by ear to get it adjusted appropriately.

The developers of SoundID have stated that upload failures were due to server issues and authentication (for the first few hours after launch it was impossible to even get 1 upload in due to this). This leads me to believe that SoundID needs to authenticate licensing before uploading an EQ to your headphone which means you’ll need internet to actually EQ the Panda and if the licensing expires SoundID has the right to just pull support on their end. You can test this yourself by turning off WiFi and cellular radios (data) and try to upload an EQ, it won’t work and stuff will be grayed out; you’ll also get a no network connection pop up too.

All this being said, is the SoundID better than what Apple offers? The main advantage the Apple system gives you is that you hear the differences immediately and while your own music is playing. SoundID on the other hand gives you full control over the EQ so you know exactly what you’re doing with very precise control over the parametric EQ. For sure, I’d still say SoundID is going to offer much more power than anything Apple currently offers.

I really thought the audio presentation was amazing VS the AirPods Max, and so far the battery has stayed at 30 hours despite the update. The sound stage and imaging expanded more with SoundID.

The best I can say, appreciate all the gear we have, perfect or not. They all have something great to offer. The Max are still neat to listen to, so I do use them when I sit at my desk switching off between them and my TA-ZH1ES with my MDR-Z1R or IER-Z1R.

 

[tinyman392]

I really thought the audio presentation was amazing VS the AirPods Max, and so far the battery has stayed at 30 hours despite the update. The sound stage and imaging expanded more with SoundID.

The best I can say, appreciate all the gear we have, perfect or not. They all have something great to offer. The Max are still neat to listen to, so I do use them when I sit at my desk switching off between them and my TA-ZH1ES with my MDR-Z1R or IER-Z1R.

I didn’t really hear a larger sound stage with the SoundID. The bass is not as thick with the flat EQ setting which might help create more clarity which can aid in imaging. Granted I was in the camp of people who actually didn’t mind the signature that the non-EQ’d Panda provided, so that may add to the entire I didn’t hear a huge improvement. For those that didn’t like the stock Panda signature, it is likely a huge improvement though as now you could tune it straight to your preferences and the tonality oddities are fixed. That does go for me too as I do prefer them EQ’d flatter than I do with their stock signature.

I’m not sure if you’re on iOS or not, but the APM are a lot better with accommodations on. If you’re not, a bump in the upper midrange/lower treble helps them quite a bit too if you have access to an EQ It’ll create similar effects to the SoundID on the Panda IMO. But in this case these differences are enough to fix some of the deficiencies I heard in the APM initially.

 

[Gamerlingual]

I didn’t really hear a larger sound stage with the SoundID. The bass is not as thick with the flat EQ setting which might help create more clarity which can aid in imaging. Granted I was in the camp of people who actually didn’t mind the signature that the non-EQ’d Panda provided, so that may add to the entire I didn’t hear a huge improvement. For those that didn’t like the stock Panda signature, it is likely a huge improvement though as now you could tune it straight to your preferences and the tonality oddities are fixed. That does go for me too as I do prefer them EQ’d flatter than I do with their stock signature.

I’m not sure if you’re on iOS or not, but the APM are a lot better with accommodations on. If you’re not, a bump in the upper midrange/lower treble helps them quite a bit too if you have access to an EQ It’ll create similar effects to the SoundID on the Panda IMO. But in this case these differences are enough to fix some of the deficiencies I heard in the APM initially.

I did that just now. I notice the bass keeps getting weaker as you go up the ladder. No way to fix that to make it fuller along with the other sound improvements?

 

[Tenlow]

So, my initial thoughts/impressions on the Airpods Max "vs" the Sennheiser Momentum 3 Wireless:

The APM have the "better" bass. Less in quantity, less "exciting", less kick as well but wonderfully precise and articulate. I always have the EQ in the Sennheiser app set to -2db bass because of their bass, while fun, is a bit too thick and bloated for me. That solved it fairly well, though.

The mids are very good on both headphones. Tough to pick a winner here for me. The M3 always have the advantage, though, that you can EQ them easily if you want to. Other than that, both are great.

I prefer the highs on the M3. The highs, for me, are the "weak point" of the Max. They are a bit subdued and try to play it safe, resulting in me wanting more space, air and sparkle. The APM are very relaxing to listen to because of that but I would EQ them a bit if I could.

I think the APM have better instrument separation, though and do this very well for a set of closed back Bluetooth headphones. Both have good imaging, maybe slightly better even on the M3. The Sennheiser do get significantly louder than the APM Max which I always liked. Not that loud listening is recommended but once in a while it can be a nice thing to do I wasn't able to test the Airpods wired yet but the M3 sound the best via USB-C audio for me.

So, as far as sound goes, I think I still do prefer the (Eq'd) M3 but the APM are a very good sounding set. I haven't even really tried Spatial audio, yet which could supposedly be a lot of fun.

Where the Airpods absolutely shine in comparison, though, is when it comes to their transparency mode. Simply amazing and much better than the M3. Same goes for ANC. The ANC on the M3 is sufficient but doesn't come close to that on the Airpods. Call quality likewise is definitely better on the APM, while only ok (not bad) on the M3.

Both headphones have very good build quality but the Airpods have the even better one. They feel sturdy and luxurious but we don't know about long term yet of course, especially that mash headband might be a concern.

Comfort is a tie (for my head at least). I always found the M3 to be comfy and I think the same of the APM now. Which is a job well done by Apple as the weight distribution really needed to be really good considering their hefty weight. I also prefer the form factor of the APM while wearing them on the head. Much slimmer/sleeker.

Battery life seems slightly better on the APM but both get the job done for me.

I don't like both cases but the Sennheiser case at the very least is a case. Every additional word on the APM case is a wasted one. I like the foldable design of the Sennheiser better tbh but I love the detachable earcups on the Max, even if they are obviously ridiculously overpriced.

Which makes me come to price. Well, only comparing their initial release prices for fairness sake, the M3 were 399€ and the Airpods 600€ here which is a whopping 200€ difference. If you want to match the 2 year warranty that the Sennheiser offer, you have to buy Apple Care+ for another 59€. And don't forget the 39€ for the audio cable that the M3 already come with. Not everyone needs both of that, obviously, but the price difference can go up to 300€ here.

The APM, however, is not a 300€ better headphone than the M3 for me. Definitely not in pure sound quality. I'm deeply im the Apple/iOS eco system, though, so the convenience factor is a big one here.

All things considered, I will still keep the APM, mainly because of their excellent ANC, transparency mode and call quality. The sound quality is really good but not a reason to pay 600€ on them. They are excellent but very pricey allrounders, though. The M3 on the other hand still have a lot going for them, especially if you are on Android/Windows.

 

[Tenlow]

Having said all of that, do people on here use the settings in iOS's headphone accommodation? What's the verdict on that after a couple of months now?

I turned it on for now l, using the balanced setting and the slider completely on the left.

What do you guys use?