[AeroSatan]

I don’t quite understand why you’re all butthurt that other people enjoy their APM, LOL.

the APM isn’t even close to being the best sounding HP/IEM I own but I enjoy it because there isn’t another wireless HP on the market that fills the gap for me.

You’ve completely missed my point. I don’t care who enjoys what, everyone should do you boo. My issue isn’t with people enjoying them, my issue is with ppl making them sound like the next coming of Jesus H Christ. That case alone is enough to mock these headphones to kingdom come and if they weren’t made by apple they’d be laughed off on that aspect alone. And I own a pair! Given, They’ll be going back because they’re not worth it for me since I’m not invested in apples ecosystem, if I was I might have kept them. As for quick videos or Spotify on my iPad goes the APP and my Sony XM3 in ears do just fine. And I can EQ the Sony’s. My point is with ppl getting carried away as if these headphones don’t cost over $600 with tax and come wrapped in a misaligned bra.

Nice post, and it made me laugh out loud too!

The thing is apple is a big brand and some people have strong emotional ties to this brand. Some people will rationalise choices to fit into the ecosystem.

But yes, like you I'm reading some comments and justifications and thinking to my self are some of these Headfi-er people really aiming for SQ? Have they been aiming for it in the past this whole time? Or was the time spent here just a bit of fun and frivolity just to pass the time until some apple cans came to the market.

With sound though, as it's not measurable and quantifiable readily, and also as it's quite subjective, I think we an be quite malleable with our views. I have noticed personally I can enjoy a 5 dollar set of wired bud phones whilst rolling around in bed. I can think to myself, "oh I wish it could handle a bit of the complexity and layers better and have more resolution ", but at the same time I can think, considering the cost of these, this sound is pretty good and "good enough" and I am having fun listening to some tracks I like right now.

If I can do this with 5 dollar earbuds, I am sure a person enamoured and living in the apple ecosystem can do similar and find the sound "good enough" with APMs.

“Pretty good” and the level of praise some ppl heap on these cans is insane though. I’m not loyal to any brand in particular, I buy what I consider to be the superior product for my needs. The APM’s are maybe worth it to someone who has mostly apple products and money isn’t really an issue. But to make them out to be more than just a good set of wireless cans with a bra on that you need to turn them off is frankly,asinine.

 

[Happyprozak]

I find this so interesting, as i’ve found a few people who’ve had this issue, and it makes me wonder if there is some variation in the units. For example, I own the p5w and owned the p7 & px, and side by side a/b them with the P9.

I found a huge difference, as in the P9 was far better, I was actually suprised at just how much wider the soundstage was, but especially the thickness and volume of the vocals. They’re a better headphone, no doubt.

However I have seen some people preferring the P7 which is bizarre to me, yourself, DMS and Z. I think either
>There are some faulty P9s going around
>People aren’t giving cans enough time or listening. Our brain is incredibly susceptible to getting used to a certain sound signature, if were used to Sennheiser momentum, we may prefer it to even a hd800. I’ve seen this so many times it’s ludicrous, and then after a week or 2 weeks with both products inevitably the higher tier product wins them over as their brain adjusts.

It’s all quite interesting. That said I think the P9 >> P7/P7W > P5w, that is the divide between the p9 and p7 is greater.

Anyway, i digress, this is an apm thread so i’ll get back on topic...Sorry guys.

I’m listening to music right now on the P9’s and I find them to be several steps above the P7W’s (wired or wireless). I purchased the P7W’s for my girlfriend as a gift and a short while later I purchased the P9’s for myself and when I borrowed the P7W’s from my girlfriend to A/B them I felt bad at how much better the P9’s were compared to the P7W’s because I felt like I bought my girlfriend junk. It’s disappointing that the P9’s sold so poorly because I would have liked B+W to continue to iterate on them and push them further, at least it wasn’t meant to be.

Going back to the AirPods, one thing I’ve noticed about the audiophile community is that people here are highly susceptible to placebo effects and they follow a herd mentality. The bashing of the AirPods Max comes as no surprise to me. Apple isn’t a traditional audio or small boutique brand and because of that they never had a chance of being the community’s “flavor of the month.”

There is a point of diminishing returns in headphones and that extra 10-15% improvement in sound quality isn’t that important to the vast majority of people, especially when you start factoring in how much that last mile costs. The average person just isn’t interested in spending hours A/Bing different headphones to find those small nuances in sound signature and quality.

Besides the P9’s I also own a pair of Bose QC35 II’s and while the P9’s are obviously better, if the Bose’s were my only set of headphone I really wouldn’t be sad, I can enjoy music on either set. The AirPods Max are supposed to be a little better in sound quality than all of their other competitors so I imagine the vast majority of people will be satisfied with the sound quality, if not even impressed.

Apple is the biggest company in the world and collectively they have some of the world’s best engineers. I have yet to hear a laptop with better speakers than a MacBook and I imagine they had some of the best audio engineers working on these headphones and given their size, experience, and ability to scale, I’m sure they are able to outspend their competitors in R&D in ways that probably seems unfair.

Purely guessing, I would say that Apple is pushing the boundaries of what is possible in headphones.

Take a look at the build quality of the AirPods Max and compare them to other top of the line headphones. Even if you don’t care for the design of the AirPods Max you have to admire what Apple was able to produce at the price tag, besting headphone in build quality that cost 4x. I’m willing to bet that the same level of engineering that went into developing the build was also placed into developing the sound.

 

[oneframe]

I’m adding the Airpods Max to the mix. And like my Dali iO-6 that can be used wired with an amp, Is anyone with an Airpods Max that’s using it wired and how is it connecting via...

I want to know if this should hook up straight to a DAC output (volume controlled
by the headphone) or via a headphone amp
when using Apple’s optional cable which I’m also getting.

I’m planning to connect it to my Mac Pro via Grace Balanced DAC and THX 789. I just don’t know where it should connect to in that chain.

Thanks for insight.

 

[Scorpio1957]

I really don’t think these things are meant to be brought out of the house. Of course you could if you wanted to, nobody’s stopping you, but sweating into the mesh earcups...that’s going to look nasty after a while. Throw em into your backpack, and you’d better pray nothing catches onto the headband. Lastly those aluminium earcups are just begging to be scratched. These aren’t minus points btw, I won’t fault Apple for going with such a refined aesthetic, just something to take note of.

Also, the APMs won’t be $550 forever. You can pick up APPs for a good 30% off or less nowadays and I imagine the same will happen to the APM over time.

Great points mate plus the fact everyone will know what these are and how much you paid for them and will draw the wrong attention, these been stories in London of people being followed and even getting mugged for the Air Pods Pro. I just put in a pair of Noble K10 from Drop that cost me £500 and once I press play I can’t hear anything anyway but glorious music. Plus nobody as any idea of what they are or how much they cost.

keep safe and enjoy your music.

 

[WilcoRoger]

Edit: Sony XM4 costs 359€ in Finland. It's all plastic toy which sounds really bad. Should APM had the same price? No whining then? See the point?
Compared to Sony for example APM is not overpriced. At all. Imo.
I dare to assume that even without listening APM's, because i have had Sony's.

You are berating other people for making comments about Apple's ecosystem, pricing, etc without having listened to the APM, yet here you are making comparisons without having listened to the APM. How do they spell hypocrisy in Finnish - tekopyhyys.

If you are ready to pay 350-400€ over the B&W PX7 (which is head and shoulders above the Sony) it's your money - and fools and their money are easy to part.
For comparison - you could get the PX7 AND the iPhone SE 2020 for the price of the APM+cable.

 

[Ilomaenkimi]

You are berating other people for making comments about Apple's ecosystem, pricing, etc without having listened to the APM, yet here you are making comparisons without having listened to the APM. How do they spell hypocrisy in Finnish - tekopyhyys.

I dare to assume because i have APP. I assume APM is not worse than APP?
And APP is far better than Sony. In sense of hifi. I think that's fair enough?
Or do you disagree?
We all are "tekopyhiä". That's the bottomline. I don't deny being hypocrisy.

Sure, it is possible that APM is worse than APP, i dont know. I'm assuming.
I will tell my opinion when i get mine to listen.

My mind is open.Is yours?
Edit: by the way, i have tested PX7. Didn't like at all. It was a quick test though..

More edit:
If i'm totally honest i am little skeptical that APM can deliver what i'm after.
I'm in Apple ecosystem, functionality and comfyness is big thing for me. And soundquality.
ANC is not so important to me.
So, if APM doesn't deliver i think i stick with APP. There's Panda and Valco's new model, haven't heard them. But that functionality and built quality is maybe not for me.

 

[notorious4163]

how is the loudness? i’ve heard reviews saying that the airpods max don’t get that loud. i usually listen to my music around 75%-85% almost all of the time

 

[vkenz]

how is the loudness? i’ve heard reviews saying that the airpods max don’t get that loud. i usually listen to my music around 75%-85% almost all of the time

Whoah... that is way too loud.

 

[HuoYuanJia]

I'm adding to the abundance of shared impressions.

https://www.klauseulenbach.de/2020/12/21/apple-airpods-max/

 

[MichaelYYZ]

My APMs are due to arrive today. I ordered them 24 hours ago from BestBuy Canada. White/Silver. Can hardly wait... Yay!

 

[HuoYuanJia]

how is the loudness? i’ve heard reviews saying that the airpods max don’t get that loud. i usually listen to my music around 75%-85% almost all of the time

I'm at 30-40% for music and 50-60% for movies. This is on a EU device - not sure if it's capped, but I really doubt it.

 

[lowrider007]

Again the reviewer is very heavily biased "Mids First" camp. The only review I will listen to is my ears when my APM arrives.

"Mids First" camp is the only camp I care about so that review is very interesting, mids are very hard to get right on any headphone imo.

It depends on how you define warmth to be honest. The midrange of the APM is still considerably warm to be honest. The bass has a smaller body though since the majority of the push is in the deep end, this could reduce the warmth of the headphone from another sense too. If the Panda was too warm for your likely I'd say it's likely that the APM is as well.



Someone actually asked me to do this comparison today on Reddit. My response (just audio portions are below).

There are a lot of similarities between the AirPods Pro and Drop Panda in terms of how they reproduce music. For the most part, the Panda takes the Max’ sound signature and refine it further. It definitely is very noticeable if you are looking for differences.

Starting down at the bass, both are actually very well balanced. The Drop provides a very warm presentation in similar fashion to the AirPods Max. Impacts are nice and tight and both have relatively similar speeds. Everything is very well controlled though the Panda provides a bit more body to the bass and good bass texturing in contrast to the complete lack of texturing Apple provides.

The midrange is strikingly similar in presentation, it’s kind of eerie. Audeze is known in the audiophile world to have very relaxed midrange sound and I feel that both the Drop and Apple offerings here follow suit. Clarity and detail tend to take a back seat with this sort of presentation, but it’s not lacking in either headphone. Vocals on the other hand do have a slightly different presentation. While the AirPods mainly focus on the lower octaves of vocals providing a very warm and emotive presentation the Panda offer just a touch of energy which the Max do need. One other thing to note, as vocals are concerned, is that the Panda has no sibilance while the sibilance in the AirPods can become annoying if you’re sensitive to it.

The Panda is a lot more composed in the highs than the AirPods are. The AirPods have a little heat and sparkle in the way the treble is presented. The Panda is more laid back, but provides better detailing, separation without any sort of harshness. The smearing of the AirPods seems to have been improved slightly as well [in the Drop].

In short, the Drop kind of outdo the AirPods Max in all three bass, midrange, and treble. Although the midrange offers just a small improvement, the bass improvement is decently sized while the treble offers a pretty huge improvement overall.

I missed this comparison earlier, I have both the APM and Drop Panda on order, if I don't care about ANC would you say the Panda is the can to get for wireless audio?

Also you mention Audeze having relaxed midrange which I agree with, it's very smooth sounding, that being said, the LCD-2 for example was the first headphone I listened to that not only sounded warm but still retained a lot of detail, even micro details, often as you know detail is usually sacrificed a little with warmth, I'm not usually a a fan of warm sounding headphones but because the detail was still there they stayed in my collection, I will be very interested to see how detail retrieval is on the Drop Panda and APM on the mid-ranges frequencies in particular.

 

[mainguy]

I’m listening to music right now on the P9’s and I find them to be several steps above the P7W’s (wired or wireless). I purchased the P7W’s for my girlfriend as a gift and a short while later I purchased the P9’s for myself and when I borrowed the P7W’s from my girlfriend to A/B them I felt bad at how much better the P9’s were compared to the P7W’s because I felt like I bought my girlfriend junk. It’s disappointing that the P9’s sold so poorly because I would have liked B+W to continue to iterate on them and push them further, at least it wasn’t meant to be.









Purely guessing, I would say that Apple is pushing the boundaries of what is possible in headphones.

agree completely. If be interested to see if the apm are superior the p7w, let alone p9

 

[McCol]

I'm loving this thread, people getting all messed up due to Apple releasing a decent sounding headphone and not being able to cope with it, it's comedy gold at times.

For me it's quite simple

The build quality and build is second to none, but you would expect this from Apple. The sound quality for a wireless headphone is excellent. It is a clear step up from my Sony XM3. The integration with the Apple ecosystem is as expected.

The comments form some that it doesn't compete with Senn HD6xx are pointless comparisons. Wired v Wireless, open back v closed back and aimed at totally different markets.

Are they better than my Senn 660s or Grado's - no they are not however as has been pointed out elsewhere they have a certain quality in their signature/tuning that in some respects make them a better option for certain types of music in my collection.

Are they worth £550? To me yes they are. Are they a £550 headphone? That in itself is a bit of a silly question as we all have different expectations as to what we want for our money. For example I have spent upwards of £500 on headphones/earphones/daps/amps etc that have been flavour of the month on head-fi or well reviewed. I've bought some of these items and thought they were overpriced pieces of garbage...however I wouldn't then knock those who feel differently.

 

[dleblanc343]

So I finally got them, and after in house usage, these are a masterpiece piece of gear for general consumer requirements.

As a Hi-Fi headphone, it sounds fair at 200-250$