Don't have mine yet and would like to hope I'm wrong but there is a giant caveat using the iPhone's Accessibility adjustments. This appeasers that adjustments are made in the iPhone and NOT the AirPods. Also it doesn't carry over to any other listening device even if Apple. For instance there are no adjustments on an AppleTV or iMac. Really wish Apple would make a detected App so you could make adjustments to the AirPods that STICK to them.
Someone please check this and hopefully prove me wrong.
I think it more likely points to the adjustments being sent by the iPhone to the headphones where the local H1 processing makes the compensation after decoding from AAC. This would account for the fact that 'Headphone Accommodations' only works with 'supported Apple and Beats headphones'.
Many, many years ago a friend of mine recounted how his lawyer had purchased a super-expensive and elaborate Macintosh sound system that, as part of the installation, was pre-tuned to the room acoustics and customer listening preferences by a Macintosh sales engineer. The fellow, who loved opera, was half deaf, so at his direction they cranked up the high frequencies enormously so that he could still hear the soprano sing. Thereafter whenever he started listening to his sound system, dogs all over the neighborhood would begins to howl. True story.
...The Lightning to 3.5mm cable for the AirPods Max (APM) should not have a DAC, but an ADC instead. The Lightning port is fully digital, hence, there is no way to transmit an analog signal directly into the APM from your source....
Correct and Apple used to ship a DAC Lightning cable with the iPhone after removing the analog jack. Of course this is useless on the AirPods since you need ADC.
I'm sorry, but what do you mean by this? The Lightning to 3.5mm cable for the AirPods Max (APM) should not have a DAC, but an ADC instead. The Lightning port is fully digital, hence, there is no way to transmit an analog signal directly into the APM from your source.
Hence, if you use the aforementioned cable, the signal is actually decoded twice - digital to analog (in your source device), then analog to digital (by the cable), then digital to analog again (by the APM).
I clarified my post. You are correct. ADC not DAC. I was referring to the actual chip which they use as a DAC. Theorectically they could’ve designed it to be and ADC as well.
Again, I agree with you. The chain uses multiple encodes and decodes. However, I find it hard to believe a lossy BT stream is sonically indifferent than the wired connection. And if the ADC is reasonably designed and transparent, you shouldn’t have any loss of resolution. At least not to the level of the compressed AAC stream.
Correct me if I’m wrong, when recordings are being mastered, aren’t they being encoded and decoded multiple times?
Not trying to start an argument, just responding to to the poster who seemed to imply that the person who could hear differences between his different DACs and the wired connection may be honest.
I personally can’t hear a difference between wired sources. But the difference between wireless and wired is apparent.
Correct and Apple used to ship a DAC Lightning cable with the iPhone after removing the analog jack. Of course this is useless on the AirPods since you need ADC.
I edited my post. I was referring to the chip. The chip apple uses as the DAC in the dongle measures pretty well. If apple used the same engineering, the ADC should be equally as good.
I clarified my post. You are correct. ADC not DAC. I was referring to the actual chip which they use as a DAC. Theorectically they could’ve designed it to be and ADC as well.
Again, I agree with you. The chain uses multiple encodes and decodes. However, I find it hard to believe a lossy BT stream is sonically indifferent than the wired connection. And if the ADC is reasonably designed and transparent, you shouldn’t have any loss of resolution. At least not to the level of the compressed AAC stream.
Correct me if I’m wrong, when recordings are being mastered, aren’t they being encoded and decoded multiple times?
Not trying to start an argument, just responding to to the poster who seemed to imply that the person who could hear differences between his different DACs and the wired connection may be honest.
I personally can’t hear a difference between wired sources. But the difference between wireless and wired is apparent.
When recordings are being mastered, they are encoded and decoded multiple times, but are also likely dealing with some sort of lossless format so no destruction is done during the decoding and encoding processes through software. This results in 0 change to the actual sound file. Taking a recording, sending it through a DAC and amplifier to then store back in digital format will cause damage as both the DAC and the amplifier have some degree of distortion and even coloring to the original recording.
The former would be like converting one RAW photo to another RAW format (camera RAW -> Adobe DNG for example). This offers no damage or loss of data from the original work. The latter would be like taking a photo of a photograph. The act of taking the photo itself will alter the original image since the sensor, lens, etc. all will change the original image due to the optics and programming of the sensor.
Mimi has calibration only for AirPods. Not even Pros. I have tested it with Pros though. It makes a difference, but personally i prefer Pros without customizing.
Let's hope there's coming calibration for Pros and Max in the future.
Well, in my testing in the last year with maybe 15 anc headphones and anc earphones I testing the differences can be very different, but if this isn't good for you, fine.
How many actual hours did you test them sitting on an actual airplane? I happen to fly 300+ hours a year, so I just might have some experience with ANC for flights - which is what ANC was developed for in the first place.
I haven't used 15 different ones, just those that were considered top or near-top of the class at the time.
I clarified my post. You are correct. ADC not DAC. I was referring to the actual chip which they use as a DAC. Theorectically they could’ve designed it to be and ADC as well.
Again, I agree with you. The chain uses multiple encodes and decodes. However, I find it hard to believe a lossy BT stream is sonically indifferent than the wired connection. And if the ADC is reasonably designed and transparent, you shouldn’t have any loss of resolution. At least not to the level of the compressed AAC stream.
Correct me if I’m wrong, when recordings are being mastered, aren’t they being encoded and decoded multiple times?
Not trying to start an argument, just responding to to the poster who seemed to imply that the person who could hear differences between his different DACs and the wired connection may be honest.
I personally can’t hear a difference between wired sources. But the difference between wireless and wired is apparent.
Hey, don't worry about it; I was just trying to confirm my understanding of the AirPods Max's wired mode.
In theory, I believe that the (multiple) conversions via a wired transmission, in this particular example, will not result in a huge degradation of the final analog signal. However, Bluetooth standards are already pretty decent, so the headphone's wireless mode should be up to scratch, too. However, I will reserve my opinions on its sonic capabilities until I finally have one available to audition.
Any headphone will work, ricksastro, but if it's not calibrated with the app the measurement may not be accurate. I first tried with an APP and then used the AP, which is calibrated. The AP showed 10% point plus less hearing loss compared with the APP, which isn't calibrated with the app. I didn't try using the APM and maybe it is closer in sensitivity to the AP. Maybe not. Certainly the result will be increased treble, but not necessarily a perfect match for your ears.
Actually, not quite. When testing this by turning on and off the Accommodation setting, the changes are not located in the treble region, mostly in the middle mids to (maybe) lower treble, with a center in the high-mids (I can't tell you the exact frequencies). It isn't merely a treble boost, my personal setting seems to be the combination of stock with the aforementioned settings above, and for me, it makes them really close to ideal, just with some minor issues here and there. I am just hoping for them to calibrate the app for the APM because I will be the first one to try this.
Actually, not quite. When testing this by turning on and off the Accommodation setting, the changes are not located in the treble region, mostly in the middle mids to (maybe) lower treble, with a center in the high-mids (I can't tell you the exact frequencies). It isn't merely a treble boost, my personal setting seems to be the combination of stock with the aforementioned settings above, and for me, it makes them really close to ideal, just with some minor issues here and there. I am just hoping for them to calibrate the app for the APM because I will be the first one to try this.
What does your graph look like? If you go to Health > Browse > Hearing > Audiogram you will see it. I think for most people as they age there is an increasing downward slope from 250Hz to 4KHz and then it flattens out to 8kHz. So maybe ‘treble’ is a poor descriptor.
(Mimi takes six readings: 250Hz, 500Hz, 1kHz, 2kHz, 4KHz, 8kHz.)
What does your graph look like? If you go to Health > Browse > Hearing > Audiogram you will see it. I think for most people as they age there is an increasing downward slope from 250Hz to 4KHz and then it flattens out to 8kHz. So maybe ‘treble’ is a poor descriptor.
(Mimi takes six readings: 250Hz, 500Hz, 1kHz, 2kHz, 4KHz, 8kHz.)
Obviously this is inaccurate and not meant to represent my auditory health, which a professional health physician just said it was great for my age. Not just that, I just did this to see what was the result and I happened to like it.
Any headphone will work, ricksastro, but if it's not calibrated with the app the measurement may not be accurate. I first tried with an APP and then used the AP, which is calibrated. The AP showed 10% point plus less hearing loss compared with the APP, which isn't calibrated with the app. I didn't try using the APM and maybe it is closer in sensitivity to the AP. Maybe not. Certainly the result will be increased treble, but not necessarily a perfect match for your ears.
Gotcha. But since I'm not using it to measure my hearing in general, but my hearing through that exact headphone, I'm not worried about it's absolute general accuracy. If it compensates for my hearing through those headphones, that's all I care about. And it seems to do a great job there.
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