I wonder what the build quality will be in hand. It doesn’t look that impressive in pictures as compared to the Max
Pictures can be deceiving
. I've had quite a few QC/QA issues with the Airpods Max, all related to the "think different" parts of the design (pivot mechanism, buttons/aluminium earcup assembly, canopy, etc.) - your typical Apple gen 1 issues. Not really because they're poorly built, far from it, but rather because they require tight tolerances to even work (the design is quite intolerant to insufficiently tight tolerances, ex, the canopy's spring is dependent on the strands being precisely aligned relative to the headband as the mesh's elasticity is not omnidirectionally constant, or the pivot mechanism simply being maybe the most complex mechanical part ever put into a pair of headphones ?) or are annoying to assemble (the earcup's design prevents some parts such as the mics / buttons to be easily stacked on top of each others like most of the audio components can be and require a fairly complex set of supports and brackets inside the aluminium cups).
What I hope is that the 5909 is built to tolerances good enough for what the design requires to properly work
. I'm delighted to see that they seem to have a fairly conventional design to start with.
Any on-hands reviews of it?
Not reviews but two promotional videos :
A quick report from CES :
The No. 5909 are among the most expensive wireless headphones ever created. So how good are they?
www.cnet.com
I've been told by their distributor here in France that they'll arrive in early February and should make their way to retailers during that month. Perhaps actual reviews will start to appear at that time.