[angelom]

If APM owners with iOS devices want listening to (very) similar sound signature of the h95 factory sound, go and doing the Accessibility settings modification (Balanced Tone + Slight) that is mentioning in this thread several times.

 

[clerkpalmer]

It's objectively superior to a lot of hi-fi rigs. There are no serious limitations - see above. You have unfounded fears from not understanding engineering facts, and are fallback to audiophile myths.

Please share this objective evidence with me. I'm open to being convinced. But don't bother arguing that LDAC is no better than AAC because my ears already tell me that's not true.

 

[plakat]

Sorry but I just don't agree. The entire audiophile industry has adopted LDAC as the gold standard for wireless hi Res audio. Yes I've read the sound guys article. The primary weakness is that bit rate can drop over LDAC but I can force 990 anytime I want and I absolutely can hear a difference.

Also lots of wireless headphones offer passive mode. Panda does. And isine can be run passive as well. Many prefer them passive to cipher.

I think LDAC is much overrated, and for me connection stability is much more important than "high res", so I don't miss that at all. I do understand that AAC as the only codec is a problem for non-Apple users... but, sad as that may be, that might not have been Apples focus with this product.

Regarding passive mode: I prefer a headphone being acoustically tuned as well. And having Sony implement a passive mode that sounds like s... gives a really bad example of a DSP corrected concept. Yet I think Apple did its best for the acoustic part, but offers a package that consists of equal parts acoustic and electronic/processing-related (again just as the HomePod).

I'm always skeptic of an active-only headphone and have criticized many models on that point (the H95 being one of them). Still I think a few can be trusted that the complete system is grater than the sum of the parts -- I think the APM is one of those cases. But just as the HomePod was mischaracterized as a Siri-device foremost, the APM is not primarily a high-end headphone (or intended to be one). I think the designers of the APM wanted to make the best wireless headphone for their ecosystem. And that they did.

 

[Monstieur]

Sorry but I just don't agree. The entire audiophile industry has adopted LDAC as the gold standard for wireless hi Res audio. Yes I've read the sound guys article. The primary weakness is that bit rate can drop over LDAC but I can force 990 anytime I want

Psychoacoustic codecs like AAC & MP3 cannot be compared to non-psychoacoustic codecs like aptX & LDAC using test tones. So the SoundGuys test is flawed and invalid anyway. With a waveform of actual recorded audio, AAC will win in a double-blind test.

Bit rate is irrelevant when comparing a psychoacoustic codec to a non-psychoacoustic codec. Using a high bit rate like 900 kbps for LDAC is required as non-psychoacoustic codecs are grossly inefficient. They are basically compressed PCM and require higher bit rates for the same quality as a low bit rate psychoacoustic codec.

Hi-Res audio (> 44.1 kHz / 16-bit) for playback (not mixing & mastering where you need the headroom to keep aliasing & rounding errors outside the audible frequency range) is pseudoscience.

and I absolutely can hear a difference.

Yes there is a difference, because the player is defective. The AAC encoder on any non-Apple device is garbage and inferior to the LDAC encoder.

Also lots of wireless headphones offer passive mode. Panda does. And isine can be run passive as well. Many prefer them passive to cipher.

The Panda is mechanically tuned and does not require DSP, so it will sound the same passively. The iSine / LCDi is designed to be used with the Cipher DSP exclusively. Audeze mentioned this in an interview - they couldn't achieve the tuning they wanted physically, so they corrected it with DSP. If you use it passively, you must use the Reveal plugin to correct the frequency response at the source. Using it any other way is wrong.

 

[Heyyoudvd]

Sorry but that just doesn't mesh with reality. Everyone and their brother wanted them. They were an instant must have for anyone with an iphone. Just because they were criticized as not being perfect doesn't mean people said they were going to be a failure. You are mixing concepts. And sorry but the iphone and ipad were not roundly mocked at introduction. I remember the day the original iphone was released. The hype was off the charts. I guess we can agree to disagree but that's just not how I remember it.

The iPhone was continually mocked for its price, for its lack of 3G, and for the fact that it was “just a toy”. Tech people were wowed by its design and user interface, but the entire business world mocked it as being some cheap tech demo on which you couldn’t get “real work” done.

The iPad was mocked even more harshly for being pointless, for being “just a big iPod Touch”, and for having a name that resembled feminine hygiene products.

The original iPod was also widely mocked. So was the iPhone 4. And the iPhone 5 for its “two tone back”. And the iPhone X for “the notch”. And the Apple Watch was labeled hideous. And the AirPods were compared to Q Tips. The list goes on.

The point is that Apple is very opinionated and unique with its product designs. People see these designs and reflexively mock them, without realizing that Apple had reason behind them. In most cases, Apple ends up being right and the critics end up being wrong. Not every time, but with the vast majority of product introductions, Apple ends up being correct.

 

[kdphan]

If APM owners with iOS devices want listening to (very) similar sound signature of the h95 factory sound, go and doing the Accessibility settings modification (Balanced Tone + Slight) that is mentioning in this thread several times.

that's the default setting i'm using.

 

[Monstieur]

Please share this objective evidence with me. I'm open to being convinced. But don't bother arguing that LDAC is no better than AAC because my ears already tell me that's not true.

Any headphone that rolls off the bass above 20 Hz is objectively inferior by the very meaning of the word hi-fi. Fidelity is reproducing the original waveform as closely as possible. If a headphone is -6 dB at 20 Hz, it's failed.

I explained AAC vs LDAC in my previous post. The AAC encoder is garbage on any non-Apple device, which all LDAC devices are, so the comparison is invalid.

 

[snapandslide]

I think they had their chance. And what they produced was subpar regarding sound quality. Now that window of opportunity may simply be closing. Fast.

Lol seem to have you quoted twice! I agree on your statement about Sony - the very minor incremental changes between XM3 and 4 shows they're rested on their laurels a bit. I know Apple will now be incremental in their upgrades - but in general, their first gen of any product tends to be disruptive (features and price...). Sony, Bose and the rest have to step up or be totally sidelined.

I think LDAC is much overrated, and for me connection stability is much more important than "high res", so I don't miss that at all. I do understand that AAC as the only codec is a problem for non-Apple users... but, sad as that may be, that might not have been Apples focus with this product.

Apple only care about locking into their ecosystem. Non Apple users need not apply. I think we've had this discussion before on the Aonic 50 thread about LDAC; the more I listen to the Aonic 50s, I am tending to want listen via my Fiio M11 than my iphone - BUT the Fiio is a pain for device switching (at the moment PC and iphone works flawlessly). Having said that AAC is still pretty damn good and can totally believe Apple have optimised this better than Shure.

 

[plakat]

Apple only care about locking into their ecosystem. Non Apple users need not apply. I think we've had this discussion before on the Aonic 50 thread about LDAC; the more I listen to the Aonic 50s, I am tending to want listen via my Fiio M11 than my iphone - BUT the Fiio is a pain for device switching (at the moment PC and iphone works flawlessly). Having said that AAC is still pretty damn good and can totally believe Apple have optimised this better than Shure.

I fully understand the frustration that some nice Apple device only works at full potential within their ecosystem -- if one stands outside that for whatever reason. Yet I think it should not result in such heated debates: this is the manufacturers choice, whose only target is to make a product they can sell. Deciding to serve only part of a potential market is just a decision, resulting from analysis what can be achieved. Apple specifically never tries to sell the most devices, but be profitable by selling *good* devices that serve their purpose really well. Which also leaves room for other companies -- yet this is seldom acknowledged: many try not to fill another niche, but do what Apple does, but add this and that plus a kitchen sink or two. Which leads to products that miss focus, good execution and in the end fail at user satisfaction.

I think it'd be good for the area of wireless headphones if someone else took up and sell a similar model to e.g. Android users exclusively. Cater to their needs, do that specific extra step to make that target audience feel they just have to have this one. I might then feel envious that it doesn't work as well with my iPhone. Or not -- fortunately I have a thing that fulfills my needs quite well.

That being said, I don't intend to sell either the Aonic 50 (I think Shure builds really good headphones and in-ears) or even my V-Moda CF2. I own a pair of APP as well, yet I use my SE846 with TW1 more often... There's room for more than one I'd say.

 

[clerkpalmer]

Any headphone that rolls off the bass above 20 Hz is automatically inferior.

I explained AAC vs LDAC in my previous post. The AAC encoder is garbage on any device which also has LDAC, so the comparison is invalid.

You are clearly more knowledgeable than me in this area. That said, even if everything you say is correct there still is a fundamental problem in that half the world is running Android. If Apple really wants to disrupt the audiophile market (not sure this is even their goal), they are going to have to let non iPhone users into the party. As with everything Apple, I need to sell my phone and buy and iPhone to get the best experience. With Audeze, Drop, HiFiman, Shure, Sony etc. I do not need to do that. That is not only frustrating but also infuriating.

 

[angelom]

that's the default setting i'm using.

Then you're hearing, in my opinion, the clearly better SQ version of the APM. The sound is similar to h95 but obviously not the same. I still thinking the mids in the h95 are more correct. But discovering the Accessibility option is one important reason I deciding waiting for the return of the APM.

 

[Bigtime Audiophile]

So, I think I now understand why Apple went with the case they went with. Since the telescoping arms have so much resistance, I think they had the case only wrap around the cups so that you can keep the arms extended exactly where you want them. You don't have to shrink them down like a lot of headphones to fit in the case, and then extend them every time you take them out. I'm not saying that makes the case great...I'm just guessing this might have been part of their thinking.

 

[Gweeds]

So, I think I now understand why Apple went with the case they went with. Since the telescoping arms have so much resistance, I think they had the case only wrap around the cups so that you can keep the arms extended exactly where you want them. You don't have to shrink them down like a lot of headphones to fit in the case, and then extend them every time you take them out. I'm not saying that makes the case great...I'm just guessing this might have been part of their thinking.

that’s a good point.

You are clearly more knowledgeable than me in this area. That said, even if everything you say is correct there still is a fundamental problem in that half the world is running Android. If Apple really wants to disrupt the audiophile market (not sure this is even their goal), they are going to have to let non iPhone users into the party. As with everything Apple, I need to sell my phone and buy and iPhone to get the best experience. With Audeze, Drop, HiFiman, Shure, Sony etc. I do not need to do that. That is not only frustrating but also infuriating.

My guess is that Apple give precisely zero cares about non-iPhone users. They never have. Can’t see them starting now for headphones like the APM when they haven’t with AirPods and Pros.

 

[kazsud]

Fairly sure I recall BlackBerry and Microsoft telling Apple their phones would never work.

And the original AirPods would be a failure.

The original AirPods were a step in the right direction.

 

[kdphan]

Then you're hearing, in my opinion, the clearly better SQ version of the APM. The sound is similar to h95 but obviously not the same. I still thinking the mids in the h95 are more correct. But discovering the Accessibility option is one important reason I deciding waiting for the return of the APM.

Even with that setting, the sound signature is still V shape. The treble can be too hot at times.