Apple's first high-end headphones

[Kachda]

Am I the only one to think it looks like a bra?

Nope, which is why I put the wink icon

 

[ENG]

This Apple device use, from their homepage: "Connectivity Bluetooth 5.0"
Is Bluetooth 5.0 Hi-Fi ?
I don't know.

 

[JohnBooty]

Apple doesn't seem to get enough credit in both neckbeard-pseudo-techie and traditional audiophile circles for their audio innovations in the past 4-5 years IMO. The HomePods, MacBook speakers, DAC dongle, and AirPod Pros are best-in-class or close to it.

I probably mention this in every "Apple" thread, but I'm especially impressed with the speakers on the 16" Macbook Pros. A total of six drivers: dual-opposed "woofers" on each side, and discrete tweeters. There's audible bass down to 60hz or so.

Honestly one of the more impressive achievements I've ever seen (well, heard) in the audio world. I don't mean to say that they replace real speakers, but getting halfway acceptable sound from an audio system whose total volume is roughly equivalent to a six-pack of gum is sort of nuts.

The iPad Pro has a neat sound system as well. Four identical drivers, but the device senses its orientation and uses the bottom two speakers as "woofers" while the top two function as "tweeters" no matter which way you turn the device. The sound is less impressive than the MBP16, with even less bass, but it's quite clear and I don't mind it at all for watching video or whatever.

This Apple device use, from their homepage: "Connectivity Bluetooth 5.0"
Is Bluetooth 5.0 Hi-Fi ?
I don't know.

I would say "no" but it depends on the codec used. Some are almost tolerable. Apparently Sony's LDAC is quite good but that's not in play here.

But, these headphones also accept a 3.5" input.

So Bluetooth can be avoided.

 

[Feelas]

I would say "no" but it depends on the codec used. Some are almost tolerable. Apparently Sony's LDAC is quite good but that's not in play here.

Is it merely the typical Bluetooth hitting or did You actually run some double-blind tests?
Just joking, but SBC seems to be enough by many tests Bitrate seems good enough for most situations, and actually LDAC isn't necessarily better!

Bluetooth 5.0 doesn't add anything to A2DP (hi-fi audio profile), in case anyone's wondering, as far as I remember.

 

[hyperplanar]

I would say "no" but it depends on the codec used. Some are almost tolerable. Apparently Sony's LDAC is quite good but that's not in play here.

Apple normally uses 256 Kbps AAC which is more than good enough for the application IMO. Their AAC encoder is considered one of, if not the best. The resampler in CoreAudio is very good as well.

I don’t get the people that find something like that to be a dealbreaker when really it’s more like the last 2% on top. Especially with the other sonic upsides these headphones should be offering. People will listen to lossless music on headphones and speakers with the most skewed frequency responses... a bit of losing sight of the forest for the trees IMO.

I can hear the difference between 320 Kbps Ogg Vorbis and lossless if I really strain to, but it’s not like the Ogg version sounds worse.

 

[ElNino]

Given Apple’s photos and videos I believe that there is only one mic inside the cup, just like with most ANC headphones. The other three are facing outwards.

Aha, you're right! This lowers my enthusiasm quite a bit. Looks like the microphone complement is 4x per cup for measurement, three outward-facing, one inward-facing, plus one additional voice mic, with two of the outward-facing ones assisting with voice.

 

[MayaTlab]

Aha, you're right! This lowers my enthusiasm quite a bit. Looks like the microphone complement is 4x per cup for measurement, three outward-facing, one inward-facing, plus one additional voice mic, with two of the outward-facing ones assisting with voice.

My enthusiasm would have been through the roof had Apple implemented what they probably tried to do and have capacitance sensors inside the cup to make a rough image of the listener's ear (in the patents it's mostly to detect left / right ears and orientation, but they also mention using these sensors or other types of sensors to modulate the FR output according to the user's anatomy). But since the ear cup design is 100% identical to the patents I'm pretty certain that this is what we'll see for the second version and that the current one will become their "AirPods Max SE" model.

 

[JohnBooty]

Apple normally uses 256 Kbps AAC which is more than good enough for the application IMO. Their AAC encoder is considered one of, if not the best. The resampler in CoreAudio is very good as well.

I don’t get the people that find something like that to be a dealbreaker when really it’s more like the last 2% on top.

I got these headphones a few years ago, which were highly rated and apparently support AAC over Bluetooth for Apple devices and I followed the steps in the manual to make sure it's in high quality mode or whatever and the blinking lights on the headphones seem to blink in agreement. (I forget the exact details)

https://www.sony.com/electronics/headband-headphones/wh-h900n#utility_links_pdp_default

I've used them with various iPhones and iPads. The wireless audio quality is nasty. I would compare it to a 64kbps mp3 or something. They're fine when using the wired connection. I am no golden ears, but their BT audio quality is just egregious.

Perhaps something's not working properly and they're not using the right codec, or they're not using a high enough bitrate. I sure hope something's wrong and modern BT audio quality is a lot better than I think it is.

For the record, I don't typically mind lossily compressed audio! I go for >= 256kbps or lossless whenever possible, but even properly encoded 128kbps mp3s aren't too terrible these days, as opposed to the 128kbps mp3s back in the Napster days 20 years ago.

 

[abdo123]

. Their AAC encoder is considered one of, if not the best.

It better be, because they sell AAC on iTunes (which dominated the market before Spotify became a thing).

 

[hyperplanar]

I got these headphones a few years ago, which were highly rated and apparently support AAC over Bluetooth for Apple devices and I followed the steps in the manual to make sure it's in high quality mode or whatever and the blinking lights on the headphones seem to blink in agreement. (I forget the exact details)

https://www.sony.com/electronics/headband-headphones/wh-h900n#utility_links_pdp_default

I've used them with various iPhones and iPads. The wireless audio quality is nasty. I would compare it to a 64kbps mp3 or something. They're fine when using the wired connection. I am no golden ears, but their BT audio quality is just egregious.

Perhaps something's not working properly and they're not using the right codec, or they're not using a high enough bitrate. I sure hope something's wrong and modern BT audio quality is a lot better than I think it is.

For the record, I don't typically mind lossily compressed audio! I go for >= 256kbps or lossless whenever possible, but even properly encoded 128kbps mp3s aren't too terrible these days, as opposed to the 128kbps mp3s back in the Napster days 20 years ago.

Interesting... I’m inclined to think the problem lies with the headphones in this case. Hopefully it was actually using AAC and not SBC (ok, I can agree SBC sounds like total crap and takes me back to the Napster days). But could be something with the headphone’s Bluetooth receiver/DAC as well.

I’ll have to ask you to trust me, the codec and implementation of it that Apple uses in the AirPods is for all intents and purposes transparent. It definitely does NOT sound like a 64 Kbps MP3.

IIRC they use the same codec for CarPlay as well, I have no complaints about the sound quality.

I don’t get why Sony’s headphones review so well. I bought the WF-1000XM3s to compare to the AirPod Pros with the intention of keeping whichever one sounded better, and it wasn’t even close... the Sonys sound like an economy car system with the bass and treble cranked to the max while the AirPods sound like very good neutral studio monitors with a subwoofer.

 

[brandall10]

The other problem is the non-replaceable battery. If the headphones are regularly used, I would expect them to need replacement after about 2 years, which IMO is unacceptable in a $550 full-size headphone. I find that acceptable in the AirPod Pros because of their form factor.

This has been brought up a couple times and I don't think it's an issue... let's think this through.

Modern lithium ion batteries have at least a thousand charge lifetime. For something like the Airpods Pro, for hefty (all work-day) usage, means yes, about 2 years seeing about 4.5 hours listening per charge.

These? These are over 4x as long at 20 hours per charge. Comparatively, that's about 8 years from nominal use.

And Apple has a replacement program at $79... so it is, in fact, replaceable, just not user replaceable, But for something packed such high-tech, it's more that obsolescence will occur from simple R&D advancements in its successors.

 

[hyperplanar]

This has been brought up a couple times and I don't think it's an issue... let's think this through.

Modern lithium ion batteries have at least a thousand charge lifetime. For something like the Airpods Pro, for hefty (all work-day) usage, means yes, about 2 years seeing about 4.5 hours listening per charge.

These? These are over 4x as long at 20 hours per charge. Comparatively, that's about 8 years from nominal use.

And Apple has a replacement program at $79. But for something packed such high-tech, it's more that obsolescence will occur from simple R&D advancements in its successors.

Ah, you’re right. The battery is way larger than the Pros so the cycle count is gonna take much longer to rack up. Worth considering the battery will still age simply over time though, so it’s unlikely to last 8 years.

But yes, not as much of an issue as it was at first glance!

 

[brandall10]

I have a hard time swallowing the idea that a $550 headphone is disposable after ~7 years.

That's 22 cents per day, or roughly, 2 cents per hour if you use the battery to exhaustion.

That's not good value?

 

[hyperplanar]

That's 22 cents per day, or roughly, 2 cents per hour if you use the battery to exhaustion.

That's not good value?

It’s not so much the monetary value but more so that a high end headphone can now be seen as disposable. People have HD580s from the early 90s that still work perfectly fine with simple pad changes, which are still readily available from Sennheiser.

Apple normally EOLs products after 7 years IIRC so you can’t expect any service after that point.

I see a lot of parallels between this and the active vs passive speakers argument, but there’s no batteries involved and service is available for much longer for certain brands. When official support isn’t available, it’s easy to take a speaker apart and replace usually a dead electrolytic cap.

 

[brandall10]

Ah, you’re right. The battery is way larger than the Pros so the cycle count is gonna take much longer to rack up. Worth considering the battery will still age simply over time though, so it’s unlikely to last 8 years.

But yes, not as much of an issue as it was at first glance!

That's a good point. Shelf life for a lithium ion battery is typically up to 4 years or so, so about half.

A better way to calculate this to stretch it to some 8 years or so (past the point where Apple might not support it), is to add the $79 cost of the replacement to the overall cost, let's say $700 with tax and all. Still, comes out to about 24 cents per day usage, using up to about 10 hours daily or so.

 

[brandall10]

It’s not so much the monetary value but more so that a high end headphone can now be seen as disposable. People have HD580s from the early 90s that still work perfectly fine with simple pad changes, which are still readily available from Sennheiser.

Apple normally EOLs products after 7 years IIRC so you can’t expect any service after that point.

I see a lot of parallels between this and the active vs passive speakers argument, but there’s no batteries involved and service is available for much longer for certain brands.

Yeah... I dunno. I think this type of hand-wringing is overblown - I do get it in the sense of $10k+ speakers though. I don't fret so much over my 3.5 year old Kef LS50W - it's annoying that I had to pay $400 to get the controller boards replaced mid-cycle, but I feel on the whole I've gotten good value out of them. And that's how I like to think of things, from a value perspective.

If you can get lifetime value out of something that isn't exorbitantly expensive, that is fantastic, the nominal cost approaches zero. It's almost as if you got it for free. This describes a vanishingly small number of items a person may own as R&D advancements march on.

Then I look at something like my '58 Omega Constellation. It could potentially outlive me. But it still costs about $250 to be serviced every 4 years... it's actually rather pricey to own for something that does nothing else but tells time in an archaic fashion - it's jewelry that has some basic utility.

So at the end of the day I do that simple calc... what does it cost per hour of usage over its expected lifetime, and what value does it bring to my life. It's really clarifying as a consumer choosing where and how to spend my money. Nothing lasts forever, including us.

 

[hyperplanar]

This describes a vanishingly small number of items a person may own as R&D advancements march on.

Yeah, I guess it was a matter of time before this would apply to headphones too. At least there’s going to be some serious tangible benefits to going active with these, if it lives up to expectations. If anything, headphones are in more of a dire need for DSP than speakers ever were.

 

[brandall10]

Yeah, I guess it was a matter of time before this would apply to headphones too. At least there’s going to be some serious tangible benefits to going active with these, if it lives up to expectations. If anything, headphones are in more of a dire need for DSP than speakers ever were.

That's exactly where I'm at with these. I had original airpods, thought they were okay in a pinch. The Airpods Pro though... they sound great for a consumer grade device, can listen to them just fine for hours. I'm hoping what Apple did with those scales up at the headphone level and solves some of the issues that plague closed-back cans. My biggest concern is the weight is on the heavy side... hopefully the balance and comfort with these is not an issue.

 

[Frank Dernie]

It’s not so much the monetary value but more so that a high end headphone can now be seen as disposable. People have HD580s from the early 90s that still work perfectly fine with simple pad changes, which are still readily available from Sennheiser.

I feel the same way about modern active speakers with built in DSP crossovers and corrections. Super performance but will probably be obsolete within 5 years from a firmware update or repair pov. Fine if they don't break, time won't make them work less well, but I am certainly inclined to compare such an item with a conventional one at over twice the price for this reason.

 

[JohnBooty]

Interesting... I’m inclined to think the problem lies with the headphones in this case. Hopefully it was actually using AAC and not SBC (ok, I can agree SBC sounds like total crap and takes me back to the Napster days). But could be something with the headphone’s Bluetooth receiver/DAC as well.

I’ll have to ask you to trust me, the codec and implementation of it that Apple uses in the AirPods is for all intents and purposes transparent. It definitely does NOT sound like a 64 Kbps MP3.

That makes sense. I've heard too many people in this hobby say that decent BT headphones sound pretty decent. I'll try another pair of BT headphones when I get the chance.