[fonefan]

Got my space grey APMs a couple of days ago, after a 4 month wait. So far I am sold on them.

Compared to my hitherto much loved H9 Gen 3:

Comfort - Top notch. People go on about the weight, but I really don't notice it. Much more comfy than my H9s, and the fabric ear pads are a (rather obvious?) stroke of genius. The B&O lamb skin is nice, but it gets hot and sweaty and I was constantly having to shift them about on my head.

ANC - bliss. Shut that damn noisy world out. Thank you Apple. Much better than the H9's.

Transparency - Crazy good.

Ease of use - 1 button and 1 rotary dial, again, genius. The H9's fiddly slide controls are bloody awful, and no ability to turn them off. Fail.

Battery - I get an easy 22-23 hours from them. Not class leading, but plenty long enough for my listening stints.

Integration - It's Apple, therefore top tier. Solid connection, no random pops and clicks like the H9s, just a robust and stable experience at far greater distances than my H9s can manage. I even like the battery level on my iPhone widget. Nice.

Ease of use - Again, it's Apple. Just take them of the silly bra and they connect to what ever they're near. Brilliant - if you're in the Apple world obviously, but I've also connected them to non Apple devices with zero issues, but it's the polish of the Apple ecosystem that makes the experience better overall.

Volume - Much louder than the H9. Absolutely no distortion, although on the iPhone the last couple of volume clicks noticeably attenuate the bass down, but my Apple TV 4Ks and Macs don't do that. Curious.

Sound signature - Big, chunky, open, clear, vivid, bright and instantly foot tapping. And that is what I go for. I don't care for ultimate clarity and accuracy, or some arbitrary frequency plot some bloke decided is 'best' some years ago, I just go for subjective foot tappiness, and these just sound so damned good right out of the box. Audiophilia is a rabbit hole I don't go down - constantly chasing a subjective level perfection that may or may not even exist. If a product sounds good, it sounds good, period. I don't feel it needs any scrutiny beyond what is objectively a great sound at the price level, imo, but I get that Audiophiling is a hobby to some folk.

Build quality - Excellent. Utter beasts. They will last for years.

Styling - I think they're kind of ugly like Helicopter pilot headsets personally, but I didn't buy them to win any beauty contests. The H95 is more my bag, but their sound signature didn't quite float my boat.

For context I listen to EDM, House and Garage. I'm not an Apple butt boy, or a B&O bad ass (I have many products from many brands), I'm just a fan of high quality gear, regardless of who makes it.

Considering how lame Airpods and Beats are, I'm shocked Apple have pulled these out of the bag with such aplomb.

Are the APMs Apple's own work, or do we suspect a well known audio company, <cough, B&O>, had a hand in them? I mean, who else are experts in aluminium and fabric when it comes to high end Audio gear? If it is all Apple, I tip my hat to them.

In short, I like them. Expectations exceeded and well worth the coin, imo.

 

[MayaTlab]

I don't care for ultimate clarity and accuracy, or some arbitrary frequency plot some bloke decided is 'best' some years ago, I just go for subjective foot tappiness, and these just sound so damned good right out of the box.

Well you can thank the aforementioned "bloke", or rather blokes, for that, precisely because the FR targets they came up with have little to do with arbitrary decisions, and rather to do with published research papers. And the APM are a somewhat reasonable variation around the conclusions of that research (particularly below 1khz).

Are the APMs Apple's own work, or do we suspect a well known audio company, <cough, B&O>, had a hand in them? I mean, who else are experts in aluminium and fabric when it comes to high end Audio gear? If it is all Apple, I tip my hat to them.

It's obviously Apple through and through, like basically everything audio at Apple (HomePod, embedded speakers, etc.). At least for the hardware it's fairly easy to notice how intensively custom designed most components of the APM are and how much of a complete departure from usual over-ears BT HPs designs they are : https://www.52audio.com/archives/67123.html

B&O isn't really an audio company, they're a design / lifestyle company first and foremost with a strong penchant for collaborative and outsourced product development (so basically the exact opposite of Apple which tends to prefer to do as much as possible on their own at every step of the development process), and may occasionally use third party solutions (the ANC implementation likely relies quite a bit on Qualcomm's IP and chips for example). And until recently (H95, hopefully the HX and Portal as well) their HPs measured like crap.

The aluminium and fabric parts on B&O's HPs are mostly cosmetic, and play very little part in the resulting sound.

 

[fonefan]

There's a noticeable bump in the sub bass vs their curve, which is exactly what I go for because of the material I listen to. I'd take subs over mids any day of the week. Most Audiophiles take the Harman curve as perfection, but I certainly do not and I'm glad Apple deviated from it.

Disagree about B&O not being an audio company. Again, it's this whole 'We audiophiles stipulate what sounds good' nonsense.

 

[MayaTlab]

Disagree about B&O not being an audio company. Again, it's this whole 'We audiophiles stipulate what sounds good' nonsense.

My definition of an audio company is a company which has enough capacity to develop audio products on its own to a reasonable extent and develop their own components / IP / ideas to some degree.
Apple, Bose, Genelec, Sennheiser, etc. (well unless we're talking about the electronics for the later) correspond to that category for example. B&O probably not to a significant degree (heck they don't even have their own designers, design at B&O is contractual).
A good test for that is to try to imagine the value of the company's IP in acoustics / audio matters. I'm pretty certain that B&O's IP in acoustics has a lot, lot less value than the aforementioned brands.
This has little to do with how good their products sound, but rather about how much are they internally responsible for it .

Most headphones companies that you hear about in this forum and quite a few that "audiophiles" (whatever that means) would approve of actually don't even remotely bother to follow the research that's been done in the last 15 years in terms of FR curves. So it's actually quite factually false that most audiophiles consider Harman's target as "perfection".
Deviation from Harman's target is something that Harman's research actually deals with and acknowledges (a lot of misunderstanding of the research is derived from the idea that its only goal was to define one "holy grail" curve - that's not the case) - particularly in the sub bass where Harman's research actually tried to define the extent of personal preferences variations.
You're picking up a fight with the wrong guys since their conclusions basically are roughly aligned with your own preferences and since Apple's internal research probably came to fairly similar-ish conclusions (if we're being very wide about what a reasonable deviation from it means, as the APM deviates quite a bit in the upper mids). That a subset of the population prefers a few extra dB in the subbass over the over-ears target is fully acknowledged and characterised by Harman's research.
Suggested three parts reading :
https://www.headphonesty.com/2020/04/harman-target-curves-part-3/

 

[Gweeds]

Excellent post.
Going out on a limb I’d be very surprised if Apple hadn’t aimed their tuning and profile at what they know the majority prefer. To do otherwise would be, well, dense.

 

[tinyman392]

There's a noticeable bump in the sub bass vs their curve, which is exactly what I go for because of the material I listen to. I'd take subs over mids any day of the week. Most Audiophiles take the Harman curve as perfection, but I certainly do not and I'm glad Apple deviated from it.

Disagree about B&O not being an audio company. Again, it's this whole 'We audiophiles stipulate what sounds good' nonsense.

Most audiophiles don’t take the Harman curve to be perfection or even the holy grail. It’s a very popular curve, but it’s not “perfection.” The Harman target is more or less what’s popular for consumers as a whole, hence Harman and co end up targeting that.

Excellent post.
Going out on a limb I’d be very surprised if Apple hadn’t aimed their tuning and profile at what they know the majority prefer. To do otherwise would be, well, dense.

It is interesting that Apple hasn’t targeted Harman. Though I don’t think any of their headphones do this to begin with. The APP targeted something very close to the DF neutral which really surprised me. I think the closest Apple has done to the Harman target is the ADDIEM released way before Harman did their research. That IEM ended up not being super popular for other reasons.

 

[MayaTlab]

It is interesting that Apple hasn’t targeted Harman. Though I don’t think any of their headphones do this to begin with. The APP targeted something very close to the DF neutral which really surprised me. I think the closest Apple has done to the Harman target is the ADDIEM released way before Harman did their research. That IEM ended up not being super popular for other reasons.

In relative terms to other BT over-ears, it's a lot closer to Harman's target than other HPs, and more importantly it follows the general "gist" of what a decent FR curve is meant to look like, ie something that reasonably takes into account what we know of the human ear and people's preferences (for example it accurately locates the ear canal gain peak at around 3khz, that already puts it in a very exclusive club unfortunately for a pair of BT over-ears).
If you add on top of that the variability in terms of measurements methodologies, and the variability in FR curve at the listener's eardrum past 1khz because of anatomical variations, it starts to become a little bit difficult to assess that this or that pair of HPs is more harman-ish, more DF-ish, etc. as the difference in magnitude between these targets past 1khz isn't that much different from the variability across various listeners in terms of FR curve at their own eardrum. And past 5000hz all bets are off anyway.

Headphones like the APM, H95, K371, are all obviously different when you listen to them and it's difficult to predict whether one will prefer one or the other, but all quite evidently also follow the latest knowledge we have of the human ear and people's preferences. These headphones weren't tuned by "sound gurus".
I'm pushing against the idea that Harman's target is an "arbitrary" curve, it's derived from a reasonably rational inquisitive process, and we can see the same process at work in Apple's audio products in general - even if the end result may not perfectly adhere to it and could be perfectible (but not necessarily because it doesn't perfectly adhere to Harman's target). None of them feature bonkers FR curves that make no sense.
And the reason fonefan seems to enjoy them likely is in good part because of the work Harman's and others' (probably Apple's) researchers have been doing, not because of random luck.
This, on the other hand, is the sort of irrational "arbitrary" crap we're still being served, and has nothing to do with how the human ear operates :
https://www.rtings.com/headphones/graph#1619/4012
You know that when designing the above headphones, the people in charge of it never even started to bother about 15 years of research or so in headphones' FR curve.

 

[mammal]

To share with you where I am coming from - I use headphones at work in order to isolate myself from the outside world. When I first got Bose QC25, I was amazed how comfortable they were (I could wear them for 8+ hours) and how their ANC worked flawlessly (I couldn't hear my coworkers at all). When Bose released QC35, they became even more convinenent, as they were completely wireless and I could connect them via Bluetooth. I had never had expectations (or a need) for them to sound good, as my only goal was to silence the outside world while I focus on work.

I am telling you all of this, because I feel like APM improves on all of the above. They are extremely well built (feel quite luxurious to be honest), fit very well on my head (even with wearing glasses), and sound much better. All of this, while not compromising on ANC (too early to say if it is actually better or not, but first impressions suggest it is). Also cannot comment yet on how they feel after 8+ hours of work, but so far (3 hours in) they feel comfortable (I was worried about their weight and if they will feel hot). A surprise to me is really its Transparency mode, I can just pause music, click a button and it sounds as if I was not wearing them. Furthermore, what I like a lot is that I can do a hearing test and then have the result hearing compensation applied to all of my music / videos / phone calls, to account for my left year high frequency insensitivity (3db roll off after 2kHz).

Worth mentioning that for those who are in Apple's ecosystem, they work very well with device handoff and sharing audio (listen to 2 pairs of AirPods 2 / Pro / Max), like we do at home with my wife (we don't watch movies on speakers, but on Apple TV and AirPods, don't ask why).

Now that we have comfort/ANC/convenience out of the way, how do they sound? They sound (to my ears) much better than Bose QC25/35, less muffled, more resolving, bigger soundstage, "fun" tuning. Also, APM's ANC does not produce that "air pressure" thingy when ANC is enabled (like QCs do). APMs also sound better than my AirPods 2 or Pros, they sound bigger, have more resolution and seal much better than AirPods Pro.

Do they sound as good as Abyss AB-1266 or Diana V2? Of course not, but for Bluetooth ANC headphones, I must say that I am impressed by their performance. To me, it is definitely worth the asking price (mainly due to the ecosystem). Now I will be using Bose only for gaming (connected to my controller/console/tv, as I do not want to disconnect APMs from my iCloud account, and connect them directly to bluetooth devices).

APMs are so comfortable and well built, that I am going to have two setups: 1) Music enjoyment with AB-1266; and 2) ANC at Work + Movies at home with APM.

But hey, these are just my first impressions after having them for a day. Please recognise that for me ANC and convenience trumps audio quality (for wireless headphones). Have I heard all other headphones Bluetooth headphones out there? No, just Sony and Bose, so my comparisons go with them.

 

[tinyman392]

To share with you where I am coming from - I use headphones at work in order to isolate myself from the outside world. When I first got Bose QC25, I was amazed how comfortable they were (I could wear them for 8+ hours) and how their ANC worked flawlessly (I couldn't hear my coworkers at all). When Bose released QC35, they became even more convinenent, as they were completely wireless and I could connect them via Bluetooth. I had never had expectations (or a need) for them to sound good, as my only goal was to silence the outside world while I focus on work.

I am telling you all of this, because I feel like APM improves on all of the above. They are extremely well built (feel quite luxurious to be honest), fit very well on my head (even with wearing glasses), and sound much better. All of this, while not compromising on ANC (too early to say if it is actually better or not, but first impressions suggest it is). Also cannot comment yet on how they feel after 8+ hours of work, but so far (3 hours in) they feel comfortable (I was worried about their weight and if they will feel hot). A surprise to me is really its Transparency mode, I can just pause music, click a button and it sounds as if I was not wearing them. Furthermore, what I like a lot is that I can do a hearing test and then have the result hearing compensation applied to all of my music / videos / phone calls, to account for my left year high frequency insensitivity (3db roll off after 2kHz).

Worth mentioning that for those who are in Apple's ecosystem, they work very well with device handoff and sharing audio (listen to 2 pairs of AirPods 2 / Pro / Max), like we do at home with my wife (we don't watch movies on speakers, but on Apple TV and AirPods, don't ask why).

Now that we have comfort/ANC/convenience out of the way, how do they sound? They sound (to my ears) much better than Bose QC25/35, less muffled, more resolving, bigger soundstage, "fun" tuning. Also, APM's ANC does not produce that "air pressure" thingy when ANC is enabled (like QCs do). APMs also sound better than my AirPods 2 or Pros, they sound bigger, have more resolution and seal much better than AirPods Pro.

Do they sound as good as Abyss AB-1266 or Diana V2? Of course not, but for Bluetooth ANC headphones, I must say that I am impressed by their performance. To me, it is definitely worth the asking price (mainly due to the ecosystem). Now I will be using Bose only for gaming (connected to my controller/console/tv, as I do not want to disconnect APMs from my iCloud account, and connect them directly to bluetooth devices).

APMs are so comfortable and well built, that I am going to have two setups: 1) Music enjoyment with AB-1266; and 2) ANC at Work + Movies at home with APM.

But hey, these are just my first impressions after having them for a day. Please recognise that for me ANC and convenience trumps audio quality (for wireless headphones). Have I heard all other headphones Bluetooth headphones out there? No, just Sony and Bose, so my comparisons go with them.

If you really want to use the APM for gaming, get the Lightning to 3.5mm adapter from Apple and a long 3.5mm extension cable Gotta' be honest, though, I'm not sure how well they'll work in that setup (plus no mic).

 

[sceleratus]

Will someone please write the Cliff’s Notes to the preceding 10 posts.

 

[mainguy]

Finally got to try these out, had a couple of listening sessions and thought I’d raise some points of interest, regarding sound, a comparison to the P7W, Momentum 3, PX & MW65, and the value proposition

APM vs P9 + Airpods Pro

I wanted to raise an interesting comparison: Bowers & Wilkins P9 + Airpods Pro vs Airpods Max

My P9 and APP cost me £600, which is about the going rate now in most stores (£400 and £200 respectively, 3 stores in London have the P9 at that price).

The P9 was what I was itching to compare the APM too, and I secretly hoped the APM would better them, or get within 80% of them, so I could enjoy the convenience i enjoy with my APP (the P9 is my current portable closed back.

Soundstage: APM impressed me, but the P9 sound a lot ‘bigger’, in that sense the P9 are much more impressive and it’s quite evident. Going between them it felt like the APM sound was compact, even a bit small and ‘cute’ I daresay. Not that it doesn’t perform well here, just relatively It was very noticeable, the APM doesn’t sound grand like the P9, or other higher end pairs i’ve tried.

Sound quality: The biggest differences were in vocals, the APM presents them nicely, but I find a little one dimensional, the voice has one ‘tone’, definitely pleasing though, switching to the P9s additional details appear in the voice, and it’s much fuller. Listening to Lana Del Rey & Aurora for reference, the vocals were a lot more natural on the P9. The APM has a signature sound, if you have the APP you’ll know it, and it does colour vocals a bit.

The impact of the bass is really tight and nice on APM, but it is thunderous on the P9. It’s a lot more awe inspiring on the P9 (Grimes - Too heavy I fell through the earth). I still really liked the APM bass/sub bass, and it’s an area I’d say I prefer in the APM to any bluetooth headphone I’ve tried.

Overall detail & imaging on the P9 was just superior, of course, it’s a wired headphone, but I mean, really superior. It was a bigger jump (imo) APM > P9 than it was Airpods Pro > APM.

And I think APM buyers should definately consider this, if you have a budget, you might find the versatility of say a P9, or other wired portable closed back and APP a lot better. APP give you the covnenience factor, for calls, great ANC, and so on, but when you really want to listen to music the P9 have got you.

I liked the APM but I just don’t think they fit my use case that well, the Airpods Pro are more convenient and flexible, while the P9 sound significantly better, and I love good music and audio, and the feeling i get listening to something like the P9 or Focal Clear is just in a different league to what I experienced with the APM. Which is to be expected, but if the APM sat between say the Momentum 3 and the P9 I’d have been interested, but they’re much closer to the other bluetooth headphones than any £400 wired set.

Bear in mind the P9 is a portable wired headphone. It’s a lightning headphone, it folds, I find it convenient as heck. I whip out my APP if I need ANC, P9 for music.

I know this won’t be the case for all, some just want pure convenience, or love the APM, just thought I’d put it out there that this option is also great.

APM vs P7W/Momentum 3

I haven’t tried or owned an ANC headphone as good as APM, I’ve owned Momentum 3, MW65 & PX. That said the divide between the APM and Momentum 3 isn’t huge, it’s noticably better in the bass/sub department where the momentum is completely out of control, but the Momentum 3 puts up a very good fight in other frequency ranges.

APM vs P7W was really interesting, and suprising. I found the P7W had a much more energetic, engaging sound, more fun. It’s a toss up between the two objectively. Personally I’d say the P7W edges It out, which again, it worth considering, the P7W is 150/200, I got mine brand new for 150. Yes you’re losing all the features, this in no way takes away from APM, but for people reading this I think more info is better, some people may think ‘hmm, I don’t actually need ANC that much, or auto pairing, I’d rather have £400 in the bank’. I’d agree with those people personally, but can totally see why someone else wouldn’t.

The APM wipes the floor with the PX/MW65. Zero contest There.


Alas, despite my decision I still want the APM, I have since they were launched. But I wrote this post to remind people that just because you really want something, it doesn’t mean there aren’t better options out there for you.

 

[SparkOnShore]

Finally got to try these out, had a couple of listening sessions and thought I’d raise some points of interest, regarding sound, a comparison to the P7W, Momentum 3, PX & MW65, and the value proposition

APM vs P9 + Airpods Pro

I wanted to raise an interesting comparison: Bowers & Wilkins P9 + Airpods Pro vs Airpods Max

My P9 and APP cost me £600, which is about the going rate now in most stores (£400 and £200 respectively, 3 stores in London have the P9 at that price).

The P9 was what I was itching to compare the APM too, and I secretly hoped the APM would better them, or get within 80% of them, so I could enjoy the convenience i enjoy with my APP (the P9 is my current portable closed back.

Soundstage: APM impressed me, but the P9 sound a lot ‘bigger’, in that sense the P9 are much more impressive and it’s quite evident. Going between them it felt like the APM sound was compact, even a bit small and ‘cute’ I daresay. Not that it doesn’t perform well here, just relatively It was very noticeable, the APM doesn’t sound grand like the P9, or other higher end pairs i’ve tried.

Sound quality: The biggest differences were in vocals, the APM presents them nicely, but I find a little one dimensional, the voice has one ‘tone’, definitely pleasing though, switching to the P9s additional details appear in the voice, and it’s much fuller. Listening to Lana Del Rey & Aurora for reference, the vocals were a lot more natural on the P9. The APM has a signature sound, if you have the APP you’ll know it, and it does colour vocals a bit.

The impact of the bass is really tight and nice on APM, but it is thunderous on the P9. It’s a lot more awe inspiring on the P9 (Grimes - Too heavy I fell through the earth). I still really liked the APM bass/sub bass, and it’s an area I’d say I prefer in the APM to any bluetooth headphone I’ve tried.

Overall detail & imaging on the P9 was just superior, of course, it’s a wired headphone, but I mean, really superior. It was a bigger jump (imo) APM > P9 than it was Airpods Pro > APM.

And I think APM buyers should definately consider this, if you have a budget, you might find the versatility of say a P9, or other wired portable closed back and APP a lot better. APP give you the covnenience factor, for calls, great ANC, and so on, but when you really want to listen to music the P9 have got you.

I liked the APM but I just don’t think they fit my use case that well, the Airpods Pro are more convenient and flexible, while the P9 sound significantly better, and I love good music and audio, and the feeling i get listening to something like the P9 or Focal Clear is just in a different league to what I experienced with the APM. Which is to be expected, but if the APM sat between say the Momentum 3 and the P9 I’d have been interested, but they’re much closer to the other bluetooth headphones than any £400 wired set.

Bear in mind the P9 is a portable wired headphone. It’s a lightning headphone, it folds, I find it convenient as heck. I whip out my APP if I need ANC, P9 for music.

I know this won’t be the case for all, some just want pure convenience, or love the APM, just thought I’d put it out there that this option is also great.

APM vs P7W/Momentum 3

I haven’t tried or owned an ANC headphone as good as APM, I’ve owned Momentum 3, MW65 & PX. That said the divide between the APM and Momentum 3 isn’t huge, it’s noticably better in the bass/sub department where the momentum is completely out of control, but the Momentum 3 puts up a very good fight in other frequency ranges.

APM vs P7W was really interesting, and suprising. I found the P7W had a much more energetic, engaging sound, more fun. It’s a toss up between the two objectively. Personally I’d say the P7W edges It out, which again, it worth considering, the P7W is 150/200, I got mine brand new for 150. Yes you’re losing all the features, this in no way takes away from APM, but for people reading this I think more info is better, some people may think ‘hmm, I don’t actually need ANC that much, or auto pairing, I’d rather have £400 in the bank’. I’d agree with those people personally, but can totally see why someone else wouldn’t.

The APM wipes the floor with the PX/MW65. Zero contest There.


Alas, despite my decision I still want the APM, I have since they were launched. But I wrote this post to remind people that just because you really want something, it doesn’t mean there aren’t better options out there for you.

Sorry but your definition of portability is quite questionable! To my book something is not portable when you have a 1,5 met cable running out of your pockets when out walking, or keeping you tied on your chair when at home. The APM show a very good combination of sound, features when you use Apple devices and real portability. I used to have the momentum that you are mentioning but i sold eventually. The bass of APM is on another level and the software of the momentum is comically buggy on iOS, to say the least. When I had the auto turn on/off enabled, the headphone was pausing music when I was turning my head right or left, thinking that I was taking the headphone out of my head!! Reasonable because simply Sennheiser has no clue about software implementation, it has been an audio company for many years and i would recommend them to stay that way...

 

[mammal]

Sorry but your definition of portability is quite questionable! To my book something is not portable when you have a 1,5 met cable running out of your pockets when out walking, or keeping you tied on your chair when at home.

I like your example, haha. I actually consider my Hugo TT2 + Abyss AB-1266 transportable (can take it to my living room), but would definitely not call it portable (like a wireless headphones are). I see sometimes people using these terms interchangeably though.

 

[3Putter]

Sorry but your definition of portability is quite questionable! To my book something is not portable when you have a 1,5 met cable running out of your pockets when out walking, or keeping you tied on your chair when at home. The APM show a very good combination of sound, features when you use Apple devices and real portability. I used to have the momentum that you are mentioning but i sold eventually. The bass of APM is on another level and the software of the momentum is comically buggy on iOS, to say the least. When I had the auto turn on/off enabled, the headphone was pausing music when I was turning my head right or left, thinking that I was taking the headphone out of my head!! Reasonable because simply Sennheiser has no clue about software implementation, it has been an audio company for many years and i would recommend them to stay that way...

I'm thinking of the Momentum 3's for their sound. I had the APM's and just thought there wasn't enough volume, punch, and the SQ was not deserving of the cost. But if the app with an iPhone is poor then those frustrations outweighs the better sound and perhaps I judged the APM's too harshly. I've tried the APP for hours and just can't get a good seal or SQ that doesn't leave me wanting more. I felt the APM's delivered the same SQ but a better stage and comfortable fit. They are really units, well made, substantial. I'm on the fence here...

 

[Tenlow]

The Momentums definitely have more volume and punch. I really like the (EQ'd) sound of the M3. The Sennheiser app is pretty mediocre, that's true. It isn't as bad, however, as one would think reading here sometimes. The M3s are very good wireless headphones.

There's just the small things I really like about the Airpods Pro (despite the obvious strengths of course). For example the swappable earpads, the very accurate and fine tuned volume adjustment with the digital crown, the tactile and satisfying buttons, the hands free Siri integration - stuff like that. You don't get that any of that on the Momentums. Replacing earpads, while possible, is a bit of a hassle, the buttons are okayish and volume up and down (on iOS) sometimes makes huge jumps and is not very accurate or reliable.